Shocking BBC report: children subjected to abuse in mental health unit.

Another shocking BBC report uncovers abuse at the Skye CAMHS unit, Scotland’s largest mental health facility for young people

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2kg2djkk2o

Yet again, we hear about the terrible abuse which goes on behind closed doors in a psychiatric facility run by the NHS. The BBC documentary ‘Disclosure’ gave voice to several vulnerable young people who spoke of being insulted, forcibly restrained and repeatedly injected and featured their heartbreaking testimonies of the traumatic impact on their already difficult lives. 

For many of us who have personally borne witness to the bullying and cruelty that has infiltrated hospitals where the most vulnerable people in society are supposed to be cared for, it comes as no surprise. Yet, there is something even more horrendous when we know that children are being subjected to these abuses. It is interesting that even within this report, what has happened has not been called out directly for what it is – assault – criminal behaviour -even when staff have used such force that these young girls have been left with visible bruising. In any domestic setting, this would have been flagged up immediately, reported to the police and safeguarding procedures instigated as an emergency.

But of course, this is because of the double bind which faces people labelled with psychiatric diagnoses. When they make complaints about staff, then all too often ‘psychiatric’ patients are ignored or not believed. Even when such allegations are upheld, the defence used by these institutions is that the patient was ‘suicidal’ and/or self-harming and therefore the staff had no choice but to use force or restraint or drugs ‘to save them from themselves’. This is the catch 22 which immediately exonerates the psychiatric system from legal accountability.

Those who are incarcerated in psychiatric institutions for long periods of time, surrounded by others who are also subjected to the same abusive ‘treatment’, find it all too easy to believe that this is normal, (as the young people themselves stated.) Normal becomes ‘acceptable’, especially when a vulnerable person with low self-esteem comes to think they are being punished. Yet again, the individual bears the brunt of systemic dysfunction.

Whether these young patients were admitted as voluntary patients or detained under the mental health act, both they and their parents hoped that psychiatry would cure their problems.  In the documentary these children were honest about the fact that they were engaged in self-harm, and many admit that the actions of staff ‘saved’ their lives. But did the staff really save their lives? That we do not know. What is crystal clear is that this is not the end of it. Children who are traumatised by the healthcare system will carry the legacy with them. They will likely need help to find alternative ways of recovering not just from the original problems that led up to their distress (however it manifested in their young lives), but also to process the trauma from their hospital experiences. The conclusion of the documentary was that none of them believed they were helped.

How many more people with lived experience who suffered at the hands of the psychiatric system are there? How many more people have tried to report what happened to them, but without the benefit of BBC documentary makers validating their stories have not been believed?

I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg. But I am wary that in trying to put it right, the NHS will call for more staff, more facilities and better training. Within the documentary ‘Disclosure’, there was no suggestion made about why these young people resorted to self-harm, nor any in depth attention given to why psychiatric drugs were used at all, let alone in excess. We do not need more of the same, rather attention needs to be paid to the root causes of the overwhelming distress and emotional turmoil that these young people articulate so well. Surely it is time to dismantle the biomedical models of psychiatry and embrace the life-affirming alternatives which will really help people of all ages recover from the acute emotional crises which threaten lives and livelihoods.

Mad in the UK will continue to provide examples of alternative ways of providing the care and support for young people in emotional crisis, as illustrated by an article from Jigsaw (coming soon)

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Mad in the UK hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.