The context in which this article is penned
is rule by institutions which are functions of the state, in particular those
deemed services; the ways in which these interconnect to create a veritable
trap; contrary to current hegemony, the ease with which they can substantially
harm those that they “serve”. Pivotal in this article is the “mental health
system” and the psychiatric dangers that it presents (for an extensive
demonstration that psychiatry intrinsically harms and lacks validity, see
Burstow, 2015). Likewise figuring prominently are the educational system and
the social services—which, despite their comparative validity are themselves centralized
sites of social control, and as such, also wreak havoc in people’s lives.
At the centre of the discussion are two
stories, each involving individuals competently attending to their own needs
and/or the needs of their loved ones precisely by keeping one or more of these
institutions at bay. These particular stories were chosen because of my intricate
knowledge of each, also because of the contrast between them (they take place
in very different eras, and very different modes of resistance are involved). Questions
explored with respect to them include: What problems do the stories bring to
light? Would the complications encountered in the first story have been better or
worse if some semblance of these events played out today? What attitude do they
suggest that we should take to the various apparatuses of the state? What do
they tell us about resistance? And insofar as the solutions arrived at by the
central protagonists might be thought of as instructive, what do they alert us
to, open up as possibilities, or prefigure?
Story
One: Ottawa, 1950s.
A younger me is the central protagonist of
this story, age 12-13. My family had just moved from Winnipeg Manitoba to
Ottawa Ontario, and both in Ottawa itself and in the new school that I attended
I found myself encountering a level of anti-Semitism which I had not previously
experienced. Badly thrown, for better or for worse, I did not share these conundrums
with my folks for my dad had just suffered a major heart attack and parents were
in such dire financial distress that it is all they could do to put food on the
table. What I did is stop going to school. A truant officer was summarily dispatched
to our flat to drag me to school. Eyeing this menacing looking figure approaching
the door, I locked it, whereupon he yelled, “If you know what’s good for you,
you’ll unlock the door pronto.” As I
did not respond, he eventually departed. This left the school in a tricky
position for what was happening here blatantly broke the rules. What was their solution
to this interference with standard operations? To insist that I must be “mentally
ill” and force me to see a psychiatrist – a framing which “solved” their
immediate problem.
For the next year and a half, I saw a
psychiatrist thrice a week. He began by administering an ink blot test, then
asking follow-up questions. Whence began an extended conversation, which in no
way touched on any of my conundrums. Now one day I inquired what would happen
to me when I was out of answers to his queries. He never responded, from which
I surmised that my safest course of action was to keep the conversation going. Now
I did indeed wonder whether or not I might be “mentally ill”, as almost
everyone beset by psychiatry does—for we are primed to do so. However, he soon
made a critical error that signaled to me that he had not a clue what he was
doing. He told my folks and the school
authorities that it was okay that I had left school for I had not the
intelligence to pass out of grade 7. Well aware that I had just heard something
preposterous, I made my own assessment of the assessor and his tools, and I continued
to bide my time. Meanwhile, knowing that I would be seriously disadvantaged in
life with nothing but a grade 6 education, I took a part-time job at the
National Art Gallery of Canada—and I stayed alert to whatever “possibilities”
arose.
One day my family announced that we would be
moving back to Manitoba, more particularly, to the small northern town of Churchill—for
my dad had landed a job there. Here was my moment! I intuitively knew that whatever
anti-Semitism awaited me there would be in a range that I could handle. I
immediately told my parents that I wished to return to school. They nodded. Taking
a deep breath, I continued, “but I don't want to go back to grade 7. How about
if I go to the grade I would’ve been in at this juncture had none of this ever
happened –y’know, grade 9.” Without soliciting any further explanation, again my
parents nodded. The question, however, was how to pull off a coup of this
proportion given that no school would knowingly permit such a major violation
of their rules. Indeed, as we were all aware, such a request would not even “compute”.
My father’s brow knit as if he were lost in thought. Then he responded, “I'll
assure them that you passed out of grades 7 and 8 and that I have sent for the
records and they simply have not yet arrived.”
My parents looked at me, knowing that I was
the weak link for I had (and yes, still have) a passion for truth. I also knew
that we were up against an unbending power and this was a critical moment–for
here was my opportunity to get my life back on track. So I took a deep breath,
then returned their nod. And without a word from anyone, the die was cast.
We moved. I spent the summer hitting the
books so that I could handle grade 9. Then the school year commenced.
For the next several months, my father stalled
the principal, who kept calling to inquire about my records from Ottawa. Come
the end of the first term, I took the interim exams and came in top of my
class. Then circumstances landed us in Winnipeg, where I subsequently took the
departmental exams. The successful completion of the departmental exams meant that
I could now “officially” enter grade 10.
I continued on, completed high school, attended
a number of different universities, where I acquired four different degrees,
included a doctorate, and received numerous awards (e.g., the Russell Gold
Medal in Philosophy). Then I resumed teaching in universities (which I had
begun after my first masters). In the fullness of time, I became a world famous
scholar who had published extensively. All this, by a person, note, “officially”
without sufficient intelligence to pass out of grade 7.
Discussion
of Story One
Students being forced to deal with
pernicious racialization is a common plight in schools. As a 12 year old who
was thrown by a level of it that I had not previously witnessed, I dealt with
it as best as I could. Clearly, the solution itself was less than ideal. At the
same time, getting distance from the daily assault on my dignity was a
reasonable course of action given that there was nothing in the system which
even allowed for the possibility of such difficulties existing. Hence the
decision to absent myself (the first act of resistance). Once I acted on this
decision, two of arms of the state—the educational system and psychiatry—entered
in to rectify a breach of their rules that could only be conceptualized institutionally
as something over which they needed to reassert control. I was now trapped at
least seemingly between two unacceptable outcomes—being dragged back into an
oppressive learning environment or falling prey to psychiatry.
To the best of my ability I proceeded to
keep both institutions at bay. I kept
the school system at bay by going along with their insistence that I see a
psychiatrist. And I kept psychiatry at bay in essence by engaging in a kind of
mindless chatter that might best be characterized as stalling. Anguished though
I was, the task which I set myself was competently performed, in other words,
and the tactic was successful.
Likewise competently exercised and sensible
was the decision to return to school once I had reason to believe that I would
be entering a safer environment. By the same token the decision made by my
entire family—for me to skip two grades and for us all to lie to the principal—also
made sense. Lest it strike you otherwise, let me invite you for a moment to
consider the alternative: Had we played by the rules, not only would I have
been unnecessarily stuck in a class with students two years younger, having
received the relevant documents from Ottawa, instead of approaching me as a bright
and promising student, the school officials would have instantly turned to
pathologizing. And indeed we were all of us acutely aware of this, and as such,
our response constitutes “critically aware resistance”.
Herein, let me suggest, the fact that we
were working class served the family well. The point here is that working class
families, like most other oppressed groups, harbour an inherent distrust of the
establishment, have a standpoint which, while hardly foolproof, uniquely
positions us to see through the official line. What we understood, quite
simply, is that the system is not our
friend. And what is mere dishonesty in one situation is self-protection in
another. Not that sheer luck did not likewise come to our aid.
That said, to return to the various
institutions themselves, what was wrong with what each one did—beginning with
the educational system? Besides that the educational system allowed an
atmosphere of anti-Semitism to flourish in the first place, it activated
institutional responses which were ill advised, insensitive, and punitive. And
capturing even themselves up by their rules, they turned a situation which
called for listening, respect, and creative problem-solving into one which
allowed for only two possible interpretations and two possible courses of
action—both of them injurious—EITHER the child was “derelict” and therefore
should be manhandled into returning to school OR the child was “mentally ill”
and therefore should be forced into the psychiatric system.
What did psychiatry in turn do wrong? It
uncritically accepted its role as the correct handler of the situation. It
failed to share information. It prioritized its own dubious tools over human
relating. Correspondingly, as an agent of the state, the psychiatrist proceeded
to come up with an assessment that not only made no sense but was transparently
political. The point is if “the child” was both “mentally ill” and “intellectually
incapable”, the broken rules became far less of a problem for the other arm of
the state—the school. Moreover, psychiatry’s “owning” of the situation was
guaranteed.
Now as it happens, only two arms of the
state directly figure in this saga,
and in both cases, significantly, contrary to their own sense of themselves,
they were problem-creators, not problem-solvers. Nonetheless another arm
of the state might easily have entered in, and had it done so, it too would
have been a problem-creator. To wit: What if the family had been less skillful
in pulling off this ruse and the deception and collusion became evident? In
accordance with the boss texts which determine its operation, the school would
have been obliged to call in Child and Family Services. Expertly applying their
own texts, the Child and Family Services officials, in turn, would have “determined”
that the welfare of the child was at stake, that the parents were badly
negligent at the bare minimum, and that the removal of the child from the home
was mandatory. At which point, “the child” would not only have lost her home,
her foundation, and her one true ally but in all likelihood, would once again
have been facing the danger of the psychiatric system (theorized as help).
Moreover, the family as a whole would suffer.
Now it might be argued that this happened eons
ago and things would have played out in a better way today. Let me suggest,
however, that racialization in schools remains a fact. Moreover, if we assume even a vaguely similar
beginning and a vaguely similar set of circumstances, the outcome today would be
every bit as bad and arguably considerably worse. How so?
There is now a far closer relationship
between the educational system and the psychiatric system. Moreover, there has
not only been a “drug revolution” but a specific honing in on the child market
(see Whitaker, 2010 and Burstow 2015). Ergo, “the child” would almost certainly
have ended up on psychiatric drugs, with all the brain-damage which this
entails—a course of action that would have likely commenced the moment that she
stopped attending class.
Nor would the escape route that opened up later
exist. The point is, unlike in 1950s, subterfuge of that particular nature is
impossible under the current circumstances for the problematic records would
follow the child electronically wherever she went. Moreover, even were it
possible, were the subterfuge ever discovered, not only would the social
services still remove the child (see http://web2.gov.mb.ca/laws/statutes/ccsm/c080e.php),
and not only would psychiatry similarly summarily be called in, the psychiatry
called in would be modern psychiatry
–that is, one duly armed with toxic drugs.
.
Story
Two: Toronto, Current Times
The major protagonists in this story are: a
woman whose husband had recently died (pseudonym: Nel), her children, and her
mother-in-law (pseudonym: Lisa).
A year ago, as a well known antipsychiatry therapist
whose opinion she respected, Lisa called me to solicit my advice about how to
help her daughter-in-law. The backstory? Nel was overwhelmed, was having
enormous trouble coping. And she would every so often start screaming at her
children. The children in turn were frightened of their mother. What had Lisa already
done with respect to her family? Something remarkable. She had supported both
the children and their mother. She had also begun advocating on Lisa’s behalf,
arranging for nonintrusive counseling and stopping psychiatry’s relentless attempt
to push psychiatric drugs on Nel. Having been asked what she might do now, I naturally
applauded Lisa’s efforts to date and urged
her to continue on in the same vein. I likewise suggested that she spend as
much time as possible listening to Nel, helping her mourn, and brainstorming
solutions with her (and I gave her ideas how to do this), that she support the
children similarly, that she provide the children with a place to which to retreat,
as needed, moreover, that she encourage the family to hold meetings where
everyone discussed the problems in the family and explored ways to support one
another.
What next I heard from Lisa, besides having
enacted all my suggestions, she had also in effect taught her family all that I
had taught her. Additionally, she had masterminded an agreement whereby when Nel
was having a bad day, she would shut herself in her room to spare the children,
and on the children’s side, they would let their mom know that they needed to
take off now and would return when “the storm had blown over.” Which they all accomplished
without involving authorities and without incident.
What happened in the fullness of time? The
pain, needless to say, did not disappear. Nonetheless, Nel began getting
control over her life. The family became good at handling its problems
together. The children ceased being afraid, confident that they were loved, knowing,
moreover, that everything could be discussed and everything handled
together. Correspondingly, the family unit
stayed in tact.
Discussion
of Story Two
The institutions involved here or which
threatened to become so are two of the very ones that figured so prominently in
the first story. However, a very different dynamic played out, with the institutions
totally kept in line—with one, additionally, drawn on as needed—and by someone
with a keen sense of how to advocate.
That psychiatry posed an imminent threat to
Nel is transparently obvious. Lisa's calm and effective resistance, however, prevented
anything untoward from happening. What Lisa did is gently but persistently block
the intrusion at hand and successfully lobby instead for the provision of
empathic psychological counseling while reassuring everyone by her steady ongoing
involvement. By the same token, once again we have a situation in which Child
and Family Services would normally have been called in, and had this happened,
once again, in all likelihood the children would have been removed—and everyone thereby harmed. The persistent,
skillful, and loving help which Lisa provided prevented this from happening, moreover
turned the entire situation around, leaving all family members and the family
as a whole in a far better place.
What particularly strikes me about this
story, I would add, is how incredibly better Lisa responded than oh-so-many mothers-in-law
would. The point is that a situation like this in a patriarchal culture is a
setup for a mother-in-law in grieving and who is naturally worried about her
grandchildren to fall into pathologizing and/or vilifying her daughter-in-law, perhaps
even encouraging social services to remove the children, placing them in her custody
instead. This might or might not be accompanied by her urging that the
daughter-in-law be “afforded” psychiatric “care”. How wonderful that Lisa was so
clear-sighted and giving that instead of sacrificing the daughter-in-law, she safeguarded
her, while helping the entire family.
In so doing, I would add, she prefigured
how families and community members might handle problems in the better type of society
that I would like to see us build (for details, see Burstow, 2015, Chapter
Nine).
Summation/Conclusions/Suggestions
This article has laid bare a number of the intricate,
insidious, and profound ways that institutions which are arms of the state individually
and collectively control people, in the process substantially injuring and/or
endangering them. It likewise has made visible everyday acts of skilled
resistance. Correspondingly, it has demonstrated the utter necessity of such
resistance. Had I chosen stories involving other institutions, I would suggest,
as long as psychiatry or the criminal justice system were one of them—and to an
appreciable degree, even were they not—similar dynamics would have materialized.
The primary lessons to be gleaned from the
forgoing are: While for sure there are times when certain institutions serve
us, we can ill afford to simply place our faith in any institution, much less any institution embedded in the state, this,
note, despite the fact that society “dictates” otherwise. We need to be aware of the connections
between all major social institutions, to see how they can work together to the
enormous disadvantage of human beings caught up by them. We need to prioritize people over institutions. We need to
keep our eyes peeled for instances when resistance is in order. And we need to know how to resist.
In ending, some concrete recommendations
that readers might consider:
·
Nurture a healthy skepticism
about all the arms of the state, including, and perhaps especially, ones
theorized as “help”.
·
Albeit it may well be that
psychiatry (and I would personally add others) is the sole arm of the state totally lacking in validity, be aware that an analysis restricted to psychiatry
is insufficient. Safety lies in having an analysis of all regimes of ruling, having a sense of how they interconnect, and
acting accordingly.
·
Get into the practice of noticing
how power operates.
·
Step back from the worldview
created by regimes of ruling so that you are in a position to truly assess both
what is happening and what the institution or the institutional network is
likely to do. A good beginning is distancing yourself from their discourses (see
Burstow, 2013).
·
Touch base with and respect
your own knowledge and that of your community—for irrespective of how the
institutions may frame things, you surely do have knowledge.
·
Take note of the institutions currently
governing your actions or those of your loved ones and/or community, with an
eye to determining what problems might arise, what steps you can predict, and
how, if necessary, you might work around them.
·
Observe how seemingly separate
institutions connect together in ways which entrap individuals.
·
Study not only the routine operation
of institutions but the permutations that occur when they connect with
racialized communities, with women, with the very young, with the very old, with
the disabled, with the LGBTQ community.
·
Remember that “experts” and
their “knowledge” are themselves institutional products.
·
Be willing to reach out as
helpful; be equally willing to keep your own counsel as necessary.
·
Negotiate and advocate where
helpful.
·
When facing the power,
contradictions, and circular reasoning of institutions, be prepared to sabotage
and to do so skillfully.
·
Study resistance strategies,
investigating what works and under what circumstances.
·
Try to navigate life in ways
that maximize the likelihood that everyone’s
welfare is safeguarded, community is supported, and a decentering of power
occurs.
Finally, never forget that children are far
more resourceful than adults realize, moreover, while they may be at a loss to
explain themselves, they have unique insight into their own needs. Correspondingly,
if you find yourself dismissing their behavior as misguided, as simply bad, or
worse yet, as evidence of a fictitious disease like “oppositional defiance
disorder”, reach back to the time when you were a kid—then think again!!
References
Burstow, B. (2015). Psychiatry
and the Business of Madness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Burstow, B. (2013).
A Rose by any Other Name. In Mad Matters. ed. Brenda Lefrançois, Robert Menzies, and Geoffrey
Reaume. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, pp. 79-93.
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