Slogans for use on the Manchester Kissit Demo:

Control under the guise of care


End Psychiatric Assault


Stop the pricks!

Kiss it!

Take this!

Psychiatry:
Up yours!


Have a Heart

Stop the Torture!

Reform the System

End Forced Drugging


Psychiatrists:
Restrain your selves


Kiss Goodbye to
Institutional violence


Psychiatry =
Human Right Violations
P.A.N.E.
Psychiatry A National Emergency


Psychiatry:
Shame on you


Double Crossed XX


Forced ECT…
Shocking!

Information regarding www.kissit.org and it's previous demo/march in London

Valentines Day 2005
Monday 14th February
Kiss It! XX
March against psychiatric assault
Assemble: Whitehall Place at 11am

“Six of them (psychiatric staff) put me in head and arm locks. I cried out for help. They dragged me to a cell where I was stripped bare and forced face down on the floor. Syringes were inserted into my buttocks and I was injected with extremely powerful drugs. The cell door was bolted and I was left to recede into unconsciousness utterly alone, terrified and traumatized. This was done to me repeatedly...
rubbing salt in the wound they labelled me paranoid ... I am now!”
Testimony of a survivor

“Instead of talking and listening to patients who are in crisis, nurses all too often opt for forced drugging. This violent practice damages self-esteem and trust and therefore the chances of recovery. As a society we have a moral duty to struggle for a peaceful and fair approach to mental health.”
Dr Rufus May, Clinical Psychologist and survivor

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Article 5.

Kiss It! XX Campaign, launched on the 8th October 2004, is a march and protest against the inhumanity of forced drug treatment and psychiatric assault. Conceived by the artist Aidan Shingler, the campaign fuses art and politics with humour and poignancy
Protesters will apply injection plasters in the form of two X's to the seat of their pants and walk past the Department of Health, the Houses of Parliament and St Thomas’ Hospital, demonstrating their outrage with a peaceful gesture of defiance…Kiss it! XX… and on to the ex-site of Bedlam, (now The Imperial War Museum), where protesters will bid a fond farewell having released the sting in their tails. The march will be spear headed by twenty individuals drawn from the survivor movement all with first hand experience of psychiatric assault… The Kiss it! XX-20 - (Roman numerals).
A Valentines Card will be hand delivered to 10 Downing Street with a message that pin points the issues. The organisers trust the Prime Minister will not miss the point.
The aim of the kiss it! XX Campaign is to create an opportunity for survivors, users & refusers, friends and allies, to make an ‘in yer face’ statement, directly, peacefully and humorously. The organisers hope to generate national and international media coverage with a view to highlight the issues, create awareness and provoke the debate.
Aidan States: “The methods that are employed by psychiatry, and imposed onto those who experience emotionally vulnerable and volatile states are often inhuman. In the clinical environment our requirements and needs are not met, and our pleas, cries, explanations and experiences are invalidated and recorded as symptoms. To ensure that individuals do not stray too far from the limited and restricted parameters that define the 'norm', psychiatry implements…

Incarceration, physical restraints, pain compliance techniques, forced drugging, compulsory electro-convulsive’ therapy’, psychosurgery, coercion, and brainwashing…

all of which demonstrate the defectiveness rather than the effectiveness of psychiatric treatment...control under the guise of care. The disturbance we may experience in our lives is exacerbated and increased many fold by the aggressive insensitivity and gross inhumanity of such methods. Those who are subjected to these treatments are often damaged and traumatised by them.”

For more information: www.kissit.org

The reality of Psychiatric Assault:

The Reality of Psychiatric Assault:

• Forced Treatment possesses no therapeutic benefit because paradoxically it produces the problems it is designed to solve.

• Forced Treatment disturbs and traumatises those who are emotionally vulnerable and volatile.

• Forced Treatment has immediate and long-term negative effects on the emotional well-being and mental health of those subjected to it.

• Forced Treatment produces a climate of fear and mistrust within the clinical setting.

• Forced Treatment disturbs not only those who are subjected to it but also those who witness it.

• Forced Treatment creates a conflict of interest between psychiatric staff and patient, producing a ‘them and us’ regime and climate.

• Forced Treatment induces, exacerbates and accentuates paranoia.

• Forced Treatment or the threat of forced treatment aggravates and agitates those of an angry or disturbed disposition thus provoking aggression.

• Forced Treatment is the antithesis of compassionate and sensitive care.

• Forced Treatment and the threat of Forced Treatment increases the likelihood of suicides.

• Forced Treatment is the direct cause of many deaths each year -
(records of the names, circumstances and numbers who are killed in this way are not catalogued or retained in a comprehensive and coherent form, inquests rare and accountability negligible).

• Forced Treatment is seen as evidence of a ‘deaf ear – blind eye’ policy to the concerns of service users and survivors of the mental health system.

• Forced Treatment dissuades people from seeking assistance from the mental health system, consequently a crises that may have been averted is created.

• Forced Treatment demonstrates the defectiveness rather than the effectiveness of psychiatric methods.

• Forced Treatment violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.


The struggle for a fair and peaceful approach to mental health

Can we work towards a force free mental health service? As a society I believe we have a moral obligation to struggle for this ideal. This is why on 14th of February I and many other former psychiatric patients and our supporters will be taking part in the ‘Kissit’ march (see www.kissit.org ) which will rally at Whitehall and march past both the Department of Health and Parliament to Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park (the ex-site of Bedlam). Protesters will wear sticking plasters in the shapes of crosses on the seats of their trousers to bring the point home. A Valentine’s card will be given to Tony Blair that on the cover depicts a heart and a Cupid’s arrow, and when opened up shows the similar (but different) image of two buttocks being penetrated by a hypodermic syringe, with the message ‘Have a Heart’.

Originally conceived by the artist Aidan Shingler, the march humourously seeks to raise awareness of and protest against a serious issue; the widespread use of force in psychiatric hospitals (and soon to be extended into the community). ‘Psychiatric assault’ includes the use of physical restraint procedures, forced drugging (rapid tranquillisation), seclusion, and pain compliance techniques (where the person is hurt to encourage them to comply with the forced chemical or physical restraint procedure).

Many of us on the march will have experienced force in situations where we were not behaving violently. Many of us will have had our bodies invaded by drugs we did not want. Many of us will be workers or family members who have felt obliged to collude with practices we disagree with. The process of ‘Acuphase’ is one of the most common uses of force on the psychiatric ward. It is used to manage challenging behaviour. Forced Acuphase is where a person is pinned down undressed so that his or her buttocks are revealed. The person is then given a psychiatric cocktail (at present this is usually haloperidol and lorazepam) which is administered by hyperdermic syringe into the person’s buttock. The NICE ‘Disturbed Behaviour Clinical Guidance’ (2004) draft guidelines suggest that all attempts to avoid forced treatment using de-escalation techniques should be tried prior to the use of force. There are however no structures to enforce this recommendation. If the government wanted a mental health service based on compassion it would commission an inquiry into the effects of force in psychiatric treatment and produce a whole set of guidelines on how to de-escalate challenging situations. This it has not done

In my experience at what point force is used on a psychiatric ward depends on the staff involved and the dominant ethos on the ward. In every hospital there are ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’. The often high numbers of agency staff tends to make the situation worse, as these staff are often less interested in establishing rapport with the people they are paid to care for. How force is used varies from hospital to hospital and ward to ward, and is influenced by which staff team members are involved on a particular shift and leadership styles. As someone detained in a secure ward recently described to his mother “At night the bouncers come on”. Under the present risk obsessed culture nurses are often persuaded that in order to avoid harm being caused, restraining and sedating patients early enough will avoid the risk of a harmful incident. This idea of preventive forced treatment (just in case things get difficult) is being most recently being advocated by the government in the form of Community Treatment Orders which psychiatrists will be able to renew every six months.

The long term harm caused by using these procedures is not looked at. I have written in some detail about my experience of forced treatment when I was eighteen years old, elsewhere (May 2002). My experience, conversations with other people who have been in-patients and practice as a clinical psychologist, tells me that the use of force has two main negative effects. Firstly it can set up in the person inflicted with force, a deep resentment toward health care workers. A fundamental trust is broken and the person is likely to be reluctant to seek mental health care support in future crises. Hence we have Assertive Outreach; whole teams set up to work with this group of dis-affected people and a growing market for secure hospital provision, to take the use of force to its logical conclusion, long-term internment. The second effect of the use of coercion if it doesn’t provoke outward anger and mis-trust is these feelings can be internalised so that the person learns not to trust themselves. They give up on their right to an active role in their life assuming a dependent ‘sick role’. One becomes institutionalised. Both scenarios have a negative effect not just on the person but also on the community as a whole. We lose out on the potential of people who have been psychotic to contribute to our society. We guiltily write them off and blame all the passivity or challenging behaviour on the ‘mental illness’.

One can feel like a radical writing about a peaceful and fair approach to mental health care. This is mainly because (since the mid seventies) there has been a lack of literature looking at it. When I facilitate self help groups in community and hospital settings I do not feel radical. In my experience in in-patient settings more than half of the people who receive treatment for psychosis and or self harm are in touch with and unhappy about how they have been treated and have good ideas about how they would like to have been treated. We need to listen to these testimonies.

Force denies the individual dignity and it damages the spirit. It is no surprise that one of the former Guantanamo Bay detainees recently released, now requires mental health care for severe mental health problems. This is the paradox, the use of force creates emotional distress and mental confusion, yet in-patient services designed to care for such states regularly use coercive practice. One of my clients talks about her ‘secondary mental illness’, this is the one created by mental health services and the forced drugging she has endured. She describes it as a shadow in her mind. The NICE Guidelines on ‘Disturbed (violent) behaviour: the short-term management of disturbed (violent) behaviour in in-patient psychiatric settings’ are due out this month. The draft guidelines which came out last year, recommend that every time a person is forcibly restrained, drugged or secluded a review is desirable (but not essential) that looks at if any lessons can be learned. When the community (and I say the community because the hospital is part of the community) uses force against a distressed individual there are always lessons to be learned, amongst all parties. As a society we have to see the use of force as a failure of our abilities to carry out a compassionate approach to emotional distress. Where someone is actively violent restraint of some kind is at times necessary. However in my experience the use of force in the psychiatric system is often unnecessary and there lacks a culture of accountability when it is used.

In terms of care for psychosis, force is at the centre of the state’s approach to treatment. Neuroleptic drug treatment (under the pseudonym anti-psychotic medication) is presented as the treatment of choice for people with unusual beliefs behaviours or experiences; Treatment of choice for those who have no choice. Most first admissions to psychiatric hospital are characterised by a ‘try this medication or if you don’t we’ll have to force you to take it’ approach. I am frequently contacted by families who choose to support people to manage their psychotic experiences without the use of forced drugging, they then get no support from mental health services. Maybe we should rename mental health services ‘psychiatric drugging services’! This use of neuroleptic drugs as a maintenance (long term) treatment occurs despite evidence that alternative approaches work. The Soteria project (see www.moshersoteria.com ) and other similar projects in Scandinavia show that minimal or no antipsychotic treatment combined with a humanistic approach can be more successful than the traditional drug-based approach. Why aren’t similar (research) projects funded in this country? Is it the huge influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the medical profession and increasingly other disciplines (including the government’s own think to and policy spreader NIMHE)? This is a human rights issue, as democratic citizens we should have the right to a force free mental health care. Those of us who believe in compassionate approach to mental health need to come together to struggle for this vision.

Ten years ago I was told by my clinical psychology supervisor I was preaching to the converted, I disagree psychology (like other disciplines) is complicit in these arrangements. For example, if we look at the Early Intervention (for psychosis) movement, which is spearheaded by psychologists, what they are advocating is person centred but still neuroleptic drugs are at the centre of treatment. Is this pay-back for all the drug company funding of this movement? For example, one Early Intervention handbook on how to implement Early Psychosis services recommends that a person has to be ‘symptom free’ for a year, before professionals should consider cessation of drug treatment. However the Hearing Voices self help movement has shown that people can develop drug-free approaches to living with psychotic experiences. Despite the alternative evidence that is available, even the new Early Intervention services which pose as innovatory, generally do not give people a choice of a drug free approach to their difficulties. This is how endemic coercive practice is in the mental health care system.

Aged nineteen, against doctors wishes I withdrew from my neuroleptic drug treatment I had to learn to manage my own psychotic experiences and recovery without medication. This is fraught with problems if you do it alone, to be successful you need a group of people who will support you (see Lehmann, 2002 for accounts of the withdrawal process). Part of the culture of coercion in this country is that there are no specific services that will support you if you want to withdraw off neuroleptic medication.

Over the last ten years I have had the privilege of supporting others to manage their disturbing experiences without the use of force, sometimes without the use of medication. Supporting people in a force free way through their spiritual and emotional crises takes resources. Not more resources, just a different emphasis in how they are used. Such an approach requires structural changes in society, I don’t deny this. Mental health crisis care needs to be based much more in the community and involve the community. We need to demand a society that assists a community based approach to emotional crisis. For example, in many cases family members or friends would be able to help more in the care and recovery process if they could take more time off work. We need employers to support this. Supporting someone through psychotic and or distressing experiences can be exhausting. One needs a whole team supporting the process. However in the long term creating this healing environment will reap rich rewards for everybody involved.

In a sense we are all institutionalised into accepting the status quo. A lot of good caring people end up colluding with practices in their hearts they know are wrong and counter-productive. I myself have at times chosen not to challenge practice I felt was unjust and violent. As a junior member of staff I feared repercussions on my career, if I rocked the boat too much. Many staff are in this situation every day. This is why the Kissit Campaign is so important (see the forthcoming special issue of Asylum magazine for detailed coverage). In this article I have tried to highlight some of the main issues involved. We need a public debate about this. The Kissit campaign is an excellent wake up call for all of us to become more active in the struggle for a compassionate approach to different states of consciousness. We need to challenge the conventional approach to challenging behaviour. All the civil rights movements have had at their root the struggle against violence. Women, Black people, Gay people; all these groups have in the past, experienced state sanctioned violence, that at the time was seen as acceptable. The struggle for a mental health care approach that is not violent is just as important as these other egalitarian causes.


Rufus May works as a clinical psychologist in Bradford’s Assertive Outreach team.
He is one of the organisers of a monthly public meeting about different peaceful approaches to mental health called Evolving Minds. He can be contacted on:  rufus@rufusmay.freeserve.co.uk


If you are interested in joining a nation wide network that wants to set up Soteria style services contact David Marsh at  D.R.Marsh@Bradford.ac.uk

If you share concerns about these issues, tell people you know about the Kissit campaign, spread the word, and if you can, join us on Valentine’s day!

References:

Lehmann, P.(2002) Coming off Psychiatric Drugs, peter-lehmann- publishing.com

May, R. (2002) Over Our Bodies Mental Health Today, August edition.