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Beyond Bedlam: Contemporary Women Psychiatric Survivors Speak Out
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272 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 23, 2024
MORE THAN TWO DOZEN FEMALE "PSYCHIATRIC SURVIVORS" TELL THEIR STORIES
This 1995 book contains personal accounts by more than two dozen women who were inmates at psychiatric institutions, and explain how they were treated (and MIStreated), how they escaped, and their recommendations to change the system.
Editor Jeanine Grobe wrote in the Preface, "This book is a collection of writings by women who have suffered the stigma and treatment of 'mental illness.' ... After years of 'treatment'... I found out that the psychiatric institution was not about healing but about oppression, the oppression of the human spirit. The psychiatric institution taught me to accept being terrorized, tortured, tormented and traumatized because these were 'medicine' and I was 'sick.' The turning point for me came in 1988 when I began to read the works of radical feminist writers. Through their insights, I realized that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with me... What is troubling to those of us who have managed to free ourselves from psychiatric oppression is the awareness that it continues for others." (Pg. viv-viii)
She adds, "For those readers who have not had direct experience with the psychiatric system, I hope this book will lead you to begin questioning its practices. For the mental health professionals who are reading this book, I hope you will be moved to stand alongside of us as we struggle to end the oppression." (Pg. x)
One essay says, "The first lesson to the mental patient, repeated in varying forms in every hospital I was ever in was clear: Behave! Conform! Never directly stated, the message was nevertheless all too clear. The lesson of the first 21 years of my life was thus repeated, this time by an institution of force, since I had failed to learn the lesson as taught by more benevolent institutions." (Pg. 60) She adds, "What is now called the psychiatric survivor movement is an effort to bring about change both on the political level, so that we may no longer be locked up and drugged against our will, and on the personal level, so that each of us, when we are suffering, can turn to our peers for comfort." (Pg. 64)
The editor observes, "more often than not, this 'medicine' is a complete atrocity... Is four-point restraint---being tied down at the wrists and ankles---an improvement over being bound with chains? Is the cage inhumane whereas the seclusion room is not? Are the deaths the result from the use of neuroleptic drugs better than the deaths that resulted from bloodletting? Is the terror inspired by the passing of electric current through the brain an improvement over the shock of being submerged in ice water?... For many of us who have been personally subjected to these practices, the realization of society's wholesale acceptance and/or ignorance of them is intolerable. The torture of whose who have been labeled 'mentally ill' is not a thing of the past; it is happening NOW." (Pg. 103-104)
Another essayist says, "To believers, THERAPY means goodness, helpfulness, and expert care. No matter what goes wrong in the chatting-for-hire relationship, the opinions of the faithful do not budge. When one professional damages us, we often seek out another in hopes they'll fix us up and heal our pain from the previous damage. Torture, murder, brain washing, incarceration, rape, battering, and fascism all happen in the name of therapy. These are not merely side effects or the errors of misguided professionals. They are part of the package." (Pg. 169)
This is a vastly disturbing, yet also enormously enlightening collection, that will be of tremendous interest to any such "survivors," as well as anyone in the "Mad Pride" movement, the antipsychiatry movement, etc.
This 1995 book contains personal accounts by more than two dozen women who were inmates at psychiatric institutions, and explain how they were treated (and MIStreated), how they escaped, and their recommendations to change the system.
Editor Jeanine Grobe wrote in the Preface, "This book is a collection of writings by women who have suffered the stigma and treatment of 'mental illness.' ... After years of 'treatment'... I found out that the psychiatric institution was not about healing but about oppression, the oppression of the human spirit. The psychiatric institution taught me to accept being terrorized, tortured, tormented and traumatized because these were 'medicine' and I was 'sick.' The turning point for me came in 1988 when I began to read the works of radical feminist writers. Through their insights, I realized that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with me... What is troubling to those of us who have managed to free ourselves from psychiatric oppression is the awareness that it continues for others." (Pg. viv-viii)
She adds, "For those readers who have not had direct experience with the psychiatric system, I hope this book will lead you to begin questioning its practices. For the mental health professionals who are reading this book, I hope you will be moved to stand alongside of us as we struggle to end the oppression." (Pg. x)
One essay says, "The first lesson to the mental patient, repeated in varying forms in every hospital I was ever in was clear: Behave! Conform! Never directly stated, the message was nevertheless all too clear. The lesson of the first 21 years of my life was thus repeated, this time by an institution of force, since I had failed to learn the lesson as taught by more benevolent institutions." (Pg. 60) She adds, "What is now called the psychiatric survivor movement is an effort to bring about change both on the political level, so that we may no longer be locked up and drugged against our will, and on the personal level, so that each of us, when we are suffering, can turn to our peers for comfort." (Pg. 64)
The editor observes, "more often than not, this 'medicine' is a complete atrocity... Is four-point restraint---being tied down at the wrists and ankles---an improvement over being bound with chains? Is the cage inhumane whereas the seclusion room is not? Are the deaths the result from the use of neuroleptic drugs better than the deaths that resulted from bloodletting? Is the terror inspired by the passing of electric current through the brain an improvement over the shock of being submerged in ice water?... For many of us who have been personally subjected to these practices, the realization of society's wholesale acceptance and/or ignorance of them is intolerable. The torture of whose who have been labeled 'mentally ill' is not a thing of the past; it is happening NOW." (Pg. 103-104)
Another essayist says, "To believers, THERAPY means goodness, helpfulness, and expert care. No matter what goes wrong in the chatting-for-hire relationship, the opinions of the faithful do not budge. When one professional damages us, we often seek out another in hopes they'll fix us up and heal our pain from the previous damage. Torture, murder, brain washing, incarceration, rape, battering, and fascism all happen in the name of therapy. These are not merely side effects or the errors of misguided professionals. They are part of the package." (Pg. 169)
This is a vastly disturbing, yet also enormously enlightening collection, that will be of tremendous interest to any such "survivors," as well as anyone in the "Mad Pride" movement, the antipsychiatry movement, etc.
August 21, 2008
Subtitled “Contemporary Women Psychiatric Survivors Speak Out”, this is a mid-nineties collection of poems, essays, and personal accounts of the horrors of psychiatric “treatment”. The thread through these stories is how consciousness raising, speaking your story, and fighting politically—through feminism especially—, showed women that they were strong and able to come to terms with their “mental illness” and what was done to them. Healing through activism.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews