I was once tortured for six weeks over 50 years ago -- it happened in
December 1951 and January 1952 when I was 21. While locked up for 15
months, I was forcibly subjected to a series of 110 sub-coma insulin
shocks which psychiatrist Douglass Sharpe prescribed as a treatment for
“schizophrenia”. Although Dr. Sharpe and other shrinks labeled me
“schizophrenic, I never believed and still don’t believe I was
“schizophrenic” or “mentally ill” and told them I was not crazy or
“mentally ill”. Like many other antipsychiatry activists and other
critics, I totally reject “schizophrenia” and all other psychiatric
labels as valid medical terms because they don’t exist, they don’t
refer to medical diseases, they’re fraudulent labels. As psychiatric
critic Thomas Szasz has explained, psychiatric diagnostic labels are
metaphors for dissident or non-conformist conduct, pseudo-medical terms
which discredit and permanently stigmatize people.
In the early 1950s, I was just a very confused college student
struggling to find himself, a common identity crisis. I was never
violent and never charged with a criminal offence. Nevertheless, I lost
my freedom, locked up as an involuntary patient, a psychiatric prisoner
in McLean Hospital (a teaching-research facility affiliated with
Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital). It should
be called McLean Psychoprison. As is frequently the case, my parents
colluded with the psychiatrists -- they committed me.
Within 6-7 weeks of admission to McLean, psychiatrist Douglass Sharpe
prescribed a series of insulin shock treatments because I was openly
angry and defiant toward my parents and the world -- that’s the real
reason but you won’t find it written in my medical records. where I'm
labeled schizophrenic with a discharge diagnosis “schizophrenia --
acute undifferentiated reaction, improved”. That fraudulent diagnosis
has never been changed or erased on my medical records in over 50 years.
Here’s a telling excerpt by Dr. Sharpe written in my medical records
which also appears in the book Shrink Resistant:
“The patient was finally placed on sub-coma insulin and after a month
of sub-coma insulin three times a day he showed tremendous improvement.
There was no longer the outbursts of anger...He spends most of his time
trying to figure out what the effect of insulin has on him . . .” (Burstow and Weitz, 1988; Weitz, 2004).
It took me almost 20 years to understand my forced psychiatric
incarceration and forced treatment in political terms, 20 years to
realize that I was not a “mental patient” but a political prisoner of
psychiatry locked up against my will, no right to appeal the commitment
or treatment, tortured with subcoma insulin shocks. It took me 20 years
to understand that the “mental health system” is an oppressive social
control system. Insulin shock was obviously a form of social control
and torture - not treatment. This is also true for electroshock,
psychiatric drugs, and all forced psychiatric procedures today. If a
medical or psychiatric procedure is forced or administered without
consent, it’s assault or torture -- not treatment (Weitz, 2002).
Insulin shock was a serious violation of my human rights, it was also a
radicalizing experience which permanently sensitized me to the many
human rights violations which psychiatrists have committed and are
still committing against hundreds of thousands of allegedly “mentally
ill” people - under the guise of “safe and effective treatment”,
“medication”, “ECT”, “research”, or “mental health reform”. In
the 1950s, many of us psychiatric survivors had no rights such as the
right not to be treated against our will or without informed consent,
the right not to be abused, mistreated, or tortured, the right not to
be harmed. Nevertheless, these rights violations are happening today in
virtually every psychiatric ward, in every “mental health center” or
psychoprison in Canada, the United States and Europe -- despite
'progressive' mental health legislation and despite the fact some of
these rights are enshrined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human
Rights which was adopted by the UN General Assembly 60 years ago on
December 10, 1948 and signed by 47 nations including “free and
democratic” Canada and the United States, and more recently enshrined
in the UN Convention Against Torture. Everybody including all
physicians, should read and discuss these human rights documents.
Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that psychiatrists and other
doctors will respect our human rights or their own ethical guidelines.
THE RIGHT NOT TO BE TORTURED
• “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” (United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5)
• “Everyone has the right not to be subjected to any
cruel and unusual treatment or punishment” (Canadian Charter of Rights
and Freedoms, Section 12)
Psychiatric prisoners and survivors typically experience forced
treatment or treatment without “informed consent” as cruel and inhumane
punishment or torture. Psychiatrists rarely inform their
prisoners about the many serious effects or risks of their treatments
and alternatives, especially non-medical community alternatives such as
self-help groups, advocacy groups, crisis centers, co-op housing,
supportive housing and drop-ins run by
psychiatric survivors. All this despite the fact that “informed
consent” is spelled out in Ontario’s Health Care and Consent Act and
the historic 1947 Nuremberg Code. For example, whenever psychiatrists
and other doctors prescribe “antipsychotic medication” - powerful
brain-disabling neuroleptics such as Haldol (haloperidol), Thorazine
(chlorpromazine), Clozaril (clozapine), Modecate (fluphenazine),
Risperdal (risperidone), and Zyprexa (olanzapine) as well as
antidepressants such as Paxil and Prozac - without your consent or
against your will - they are assaulting you, punishing you, violating
the Nuremberg Code, violating the UN Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
violating The Convention Against Torture, violating your human rights.
Forced drugging together with its many traumatic, health and
life-threatening effects is a virtual global epidemic, an international
disgrace, a crime against humanity.
PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS - CHEMICAL
LOBOTOMIES
The labels “antipsychotics” and “antidepressants” are seriously
misleading. The “antipsychotics” do not combat or cure “psychosis” or
“mental illness”, and “antidepressants” do not combat or cure
depression or the fraudulent diagnosis “bipolar mood disorder”.
Psychiatric drugs (“medication”) chemically control and disable people
-- sometimes permanently. Neuroleptics is a more accurate term for
“antipsychotics”, it means “nerve-seizing”. These psychiatric drugs are
much more powerful, debilitating
and brain-disabling than the “tranquilizers” (benzodiazepines), which
by the way are addictive. The neuroleptics and antidepressants
frequently make people look and act apathetic, zombie-like as if
they’ve been lobotomized -- even at moderate or low doses. These
allegedly “safe and effective medications” always produce painful and
serious “side effects”, some are health-threatening and brain-damaging;
others are life-threatening. Consider these common effects: muscle
cramps, dizziness, blurred vision, seizures, tardive dyskinesia (a
permanent neurological disorder characterized by involuntary movements
caused by the neuroleptics), tardive dementia, akathisia (constant
restless
pacing), nightmares, psychosis, parkinsonism, neuroleptic malignant
syndrome (NMS is a neurological disorder with a prevalence rate of
2%-3%,
and mortality rate of 20%-25%), and sudden death. Tardive
dyskinesia (TD), tardive dementia, NMS and
parkinsonism are all signs of brain damage. Although TD was discovered
and reported in medical journals in the mid-1960s, the psychiatrists
covered up or failed to warn patients about this horrific neurological
“side effect” for about 20 years until the 1980s. After a few weeks or
months on such “medication”, most patients look and act like a zombie,
apathetic, indifferent to their surroundings. Dr. Peter Breggin (1997; 1991),
Dr.Lars Martensson (1998), and other
professional critics have documented these horrendous effects. Many
psychiatric survivor-activists and other critics prefer the label
“chemical lobotomy”, it succinctly describes their zombie experience.
In a psychoprison or psychiatric ward, virtually everyone gets drugged
- “put on meds”. Or threatened -- “take your meds, or
else”. This
is also true of children who are admitted to psychiatric wards (LeFrancois, 2006).
Forced drugging compounds this abuse. Informed consent is a cruel sham
since psychiatrists rarely if ever warn incarcerated involuntary and
voluntary patients about common health risks and non-medical
alternatives to the drugs. More often than not, psychiatrists coerce,
threaten, or intimidate patients into consenting to “medication” (Burstow et al., 2005; Breggin and Cohen, 1999; Lehmann, 1998; Martensson, 1998; Whitaker, 2002). Powerful personal
testimonies against the antidepressants and neuroleptics, including
frequent violations of the right to informed consent, were frequently
voiced by approximately twenty-five Canadian survivors during public
hearings sponsored by the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA)
and held in Toronto City Hall in April 2005 (Burstow et al, 2005).
ELECTROSHOCK -- ELECTROCONVULSIVE
BRAINWASHING
Electroshock (officially labeled “electroconvulsive therapy” or “ECT”)
is another hi-risk, controversial, degrading and inhumane psychiatric
treatment chiefly prescribed for severe “depression”, “bipolar mood
disorder”, and sometimes “schizophrenia”. Since its main targets are
women and the elderly, the procedure is largely sexist and ageist. in
its administration. According to government statistics, including those
of Ontario’s Ministry of Health, two to three times more women than
men (at least 70%) are prescribed “ECT”. Despite denials by
the Canadian Psychiatric Association and shock promoters, the
scientific fact is that electroshock always causes some brain damage
including permanent memory loss and other intellectual
disabilities. A recent, comprehensive study confirmed that women
suffer
more brain damage by electroshock then men, and that elderly people
suffer more damage than younger persons. (Sackeim et al, 2007; CAPA,
2007)
The immediate effects of electroshock are also alarming and include
epileptic or grand mal seizure, coma, physical weakness, confusion,
disorientation, nausea, and a migraine-type headache which can last a
day or longer. According to many critics and dissident professionals in
the United States such as psychiatrist Peter Breggin and neurologist
John Friedberg, electroshock is an “electrically-induced closed head
injury.” According to Breggin, Friedberg and other professional critics
in the United States, the so-called “improvement” or “high” that some
shock survivors experience after several shocks is actually euphoria, a
common sign of head injury. One doesn’t have to be a doctor, scientist
or engineer to understand that approximately 200 volts -- the average
amount of
electrical energy delivered to the brain for a half-second or longer
2-3 times a week during a course of “ECT” -- will damage the brain --
permanently. It’s the electricity and seizure which do the damage
and cause memory loss -- not depression or any “mental disorder”.
Nevertheless, the shock promoters and other psychiatrists continue
claiming that the electroshock “seizure is therapeutic”. Try telling
that to people with epilepsy and neurologists! More nonsense, more
psychobabble.
Women shock survivors and feminist critics appropriately call
electroshock “psychiatric rape” -- an appropriate term since
electroshock is frequently prescribed or administered over women’s
refusal or without their informed consent. The violations of informed
consent and trauma that women and men shock survivors experience is
systemic -- this alarming fact was exposed by virtually all survivors
who courageously testified during two days of public hearings in April
2005 in Toronto City Hall. In a public lecture three years ago at the
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Dr. Bonnie Burstow -- a
widely respected feminist, author, antipsychiatry activist, and chair
of the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA) -- called
electroshock a 'feminist issue'. I totally agree. I also agree with the
term electroconvulsive brainwashing (ECB), an apt term coined by
Leonard Roy Frank, a widely-respected shock survivor-activist, author
and
editor who permanently lost two years of university knowledge as a
direct result of over thirty electroshocks and 50 insulin coma shocks
in the early 1960s in California. Frank also calls shock a crime
against humanity and wants it abolished -- so do Drs. Burstow, Breggin
and Friedberg, and many other critics including shock survivors and
human rights activists including myself (Burstow,
2006; Frank,1978, 2006; Breggin,
1997; Weitz, 2004; Weitz et al, 2005; Breeding, 2001).
According to “ECT” statistics for the years 2000-2002 that I obtained
from the Ontario government’s Ministry of Health, electroshocking women
and old people, particularly elderly women, is on the increase in
Canada, it’s also on the rise in the United States. Shocking old people
(some are 80-90 years old) even with consent is elder abuse, mainly
because they are in poor or fragile health, more vulnerable than
younger people. According to Leonard Frank who has compiled a list of
ECT-related deaths, since 1942, electroshock has caused over 400 deaths
as reported in English language medical journals; many more have
undoubtedly been minimized, not reported, or covered up.
The struggle to abolish this psychiatric atrocity started over 30 years
ago in California and organized by the legendary Coalition to Stop
Electroshock, which achieved a partial victory in 1982 when over 60% of
the citizens of Berkeley voted in favor of a referendum to ban
electroshock. The anti-shock struggle continues in California, Texas,
the UK and other European counties, and New Zealand. In Canada, I am
particularly proud that several of us survivors and activists
participated in this anti-shock struggle for several years (1984-1992),
when the Toronto-based Ontario Coalition to Stop Electroshock and its
successor Resistance Against Psychiatry (RAP) organized several major
protest demonstrations in front of ‘shock mills’ such as the Clarke
Institute of Psychiatry and Queen Street Mental Health Centre (since
merged into the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health). Some of
us also carried out non-violent civil disobedience in the health
minister’s office. A friend and I were once charged with trespass and
arrested for trying to hand out copies of factual anti-shock
information to
patients on the ward during visiting hours -- we launched a court
appeal but lost. Although there are anti-shock campaigns in various
cities, unfortunately there is no national or international movement to
ban electroshock; I confidently predict there will be (cf. Frank, 2006). In fact, a
total of five anti-shock protests were recently held in Toronto,
Ottawa, Montreal and Cork, Ireland, on Mother’s Day in 2007 and
2008. The theme and slogan in all these protests was “Stop
shocking our mothers and grandmothers”. The May 2007 protest in Toronto
organized by the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA) attracted
140 people; it featured women shock survivors and other women speakers
(see http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca;
capacanada.wordpress.com).
PHYSICAL RESTRAINTS
The use of 2-point and 4-point restraints and
solitary confinement (“seclusion”) on psychiatric wards is particularly
alarming and dangerous. The many psychiatric prisoners and
survivors I’ve talked with describe the restraints as cruel punishment
or torture. The restraints consist of thick leather cuffs or straps
which are tied around the prisoner’s ankles and wrists and anchored to
the sides of the bed. As result, the prisoner can hardly move while
being forced to lie flat on his/her back for hours at a time, sometimes
days with only brief restraint-free periods. Since
physically-restrained prisoners are also chemically restrained by the
powerful neuroleptics or antidepressants, they are doubly-restrained. A
common staff reason for restraining prisoners is “control” or
“management” of allegedly uncontrollable or disruptive prisoner
behaviour, or ‘staff shortage”. Frequently, tying up or caging
psychiatric prisoners is for the convenience of the staff. Whatever the
reason, the prisoner experiences such restraint as severe punishment or
torture.
To the best of my knowledge, there have been no significant
restrictions in the use of physical restraints in Ontario’s psychiatric
hospitals and wards. A few years ago in the early 1990s, lawyer and
former Ontario systemic policy advisor Duff Waring published a journal
article
criticizing the overuse of restraints in Ontario’s 10 provincial
psychiatric hospitals (Waring, 1991).
There was no media or public concern about his article and similar ones
written by a few nurses, no public outrage. There should have been. I
still have a vivid memory witnessing in horror my close friend Mel
trying to raise himself while being physically restrained by 4-point
restraints approximately 10 years ago in the notorious Queen Street
Mental Health Centre (currently merged into the Centre for Addiction
and Mental Health in Toronto). The nurses and attendants tied his
wrists and legs because he was allegedly “uncontrollable”. About the
same time, they also threw him into ‘seclusion” (solitary confinement”)
for “head banging behavior” -- agitation caused by one or more of the
antidepressants. The ward staff kept Mel in restraints and/or seclusion
for several weeks -- they finally released him in 1995, two years
after several of us survivors and other activists protested outside
this notorious psychoprison.
Physical restraints have also caused several deaths in
psychoprisons. A few years ago, investigative reporters exposed
hundreds of such deaths in a series of articles published in The
Hartford Courant (Weiss, 1998). In
2005 in Toronto's notorious centre for addiction and mental
health, Jeffrey James died from "pulmonary thromboembolism" after being
physically restrained in a 4-point retraint and confined in 'seclusion'
for 5 1/2 consecutive days. In
Ontario, there have never been media or government investigations into
the use of physical restrains and 'seclusion' (solitary confinement).
In Ontario, there was also no media criticism or public outrage over
the brutal death of 26-year-old Zdravko Pukec on September 26, 1995 in
Whitby Psychiatric Hospital. Pukec was a recently-arrived immigrant
from Croatia, At the time of his death, Pukec was already restrained
with neuroleptics and cuffs when a head nurse, with the approval of
administrator Ron Ballantyne, called the Durham branch of the Ontario
Provincial Police (OPP) for help restrain him. The police promptly
stormed the ward
and pepper-sprayed and forced Pukec to lie face-down on his stomach so
he could barely breathe. 30 minutes later he was dead. A coroner’s
inquest was a total sham. “Positional asphyxia” -- not pepper spray or
police assault -- was listed as a major cause of death. No Whitby
psychiatric staff and no OPP were seriously criticized, and no police
or hospital staff has ever been charged. A good example of
psychiatric justice in Ontario.
COMMUNITY TREATMENT ORDER - ONTARIO’S
LEASH LAW
Under Ontario’s neoliberal-conservative government (1995-2004),
outpatient forced psychiatric drugging or “community treatment orders”
(CTOs) became law in Ontario when ‘Brian’s Law' (named after an Ottawa
sportscaster killed by a person with a psychiatric history) was
officially proclaimed as an amendment to the Mental Health Act on
December 1, 2000 by the Harris-Tory government. CTOs are also law
in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and will probably become law in
Manitoba and Alberta. In the United States, these leash laws are called
“involuntary outpatient committal” (IOC). Over 41 states have passed
this draconian decree which targets many thousands of psychiatric
prisoners and survivors for outpatient treatment - usually forced
drugging in a clinic, doctor’s office, even in one’s own home. Under a
CTO in Ontario, you can be forced to take psychiatric drugs or
electroshock for up to 6 months, sometimes years since CTOs can be
legally renewed indefinitely. If you refuse an ordered “medication” or
fail to keep a doctor’s appointment in the community, an Assertive
Community Treatment Team (ACTT) - it typically consists of a
psychiatrist, psychologist, nurse and social worker - can forcibly drug
you or force you back into a psychoprison, without benefit of a hearing
or trial and for a longer period of incarceration.
Despite several public protests against CTOs organized by the
survivor-led political action group People Against Psychiatric
Treatment (PACT) for almost 3 years (1998-2000) and despite
continuing criticism, CTOs have not yet been challenged in court as
violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s time
CTO and IOC laws as well as Ontario’s Consent and Capacity Board, a
quasi-appeal court which rubber-stamps virtually all
psychiatrist-ordered treatments and involuntary committals, were
challenged as serious human rights/civil rights violations. Appeals to
this Board are useless, a waste of time since this psychiatrically
biased and government-appointed tribunal rejects over 90% of patient
appeals. It can be argued that CTOs violate several sections of the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms -- particularly section 7 which
guarantees all citizens “the right to life, liberty and security of the
person”; section 9 which guarantees “the right not to be arbitrarily
detained or imprisoned”; section 12 which guarantees “the right not to
be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment”; and
section 15(2), the equality clause which prohibits discrimination based
on “mental or physical disability” and several other grounds including
age, sex, colour, religion, and national or ethnic origin (Fabris, 2006; Weitz,
2000).
In the next few years, we can expect more psychiatric imperialism --
more psychiatric invasions of our communities and our privacy, more
CTOs and IOCs, more
psychiatric abuses, more forced drugging, more electroshock, more use
of physical restraints, more patient deaths and more cover-ups, more
stigmatizing, more stereotyping, more biased reporting, more medical
model myths and psychiatric lies promoted as “medical science” and
parroted in corporate-controlled media. Violations of human rights of
psychiatric prisoners and other extremely vulnerable populations will
continue unless or until many more psychiatric survivors,
antipsychiatry activists, other social justice activists, human rights
activists, dissident health professionals, and other concerned citizens
start speaking out, fighting back, demanding action and real
“accountability and transparency” from provincial governments and the
federal government -- such as
independent and public investigations of psychiatry’s numerous human
rights violations. In practical terms, this means much more
grassroots
organizing, lobbying, networking, direct action and public protests in
our own communities, cities, provinces, states, and countries.
Let us not forget that December 10 is International Human Rights Day,
the day in 1948 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the
Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, Forty-seven nations including Canada
signed the historic UN Declaration; since that time, over 100 other
countries have ratified it. Let us observe this important day by
remembering and celebrating the lives of many courageous psychiatric
survivors, political prisoners, colleagues and co-workers wherever they
are, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters who died
while struggling for their rights in psychoprisons and communities. Let
us re-dedicate ourselves to the fight against psychiatry-and-state
oppression and for human rights everywhere for everyone. We owe this to
ourselves, to all psychiatric survivors, political prisoners and
all other people struggling to be free of psychiatric and state
oppression, struggling to speak truth to power, struggling to be human.
Our human rights are worth fighting for, even dying for. Every
day should be Human Rights Day.
References
Breeding, J. (May 18, 2001). Testimony to New
York Assembly on Forced Electroshock.
Breggin, P.R. (1991). Toxic psychiatry. NY: St. Martin’s
Press.
Breggin, P.R. (1997). Brain-Disabling treatments in psychiatry.
New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Breggin, P.R. and Cohen,
D. (1999). Your drug May Be Your
Problem. Reading, MA: Perseus Books.
Burstow, B. and Weitz, B.
(1988). Shrink resistant: The
struggle against psychiatry in Canada. Vancouver: New Star Books.
Burstow, B., Cohen, L., Diamond,
B.,Lichtman, E. (2005). Report of the Psychiatric Drugs Panel. Inquiry
Into Psychiatry,Toronto. [online http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca]
Burstow. B. (2006). “Understanding and
ending electroshock: A feminist imperative. Canadian Woman Studies, 25, 2.
Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault/CAPA
(2007). "Press Statement - New Study Proves Electroshock Damages
Conclusively: CAPA Calls For Action" (October 5). http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca
Fabris, E. (2006). Identity, Inmates, Insight, Capacity,
Consent: Chemical Incarceration in Psychiatric Survivor Experiences of
Community Treatment Orders. Master of Arts Thesis, Ontario
Institute of Studies in Education, University of Toronto.
Frank, L.R. (1978). The history of shock treatment: ECT death
chronology. San Francisco, CA: Self-published.
Frank, L.R. (2006). The Electroshock
Quotationary http://www.endofelectroshock.com
Funk, W. (1998). “What DifferEnCe Does iT Make?” (The
Journey of a Soul Survivor). Cranbrook, B.C.: Wildflower
Publishing.
Lehmann, P.(1998). Coming off psychiatric drugs.
Berlin: Peter Lehmann Publishing.
LeFrancois, B.A. (2006). “They will
find us and infect our bodies”: The views of adolescent inpatients
taking psychiatric medication. Radical
Psychology, 5, Retrieved July 25, 2008 from http://www.radicalpsychology.org/vol5/LeFrancois.html
Martensson, L. (1998). Deprived of our humanity: The case against
neuroleptic drugs. Geneva: The Voiceless Movement.
Waring, D. (1991). Use of Restraints in
Ontario Psychiatric Hospitals. Journal
of Law and Social Policy, 7, 251-283.
Weiss, E. M. (1998). Deadly Restraint:
a Hartford Courant investigative report . The Hartford Courant, October
11-15.
Weitz, D. (2004). “Insulin Shock -- a
survivor’s account of psychiatric torture.”Journal of Critical Psychology,
Counselling and Psychotherapy, 4(3), 187-194; see also http://www.psychiatricsurvivorarchives.com
Weitz, D., Crowe C., Moodley, R.,
Rahim. C. (2005). Electroshock Is Not A Healing Option: Report of the
Panel on Electroshock, Inquiry Into Psychiatry. Toronto, July online: http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca.
Weitz, D. (2000). Fighting Words --
Community Treatment Orders and ‘Brian’s law’. Canadian Dimension,
September/October.
Weitz, D. (2002). Call me antipsychiatry
activist -- not ‘consumer’. Ethical
Human Sciences and Services, 5 (1), 71-72.
Weitz, D. (1997). Electroshocking elderly
people: Another psychiatric abuse. Changes:
An International Journal of Psychology and Psychotherapy,15 (2),
118-123.
Whitaker, R. (2002). Mad in America. Cambridge, MA:
Perseus Publishing
Note: An earlier and
substantially shorter version of this paper was published under the
title “Notes on psychiatric torture: Human rights violations in
psychiatry” in the July-August 2005 issue of New Socialist.
Biographical
Note: Don Weitz
is an antipsychiatry activist, insulin shock survivor, co-founder of
the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA), and co-editor of
Shrink Resistant: The Struggle Against Psychiatry in Canada.