Mental Patients Suffer Humiliation
Dear HumanDHS Friends!
COMMENT by Brian Lynch: One of the most disturbing things in my medical career as I became more involved in the mental health side was the realization of how many people that went into the field evidently where processing great personal trauma themselves. I now understand much of that trauma to have come in the form of humiliation which they then, in turn, reenact on their charges. Societies, of course, “permit” such humiliation to take place for similar derivative reasons. Here is an article about abuse in mental health institutions in New Zealand.
The start of the article:
Former state wards are likely to be given counselling and support, in light of a bleak report into the care of mental in-patients.
Hundreds of patients who spent time in state psychiatric institutions from the 1940s until 1992 have told their stories to a Confidential Forum set up by the Government three years ago.
The report was issued yesterday. It details humiliation, beatings, over-medication and rape in environments of hopelessness and fear. Most were at places such as Kingseat and Cherry Farm, and had no choice over their admission or treatment.