Talk with Tenney: OPEN LINES: Involuntary Outpatient Commitment Laws

Involuntary outpatient commitment laws impose human and civil rights violations on people who are subjected to them. call in!

9:00 guest: Erick Fabris, Author, Tranquil Prisons

Erick Fabris is a psychiatric survivor activist, writer, and artist. His first book on forced treatment, Tranquil Prisons, was published by University of Toronto Press. After a stint in Vancouver General’s psych unit, he helped organize Mad Pride (1993), the No Force Coalition (1999), and has been a member of the Mad Students Society (2006). Erick has given lectures on rights and alternatives in mental health, from Africa and Europe to the US and Canada.

Tranquil Prisons is a book about how major tranquilizers, also called neuroleptics and antipsychotics, are used to restrain mental patients for long periods without the fuss of detaining them in cells. The writer calls this form of therapy a chemical incarceration, as it slows the body and brain in an effort to constrain people labelled mentally ill. He also argues that this form of torture will continue to be discussed as a mere treatment issue by professionals in the helping industries unless psych survivors highlight it as a human rights issue. This in-depth study is held together by personal testimonies and an activist’s hard won knowledge of the psych system. Published by the University of Toronto Press, Tranquil Prisons is an engaging look at IOCs and CTOs as an example of how treatment becomes punishment under psychiatry.

10:00 guest:

Anthony C., from Rockland County, who will be on the show tonight stated:

"I think NY State's Kendra's Law is unduly restrictive and inhumane. How could you require a person to undergo forced psychiatric medication when that same person would refuse life sustaining treatment for cancer or any other terminal disease? It just boggles the mind."

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