Meaningful Moments

"It's not a chemical imbalance, it's a power imbalance."

-Mary Maddock

The Waterford Memories Project

This project is an oral history project that aims to accurately represent the personal histories of those who lived and worked in the Magdalene Laundries and Industrial Schools in South-East of Ireland, where women considered to be anything less than sane or compliant were sent without their consent.

Analyzing these first-hand historical accounts are essential to document Irish cultural heritage, giving a voice to those who were institutionalized and orienting their history to the Irish sociocultural historical narrative (informed by archival research though the project).

The project's 4 core aims are to "collect and generate archival data that comes from 20th century documents and to conduct oral histories; make this database available to scholars and members of the public (via a virtual museum housed by the Waterford Institute of Technology); to begin to assess the material in terms of how it might contribute to a public understanding of how our past affects our current cultural heritage; and to create educational supports for local schools in the South East about the Good Shepherd Laundries and Industrial School, which existed in our communities."

waterford.TRIM.mp4

Video clip of presentation on the Waterford Memories Project, University College Cork

Insight into Forensic OT: Personal Perspectives

I learned that while services have changed from previous approaches and interventions that disregarded client choice and occupationally deprived its victims, things have not progressed far enough. For example, forensic psych services are still incredibly institutional and unable to support someone's journey to wellness due to complete lack of typical daily activity, occupation, choice, motivation or expression.

As one of the speakers said, due to the requirements of the setting it requires creativity to attempt at occupation focused interventions because they are so limited in what they can do, materials that can be brought it, etc. What is more is that it is as though an additional punishment for patients who are female because the living space allotted for them is so small that there is no separation of acuity, meaning that people all across the spectrum of wellness are confined together. This means constantly disturbed sleep, constant monitoring, no development of additional freedoms to prepare the person for re-entry to other institutions or community services. They literally cannot be expected to improve in this setting.

Image of OT 5230 class alongside Mary and Jim Maddock and their friend & fellow activist

Mind Freedom Ireland

Mary Maddock and her husband Jim are authors of Soul Survivor: A Personal Encounter with Psychiatry and co-founders of Mind Freedom Ireland. During our time in Cork, they generously invited us into their homes and discussed with us their experiences with unnecessary and excessive psychiatric intervention that halted their lives for nearly two decades. Through this, they have become proponents of change and activists about psychiatric human rights violations, including electroconvulsive "therapy" (ECT), over-medication, institutionalization, and the accompanying occupational deprivation. One of the most eye-opening statements Mary said to us was that she loves OT, and believes it would have been great for he, had she not been so heavily drugged.

Behind the Walls: A Documentary

Asylum populations and mental health incarceration peaked in Ireland 59-60s with the highest rate per capita in world. There was a published medical list of “probable causes of insanity,” where any problematic” behavior relative to society’s values were diagnostic criteria. This showed how the medical ethos took over with psychiatry biomedical model in place of a the mid-20th century moral management from France. Moral, which meant "curing insanity" with doctoral reason and emotion relationship, supposed to be coercive rather than threat or force, emulating free life as close as possible was gone, and cruelty and humiliation took its place. Major national trauma paved the route for this negative shift as well. Sacrifice of land subdivision post-famine created excessive single and unfulfilled people, who often got incarcerated. This was escalated by the Dangerous Lunatics Act in Ireland, which allowed accusation alone resulted in police having to arrest them and asylum having to accept them. This reminded me greatly of the Salem witch trials in America's history.

Similarly, migration of 2 million Irish people leaving the country triggered societal shift as well. And, any peculiar behavior by anyone at Ellis island wound result in whole family being sent back, and at least that one being admitted to an Irish asylum. This is i found this eerily parallel to the current US-Mexico border racism and inhumane treatment of immigrants due to severe othering and consequential dehumanization that America is currently embodying.

Image of client art on display at St. Patrick's University Hospital

The documentary went on to discuss modern day Ireland through the example of a mid-20s man who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and been in a psychiatric hospital for 5 years. His partner expressed that “he can’t come out 'til he’s well, but he can’t get well in there. And that’s how people become institutionalized.” Just as it has throughout history, any form of behavior is used to vindicate and justify the label (diagnosis) of an incarcerated person. Normal reactions to incarceration such as attempts to escape, depression, and resistance were considered symptomatic of mental illness. This “tame and shame” power dynamic is the same it has always been under mental health treatment, and it is up to those on the privileged end of the power dynamic (such as OTs) to criticize and deconstruct these dynamics and institutions.

References

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