psychiatric abuse

Exposing the Untold History of Psychiatric Atrocities

Commentary
Over its history, Street Spirit has published a series of in-depth reports on many different kinds of psychiatric abuses that have been carried out in the name of healing, yet often end up damaging and disabling people for life. In light of renewed calls for forced psychiatric detention under the guise of "helping the mentally ill," we are collecting and re-publishing these stories in a new section "Psychiatric Abuses and Human Rights". 

Laura’s Law and the Danger of Forced Detention

Commentary
How much sweeter “Laura’s Law” sounds than Forced Detention or Treatment! Yet it all sounds an awful lot like the usual government arguments used to justify surveillance, control, invasion of privacy. Who is to say this new law won’t be used to punish and isolate the indigent and the ill?

Electroshock: A Crime Against the Spirit

By Leonard Roy Frank on
Features
Electroshock robs people of their memories, their personality and their humanity. It reduces their capacity to lead full, meaningful lives. It crushes their spirits. Put simply, electroshock is a method for gutting the brain in order to control and punish people who fall or step out of line.

Shocked into Action: How Electroshock Created a Rebel

By Terry Messman on
Features
"Leonard Roy Frank is the Gandhi of the psychiatric survivors' movement. He's really helped bring a powerful spiritual discipline to this movement, similar to the work of Martin Luther King. Certainly in the 20th century, Leonard would be one of the foremost challengers of psychiatry, especially electroshock." -- David Oaks

Drug Companies Turn ‘Informed Consent’ into a Sham

By Kathie Zatkin on
Features
When will physicians, HMOs and elected officials take the following pledge? “I pledge to accept no money, gifts or hospitality from the pharmaceutical industry; to seek unbiased sources and not rely on information disseminated by drug companies, and to avoid conflict of interest in my practice, teaching and/or research.”

East Bay Hospital Is Closed for Good

By Terry Messman on
Features   News
The undeserved suffering of poor and homeless mental-health clients galvanized us to shut down East Bay Hospital so this anguish would never visit another family. This negligent psychiatric hospital had crammed disabled clients into shamefully overloaded wards in pursuit of higher profits. Now those once-crowded wards have been closed forever.

One Death Too Many at East Bay Hospital

By Terry Messman on
Features   News
Marc Kiefer was found dead in a locked isolation unit at East Bay Hospital after enduring nearly 18 torturous hours of physical shackles and shocking medical negligence. Kiefer was left dead in restraints for hours while East Bay Hospital’s negligent staff ignored him in death as they had in life.