Texas Psychiatric Abuses

[iamartsy]

Well I know I am not the only one who witnessed abuse in a psychiatric hospital. I have long felt like the only one on fornits. Awhile back I posted a newsgroup piece by a fellow inmate from the renowned Dallas psychiatric hospital where we both resided. I keep looking for other people who survived the psychiatric hospital abuses that I witnessed in the 1980s and 1990s. If you have witnessed them please post. What I saw I would not wish on anyone. I saw people left in leather 5 point restraints for weeks at a time. Once they were let out, they had lost the muscle tone to walk. Their bathroom had been a bedpan for all those weeks. There was also a form of isolation they called "room therapy". You stared at a wall in your room for 16 hours a day, with bathroom breaks every 2 hours, and dinner in your room staring at the wall. Room therapy would go on for about 9 months at a time or more.

Obviously, I lived in a state of fear. What would the next flashlight beam in my eyes mean? Would I get room therapy due to my insomnia? The reason for these "therapeutic dealings" were never rational. Say you went home on a visit and saw an old friend and came back to group and the told the group. Suddenly you would get "chair therapy" for not asking to speak to friend on the outside as a privilege. With the help of Che, I found some good articles about the abuses of that time:
http://www.psychcrime.org/ (mother of all psych crimes database)
http://www.psychcrime.org/articles/Univ ... ients.html
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qs ... 5001400578
(interesting article from the preview) can't get the rest.
The infamous JCAHO question http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/ ... ation.html
Here is the best book I have found about the abuses of the 1980s and early 1990s: http://www.amazon.com/Bedlam-Profiteeri ... 397&sr=1-6

While I will never know for certain if someone got kickbacks for my multiple hospitalizations, I feel rather certain that at least two people did. It was well known that Bob Meehan's counselors got kickbacks for referring to either Deer Park Hospital and Medical Arts Hospital in Houston. So the kickbacks were a given. No wonder I got a Christmas card from my shrink while away at my long term lock up in Dallas.

[Che Gookin]

What is chair therapy?

[iamartsy]

Chair therapy is the same as room therapy, but you have to sit on a fiberglass chair staring at a wall or window, while everyone else in the same room watches TV or plays cards, etc. Part of it is about humiliation and part of it was to get you "more in touch with your feelings". I don't know how that worked with the TV in the background. Also one foot had to be on the floor and you had could not do any personal reading. People used to smuggle magazines and leave them by the person in "chair therapy". It was up to the person on chair not to get caught.

[iamartsy]

I never knew this whole topic made it all the way to the NY Times: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... gewanted=1

[iamartsy]

I forgot this one: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A965958260

It is important because it is a win in our column.

[Che Gookin]

"more in touch with your feelings".

That one sounds familiar.

[iamartsy]

Yes, but that was an odd way to get one "in touch with their feelings". I think you usually talk to a therapist for that. That is how I dealt with the aftermath of the hospitalization. A therapist guided me to my feelings because I was very shut down at that point (1988). Suddenly, I was out of college and shut down from my feelings. I had to enter the "real world" and was in no way ready for it. I have always isolated enough on my own. No need to isolate me; yet that is what they were about to do had I not exited at patient's request.

[Guest5432]

Curious if anyone has information concerning Laurel Ridge psychiatric hospitals, especially those in San Antonio and Austin, TX.   This picture is one child who died in San Antonio after being restrained.  He was only 9 years old!~

Just because the state of Texas licenses a residential, group, orphanage does not mean the place is fit for human beings to live.  Am curious about Southwest Mental Health Center, where 14 year-old Willie Wright was restrained to death.

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VEhdOOOzZg - Worst Little Hell Holes in Texas

[iamartsy]

It looks like Laurel Ridge has become part of the old Brown Schools network. Please see this for more info on Texas: http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=26214&start=0&hilit=gao+texas

It is not a place you want to go for treatment. I had one friend in West Oaks and basically they hold you long enough to detox you. Then you are sent to outpatient for 6 weeks. Some places won't hold you any longer than your insurance will allow. The GAO report, while old, might give you some understanding of TX.

[try another castle]

It looks like Laurel Ridge has become part of the old Brown Schools network. Please see this for more info on Texas: http://http://www.fornits.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=26214&start=0&hilit=gao+texas

It is not a place you want to go for treatment. I had one friend in West Oaks and basically they hold you long enough to detox you. Then you are sent to outpatient for 6 weeks. Some places won't hold you any longer than your insurance will allow. The GAO report, while old, might give you some understanding of TX.

West Oaks... is that in North Dallas? I think that's where I was almost sent after my suicide attempt. Either that or it was green oaks. Either way it doesnt matter cause I didnt go, but still.

[iamartsy]

Green Oaks is in North Dallas. In the old days (1985-1986), I think they used to send people on to Timberlawn if they needed "more" treatment. Green Oaks is part of HCA, http://http://www.greenoakspsych.com/. Back in the 80s there were so many hospitals with lawn and oaks in the name that it was downright ridiculous. Ironically Timberlawn was right next to "Grove Hill Cemetary". Irony, huh? Can you tell I have grown quite cynical?

Castle, you guys had another name for Chair and Room Therapy at CEDU but I cannot remember what it was. Basically no communication with anyone of any kind.

[Anonymous]

Well I know I am not the only one who witnessed abuse in a psychiatric hospital. I have long felt like the only one on fornits. Awhile back I posted a newsgroup piece by a fellow inmate from the renowned Dallas psychiatric hospital where we both resided. I keep looking for other people who survived the psychiatric hospital abuses that I witnessed in the 1980s and 1990s. If you have witnessed them please post. What I saw I would not wish on anyone. I saw people left in leather 5 point restraints for weeks at a time. Once they were let out, they had lost the muscle tone to walk. Their bathroom had been a bedpan for all those weeks. There was also a form of isolation they called "room therapy". You stared at a wall in your room for 16 hours a day, with bathroom breaks every 2 hours, and dinner in your room staring at the wall. Room therapy would go on for about 9 months at a time or more.

Obviously, I lived in a state of fear. What would the next flashlight beam in my eyes mean? Would I get room therapy due to my insomnia? The reason for these "therapeutic dealings" were never rational. Say you went home on a visit and saw an old friend and came back to group and the told the group. Suddenly you would get "chair therapy" for not asking to speak to friend on the outside as a privilege. With the help of Che, I found some good articles about the abuses of that time:
http://www.psychcrime.org/ (mother of all psych crimes database)
http://www.psychcrime.org/articles/Univ ... ients.html
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qs ... 5001400578
(interesting article from the preview) can't get the rest.
The infamous JCAHO question http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/ ... ation.html
Here is the best book I have found about the abuses of the 1980s and early 1990s: http://www.amazon.com/Bedlam-Profiteeri ... 397&sr=1-6

While I will never know for certain if someone got kickbacks for my multiple hospitalizations, I feel rather certain that at least two people did. It was well known that Bob Meehan's counselors got kickbacks for referring to either Deer Park Hospital and Medical Arts Hospital in Houston. So the kickbacks were a given. No wonder I got a Christmas card from my shrink while away at my long term lock up in Dallas.

Wow. I have to say, between Cedu, Straight and this...you' really, really were horribly victimized. Unbelievable.

[try another castle]

Green Oaks is in North Dallas. In the old days (1985-1986), I think they used to send people on to Timberlawn if they needed "more" treatment. Green Oaks is part of HCA, http://http://www.greenoakspsych.com/. Back in the 80s there were so many hospitals with lawn and oaks in the name that it was downright ridiculous. Ironically Timberlawn was right next to "Grove Hill Cemetary". Irony, huh? Can you tell I have grown quite cynical?

Castle, you guys had another name for Chair and Room Therapy at CEDU but I cannot remember what it was. Basically no communication with anyone of any kind.

We had several variants. One was bans, which prevented us from communicating with specific students or specific groups of students. Then there were things such as booths and living rooms, and the most severe was the full-time.

Not sure what the details are regarding chair and room therapy, but room therapy also sounds similar (in name at least) to quiet rooms, which are used in many lock-up and psychiatric facilities. (Similar to a "time out") Patients who were "going off" were locked in such rooms to quiet down.

Dallas in general had a lot of oak and lawn things. Green Oaks facility, West Oaks facility, Timberlawn, Oak Lawn (gay neighborhood), South Oak Cliff (da hood. spent quite a lot of time there. )

And other tree related things. I heard, much to my disappointment, that forest lane no longer has a forest. sad.

[iamartsy]

We had several variants. One was bans, which prevented us from communicating with specific students or specific groups of students. Then there were things such as booths and living rooms, and the most severe was the full-time.

Not sure what the details are regarding chair and room therapy, but room therapy also sounds similar (in name at least) to quiet rooms, which are used in many lock-up and psychiatric facilities. (Similar to a "time out") Patients who were "going off" were locked in such rooms to quiet down.

Dallas in general had a lot of oak and lawn things. Green Oaks facility, West Oaks facility, Timberlawn, Oak Lawn (gay neighborhood), South Oak Cliff (da hood. spent quite a lot of time there. )

And other tree related things. I heard, much to my disappointment, that forest lane no longer has a forest. sad.

"Fulltimes" is what I was trying to remember. The only difference was that Chair and Room could last anywhere from 3 mos. - 2 years. It definitely was not to calm anyone down.

I loved Oak Cliff. Great everything. Also liked the Dallas bar scene when I went back for my brother's wedding later. I sneaked off to the bars one night. Since I was supposed to be cured, I had to sneak off. I also liked the the Stork Club!  Is Forest Lane now Mc Mansions? I never go back to Dallas. Actually, I avoid it at all costs. It brings back too many bad memories. As it is, I dislike TX, but am here for now. I hope to get to Denver or back to the NYC at some point.

[Anonymous]

Green Oaks is in North Dallas. In the old days (1985-1986), I think they used to send people on to Timberlawn if they needed "more" treatment. Green Oaks is part of HCA, http://http://www.greenoakspsych.com/. Back in the 80s there were so many hospitals with lawn and oaks in the name that it was downright ridiculous. Ironically Timberlawn was right next to "Grove Hill Cemetary". Irony, huh? Can you tell I have grown quite cynical?

Castle, you guys had another name for Chair and Room Therapy at CEDU but I cannot remember what it was. Basically no communication with anyone of any kind.

Green Oaks is part of HCA, http://http://www.greenoakspsych.com/
If any of you ever wondered of your captors," Were they were always like that ?(even when they left work)... were they always that evil?"
Yes.