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The Dark Threads: A Psychiatric Survivor's Story
Teenage life in the swinging sixties, hanging out in coffee bars talking fashion and pop music, who could wish for more? But in August 1968, growing pains started to kick hard for 18-year-old office worker Jean Davison and adolescent idealism quickly turns to angst and emptiness.With her home life in chaos, Jean turns to a psychiatrist hoping for a sensible adult to talk to. That's where her problems really a week's voluntary psychiatric rest is the start of one long nightmare of drugs, electric shock treatment and abuse which turn her into a zombie.Losing five years of her young life to the mental health system, Jean finally finds the courage to say "no" to drugs and turns her life around, finds love and returns to the mental health service as a worker.Balancing quotes from case number 10826, her actual case notes which reveal a diagnosis of chronic schizophrenia, with her own account of interviews with doctors, this memoir raises disturbing questions on the treatment of psychiatric patients, which are still relevant todayJean Davison, was born in 1950 into a working class family in Yorkshire She left school at 15 to work in a factory. After leaving the psychiatric system she returned to education to study for GCEs. She has worked as a secretary for the NSPCC and within the health service. In 1979 she met Ian who she later married. She later graduated from university with a first-class degree in literature and psychology. Still living in Yorkshire with Ian, she now works in mental health. The Dark Threads is her first book.
404 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 25, 2009
7 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Jean Davison
1 book4 followersI am an author, speaker and former mental health worker/trainer. My memoir, The Dark Threads, by Jean Davison (Hachette) is about my experiences of psychiatry in the late 1960's to early 1970's, raising issues about psychiatric services which are still relevant today.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 30, 2020
I must say that this was a refreshing memoir, with a serious message to us health professionals who think we know best. It is an honest description of the authors meeting with psychiatry, and I felt there was so much to learn from her ways of asking necessary questions that some people never get the chance to do because they start believing they are sick and never will get better. The book offers hope to people who are having a hard time, and to never give up in yourself. After all, no one can decide who you are or what you can or can’t do.
March 30, 2022
It was a profound shame that I felt, shame of a profession I once practiced. That, and deep respect for a buried resiliency that allowed an adolescent to survive the minions of that profession.
If the quality, the integrity, the legitimacy of a book lies in its capacity to make the reader feel, this book rises far above others. I’ve read many books within the mental health industry. This one made me feel, deeply.
The Dark Threads is a memoir written decades after five troubled years in the author’s life. It reads like fiction, first person narration, but tells a tale that sadly is not fictional. Memoir writing can be self-ingratiating, a bit proud. Not The Dark Threads. We are taken into the private life of a shy girl and the profound insensitivity of the profession she encountered when she looked for help.
The story is not whiny. It could’ve been for all the harm done to that girl. But it is a Kafkaesque. A litany of mind numbing, brain damaging practices flow from a single professional practice: an adolescent’s struggle and distress is considered to be symptom, the symptom is attached to a diagnosis, the diagnosis begs a treatment and thus the harm begins. The harm came in the form of powerful drugs, electroconvulsive treatment, and dehumanizing, infantilizing practices of ward experiences. The adverse impacts of all these were profound, adverse impact and no benefit.
And this is where my sense of shame comes in. Just a few years after the author’s experience I entered the profession, not as a psychiatrist, but on my journey to be a psychologist practicing within the mental health industry. What author Jean Davison describes I experienced, not from the point-of-view of the patient but as a professional expected to engage in that same dehumanizing practice: take struggle and suffering and call it symptom, add symptoms together to create diagnosis, apply treatment.
Davison is careful to acknowledge that what was done to her may have been necessary or helpful for others. Davison also shines a light of hope through the genuine and human response to her by certain helpers she did eventually encounter along the way. Ultimately, this is a story of a core strength, of a core intelligence within her that told her she had to get out of the clutch of psychiatry. Once she did she was able to reclaim the sanity that had always been within. Her intelligence was that she could question. And in questioning she could decide for herself what would be her life.
Bravo.
If the quality, the integrity, the legitimacy of a book lies in its capacity to make the reader feel, this book rises far above others. I’ve read many books within the mental health industry. This one made me feel, deeply.
The Dark Threads is a memoir written decades after five troubled years in the author’s life. It reads like fiction, first person narration, but tells a tale that sadly is not fictional. Memoir writing can be self-ingratiating, a bit proud. Not The Dark Threads. We are taken into the private life of a shy girl and the profound insensitivity of the profession she encountered when she looked for help.
The story is not whiny. It could’ve been for all the harm done to that girl. But it is a Kafkaesque. A litany of mind numbing, brain damaging practices flow from a single professional practice: an adolescent’s struggle and distress is considered to be symptom, the symptom is attached to a diagnosis, the diagnosis begs a treatment and thus the harm begins. The harm came in the form of powerful drugs, electroconvulsive treatment, and dehumanizing, infantilizing practices of ward experiences. The adverse impacts of all these were profound, adverse impact and no benefit.
And this is where my sense of shame comes in. Just a few years after the author’s experience I entered the profession, not as a psychiatrist, but on my journey to be a psychologist practicing within the mental health industry. What author Jean Davison describes I experienced, not from the point-of-view of the patient but as a professional expected to engage in that same dehumanizing practice: take struggle and suffering and call it symptom, add symptoms together to create diagnosis, apply treatment.
Davison is careful to acknowledge that what was done to her may have been necessary or helpful for others. Davison also shines a light of hope through the genuine and human response to her by certain helpers she did eventually encounter along the way. Ultimately, this is a story of a core strength, of a core intelligence within her that told her she had to get out of the clutch of psychiatry. Once she did she was able to reclaim the sanity that had always been within. Her intelligence was that she could question. And in questioning she could decide for herself what would be her life.
Bravo.
June 21, 2020
Absolutely enthralling. Has the flow of a novel - although if it were a novel I'd have dropped it for inplausibility very swiftly, as the idea that 1 visit to a psychiatrist by a 19 year old would lead to admission to highroyds seems ludicrous. On reflection I remembered that a friend managed something similar as late as 1987, he was given the option to be a voluntary patient there because he was concerned about his thoughts. The mess that an agressive medicalised "do medicine to people" approach creates is a warning to anyone who thinks "I want to fix people" is a good reason to go into any kind of medical practice.
I recommend this to anyone who has an interest in mental healthcare but with a warning - reading this whilst in lock down living alone was probaby not the kindest thing I did to myself this week, it's not a light read!
I recommend this to anyone who has an interest in mental healthcare but with a warning - reading this whilst in lock down living alone was probaby not the kindest thing I did to myself this week, it's not a light read!
September 29, 2021
This book has left me shocked and disturbed, but also with a feeling of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. This is a true account of how a teenage, shy girl was misdiagnosed with a mental illness and was turned into a drug paged zombie. What’s worse, none of all the doctors she saw, except the one at last, could see how wrong they all were with their diagnosis! How I felt for Jean what she has gone through! And the conclusion is - do your own research before you trust your life to a doctor! At the end of the day, they’re only humans, after all!
April 30, 2021
Very riveting book telling the real story of a teenager who is misdiagnosed with a serious mental illness. It was a shocking insight for me into mental health care in the 60s and 70s. A must read for all who work in mental health.
December 28, 2025
A wonderfully written account of the terrifying experiences that Jean Dawson had to face. I was gripped right until the very end. This is a story of triumph and is inspiring to all. Truly essential reading for all involved in the psychiatry profession. 5 stars.
January 3, 2014
A young woman bothered by existential questions of life and questioning the religious beliefs she was brought up with, feeling unable to talk to her family, decides to seek the opinion of a psychiatrist after watching a tv program where the psychiatrist was friendly and communicative.
However, after agreeing to enter a hospital voluntarily for a week of "rest" she found herself heavily drugged on multiple medications that left her barely able to stay awake let alone function, leading to ECT and a spiralling cycle of admissions that increasingly made her unwell to the point she gave up work, and felt like she nearly lost her mind.
A fascinating and disturbing look, sensitively written, of the public mental health system in the 1960s in the UK , and how despite all the odds, one young woman fought her way out of the system. She eventually completed her degree with honors and now treats with compassion and in a holistic manner the very people she once was classed as "one of those people". An inspirational story of this woman's battle against institutionalisation, prejudices, and assumptions, highlighting the dangers of being labelled without compassionate therapeutic care or concern.
However, after agreeing to enter a hospital voluntarily for a week of "rest" she found herself heavily drugged on multiple medications that left her barely able to stay awake let alone function, leading to ECT and a spiralling cycle of admissions that increasingly made her unwell to the point she gave up work, and felt like she nearly lost her mind.
A fascinating and disturbing look, sensitively written, of the public mental health system in the 1960s in the UK , and how despite all the odds, one young woman fought her way out of the system. She eventually completed her degree with honors and now treats with compassion and in a holistic manner the very people she once was classed as "one of those people". An inspirational story of this woman's battle against institutionalisation, prejudices, and assumptions, highlighting the dangers of being labelled without compassionate therapeutic care or concern.
November 7, 2012
Highly recommended. Extremely interesting and thought provoking. Jean Davison has tackled a complex and difficult subject very competently and sensitively. She writes very engagingly with insight and humour. I found The Dark Threads painful and harrowing to read in places - but at the same time found it hard to put down. An absorbing and compelling read. I found some of the accounts of how psychiatry was practised very disturbing indeed. Jean Davison has written a brilliant book; it is essential reading for anyone working in the mental health field and though not an easy read, it's a book that stays in the mind.
July 11, 2015
An unbelievable story told by a very strong lady. Jean was 17 when she was voluntarily admitted to High Royds psychiatric hospital after feeling like she didn't know who she was or what she wanted to do in life. After a psychologist took her fears quite literally and diagnosed Jean as schizophrenic, she endured 5 years of on & off treatment for a disease she never suffered from in the first place. An extremely thought-provoking and well-written account of a young girl's journey back to being able to live life to the full again. Highly recommended.
November 2, 2012
I like books like this one, that is a true account of a girl being in a mental hospital. This one kind of bugged me. It got to be very repetitive and kind of boring, so i stopped reading it. I wouln probaly not really reccomend it.
December 31, 2012
I am drawn to books like this because I have myself been in a Psychiatric Hospital. I cannot believe what happened to Jean Davison, as she did not seem to show signs of mental health problems.
Thought provoking and upsetting.
Thought provoking and upsetting.
April 14, 2013
a truely inspirational book of how a young woman managed to break free of the sometimes brutal mental health system i would recommend this book to anyone who works or has an interest in the mental health service
April 13, 2013
Moving but not sentimental account of a young woman caught up in the mental health system in the 1970s. She gives an understanding of the sheer helplessness of her situation
February 23, 2013
Great book, I think all in the profession need to read this.
September 2, 2013
Highly recommended!
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews