Latest Articles
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MindFreedom Ireland Press Release
SURVIVOR OF PSYCHIATRY TO ADDRESS WORLD PSYCHIATRIC CONGRESS Cork woman Mary Maddock and her husband Jim have been invited to speak at the XV11 World Congress of Psychiatry to be held in Berlin, October 8th to 12th. The Maddocks are joint authors of the book 'Soul Survivor - A Personal Encounter with Psychiatry' which challenges psychiatry's medical model of 'treatment' and describes how they rejected the label of Bipolar given to Mrs. Maddock in 1983 and who today, has been drug free for the past 18 years. Their story also featured in the the book 'Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs' by German author and publisher Peter Lehmann who will be a keynote speaker in Berlin and is a fellow survivor. Founded in...
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St Kevin's Asylum, Cork
"I was arrested and handcuffed in my own home, on past history as I ate my dinner by my G.P. and 3 guards, handcuffs still on I was assessed and condemned to Kevin's 3, the high security hospital.. ...There we had a television room, a wide hall and another room ironically named 'the activation facility '. I was the only one who used it for reading and writing.... The anguish of having nothing to do everyday is indescribable while the nurses for the most part were chatting and laughing, this is really hurtful when our souls are in pain - they have no care..........For the past 10 days overdosed - Risperdal, Zyprexa, Ativan and Haliperidol - all given by assault two or three times a day -...
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Discrimination Inequality
From the personal to the politic When I was born in 1947, I was, soon afterwards, baptised into the Catholic church without informed consent as are most Catholics today. The Catholic belief is that if one does not obey the commandments of a masculine God and the man-made laws of the church and one is not forgiven by a male priest, then, that after one’s death, one is destined to hell fire for eternity! The Catholic church defines sins as being mortal or venial. Mortal sins are very serious. Many are also state laws such as murder. Cannon law stated that failing to go to mass on Sunday was a mortal sin! To fail to follow any of the ten commandments or any other Catholic church laws was to be...
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Cork Electroshock Protest May, 2017
A public protest against the psychiatric procedure of electroshock took place in Cork on Saturday. A number of speakers referred to the fact that, following a decline in the 1980's and 90's, electroshock is now on the increase again. Apart from causing cellular brain injury it is also, in a ratio of 2 to 1, used more on women than men. Many of the women are elderly including, recently, a woman of 92. Grandmother and shock recipient Mary Maddock (69) spoke of a power imbalance faced by the victims of an outdated procedure which she described as a human rights violation. Other speakers placed the procedure in the context of present day overall forced psychiatric practice which also sees people...
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Cork Electroshock Protest May, 2017
. A public protest against the psychiatric procedure of electroshock took place in Cork on Saturday. A number of speakers referred to the fact that, following a decline in the 1980's and 90's, electroshock is now on the increase again. Apart from causing cellular brain injury it is also, in a ratio of 2 to 1, used more on women than men. Many of the women are elderly including, recently, a woman of 92. Grandmother and shock recipient Mary Maddock (69) spoke of a power imbalance faced by the victims of an outdated procedure which she described as a human rights violation. Other speakers placed the procedure in the context of present day overall forced psychiatric practice which also sees...
