Psychiatrized.Org

A Celts book in a second-hand bookshop gave me inspiration. My Celtic roots were drawing me in. I especially like a story where a tribe of Celts sacked Rome. Their secret weapon was to put lemon juice in their long hair, which bleached it. But what really shook up the Romans was the fact that the Celts would strip off naked when they went into battle and run at them with a blood-curdling roar. This technique definitely captured my imagination, and I have to say that I've occasionally repeated it in psychiatric institutions when the staff shout "breakfast." A nurse once dropped the cornflakes in fright. Needless to say, I got an injection for breakfast.

Mad Pride, A Celebration of Mad Culture, p 17, Handsell Publishing 2000

Why "Psychiatrized?" For many years, people who have been administered mental health "treatment," particularly psychotropic drugs, against their will, have been using various names to describe themselves. The term "mental health consumer" was hatched to convey the idea that "hey we are the ones supposedly 'buying' these services so we should be considered 'consumers' of mental health treatment." The idea was one of empowering the recipient by conveying this idea of being the customer. To many "consumers" the idea is mostly a joke as involuntary psychiatric treatment and coercion under force of law is the norm for people who have been labeled seriously mentally ill. The term "mental health consumer" also doesn't adequately cover the (many) people who have recovered from mental illness (essentially "former consumers" as it were) and it also conveys an implied endorsement of psychiatric treatment, which many peopled labeled seriously mentally ill do not subscribe to. Thus, the terms "ex-patients" and "survivors of psychiatric treatment," have also been used. Together, these names have come to be known as "C/S/X" (i.e., "Consumers/Survivors/Ex-Patients") or the C/S/X movement. This is a bit cumbersome and is not necessarily totally descriptive in that people may not want to be called a "consumer" because they are being forcibly "treated," they may not really be a "survivor" of that treatment, and not an "ex-patient" either. "Psychiatrized," is used instead and refers to people who have been subject to psychiatric treatment, often against their will, and often with permanent damage to their health and brain. Of course, it is essentially a negative term for psychiatric treatment that is forced upon people. This is intentional. The reason is that it appears the psychiatric profession, supported by the pharmaceutical companies, is inflicting serious damage and ruining lives by forcing unwanted psychotropic medications on unwilling patients and telling them that they will have to take these debilitating and damaging drugs for the rest of their lives. It seems increasingly clear that the purported scientific evidence to support these "treatments" does not stand up to scrutiny.

Psychiatry/Psychology	Organizations	Involuntary Treatment	Drugs
Adults	Miscellaneous	Children	Electroshock
General Mental Health Law	From the Files of Leonard Roy Frank	From Don Weitz	Links
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