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On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System
236 pages Mcgraw-Hill; 1 edition (April 1979) English 0070104514 978-0070104518 Product 7.9 x 5.3 inches Shipping 8 ounces
236 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 28, 2021
This one has been on my list forever. I've read lots of Chamberlin's work, so I can't believe how long it took me to finally read it cover to cover.
The book is composed of three basic types of writing, all intermixed. It's part critique of psychiatry, part personal memoir, and part survey of 1970s era alternative psychiatric facilities (crisis centers, therapeutic communities, day centers, residential centers, and more). It's an absolute classic in the history of madness and psychiatric survivor work, and it's important to read it both for the arguments made but also as one of the key documents of 1970s survivor activism.
The critiques of psychiatry are not the strongest out there. Chamberlin mostly adopts a very common form of anti-psychiatry inspired by Szasz and Scheff. Typical of this critique, she holds that: psychiatric patients shouldn't be treated like criminals, since they didn't commit any crimes; and the core of the problem of psychiatry is mystification and coercion. I don't find these arguments very compelling in the US where "criminal" is extremely elastic and the law is just as discretionary. That being said, when she's writing directly about her own experience in the system and not summarizing these more famous works, her writing is much more powerful and compelling. Her auto-ethnography about becoming a mental patient through disempowerment and mystification is incredible.
The segments on mental patients self-organization are part narrative, part self-criticism, and part exhortation/call to action. Despite my few nit-picking differences here and there, this is an essential resource for people looking to do this work in the present, as she lays out honestly their points of pride and their shortcomings.
This is a must read for those interested in alternatives to psychiatry, critical psychiatry, or the history of madness.
The book is composed of three basic types of writing, all intermixed. It's part critique of psychiatry, part personal memoir, and part survey of 1970s era alternative psychiatric facilities (crisis centers, therapeutic communities, day centers, residential centers, and more). It's an absolute classic in the history of madness and psychiatric survivor work, and it's important to read it both for the arguments made but also as one of the key documents of 1970s survivor activism.
The critiques of psychiatry are not the strongest out there. Chamberlin mostly adopts a very common form of anti-psychiatry inspired by Szasz and Scheff. Typical of this critique, she holds that: psychiatric patients shouldn't be treated like criminals, since they didn't commit any crimes; and the core of the problem of psychiatry is mystification and coercion. I don't find these arguments very compelling in the US where "criminal" is extremely elastic and the law is just as discretionary. That being said, when she's writing directly about her own experience in the system and not summarizing these more famous works, her writing is much more powerful and compelling. Her auto-ethnography about becoming a mental patient through disempowerment and mystification is incredible.
The segments on mental patients self-organization are part narrative, part self-criticism, and part exhortation/call to action. Despite my few nit-picking differences here and there, this is an essential resource for people looking to do this work in the present, as she lays out honestly their points of pride and their shortcomings.
This is a must read for those interested in alternatives to psychiatry, critical psychiatry, or the history of madness.
March 5, 2018
An important book that any mental health professional, patient, ex-patient or person looking to understand the mental health system. Its from a 1970s POV, so its limited to the kind of perspective of a white, middle class, American woman but it still has a relevance today because little has changed in the 50 years since and something are worse. I had no idea that the author stayed in what I would now call a 'peer respite center' in 1975, 40 years before I knew of them and that is a crime against humanity that they are still considered 'radical'. It shows how psychiatry still doesn't understand the harms of any form of institutional psychiatry. There is no benevolent, benefical form, its just prison. And both of those result in people becoming institutional subjects. And mental patients are prisoners who have committed no crime and who have no recourse in any legitimate court. After their release, because of stigma, they are burdened with discrimination for the rest of their lives like prisoners.
July 24, 2019
I'm gaping at how (sadly) relevant this book is despite a lot of changes in the mental health system, available medications, and fluctuating diagnostic categories. It was fascinating to read how alternative, user-led care could look and should continue to inspire the (what I'll very broadly call) Mad movements today.
September 12, 2024
This book really pushes you to think long and deeply about assumptions and opinions you may hold about mental illness and psychiatry. While there were certainly parts of the book I don’t agree with (some of the stances regarding the causes of mental illness and the use of psychiatric medication lacked some nuance), I still think it was worth challenging my beliefs and seeing which ones I felt held and which needed some reframing.
August 8, 2018
Important and inspiring. The beginning is a bit tedious, and the end a bit repetitive, but throughout the points she makes are important and revolutionary. The text is dated, and it is noticeable in her word choices, phrasing’s, and how mental health— the corresponding industry and it’s alternatives— is described. Nonetheless an important work for anyone interested in disability rights, saneism , madphobia, and right to self-determination for vulnerable people’s.
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April 1, 2009Reviewed here.
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July 29, 2017Amazing, insightful and informative book. Her style of writing is so engaging and I feel so much more well==-equipped to be a peer in the mental health system.
September 11, 2024
A FORMER MENTAL PATIENT CRITIQUES THE CURRENT SYSTEM, AND PROPOSES CHANGE
Judi Chamberlin is a former mental patient, who wrote, "Eleven years ago, I spent about five months as a patient in six mental hospitals. The experience totally demoralized me... It was years before I allowed myself to feel anger at a system that had locked me up, denied me warm and meaningful contact with human beings, drugged me, and so thoroughly confused me that I thought of this treatment as helpful." (Pg. 7)
She wrote in the Introduction to this 1978 book, "This is a book about psychiatry and alternatives to it, written from a patient's point of view. For too long, mental patients have been faceless, voiceless people. We have been thought of, at worst, as subhuman monsters, or, at best, as pathetic cripples, who might be able to hold down menial jobs and eke out meager existences, given constant professional support. Not only have others thought of us in this stereotyped way, we have believed it of ourselves.
"It is only in this decade, with the emergence and growth of the mental patients' liberation movement, that we ex-patients have begun to shake off this distorted image and to see ourselves for what we are---a diverse group of people, with strengths and weaknesses, abilities and needs, and ideas of our own. Our ideas about our 'care' and 'treatment' at the hands of psychiatry, about the nature of 'mental illness,' and the new and better ways to deal with (and truly to help) people undergoing emotional crises differ drastically from those of mental health professionals." (Pg. xi)
She adds, "No one denies that people in emotional pain can use help---the questions arise over what kinds of help, and under what circumstances. The present mental health system focuses much of its attention on people who do not want help, people who have been defined as mentally ill and unable to judge their own best interests... Although all is done in the name of care and concern, the underlying coercive nature of the system constantly makes itself felt. Patients are not supposed to speak of it... Only when the patient learns the rules of the game---that black is to be called white, and punishment called treatment---does the staff consider him or her to be on the road to recovery. The real lesson is that one must always hide one's true feelings---hardly a prescription for emotional well-being." (Pg. xiv)
Later, she adds, "The reliance on medical expertise leads to passive patients submitting to 'treatments' such as the heavy use of psychiatric drugs, which is often perceived by the patients as torture. Only agreeing that one is ill and in need of help brings the possibility of ending the treatment." (Pg. 111)
She notes, "The alternative programs that form the subject of this book are different, because their underlying philosophy is different. Nonprofessional, client-controlled services don't divide people into 'sick' and 'well'... They see every person as having a combination of strengths and weaknesses, and the need for help in one area does not negate the ability to help others also." (Pg. 63)
She concludes, "Community mental health centers are not replacing the state hospital system; they are a growing, parallel bureaucracy. Community mental health centers need state hospitals as weapons with which to threaten their 'difficult' patients. And the state hospital bureaucracies, which have held power within each state for well over a hundred years, are not simply folding their tents... In many states, new state hospitals are being built (and filled). And in nearly every state the scandals of patient mistreatment and abuse continue..." (Pg. 219)
This book was one of the "foundational" texts of the psychiatric survivors' movement, and is an inspiration as well to the later Mad Pride movement.
Judi Chamberlin is a former mental patient, who wrote, "Eleven years ago, I spent about five months as a patient in six mental hospitals. The experience totally demoralized me... It was years before I allowed myself to feel anger at a system that had locked me up, denied me warm and meaningful contact with human beings, drugged me, and so thoroughly confused me that I thought of this treatment as helpful." (Pg. 7)
She wrote in the Introduction to this 1978 book, "This is a book about psychiatry and alternatives to it, written from a patient's point of view. For too long, mental patients have been faceless, voiceless people. We have been thought of, at worst, as subhuman monsters, or, at best, as pathetic cripples, who might be able to hold down menial jobs and eke out meager existences, given constant professional support. Not only have others thought of us in this stereotyped way, we have believed it of ourselves.
"It is only in this decade, with the emergence and growth of the mental patients' liberation movement, that we ex-patients have begun to shake off this distorted image and to see ourselves for what we are---a diverse group of people, with strengths and weaknesses, abilities and needs, and ideas of our own. Our ideas about our 'care' and 'treatment' at the hands of psychiatry, about the nature of 'mental illness,' and the new and better ways to deal with (and truly to help) people undergoing emotional crises differ drastically from those of mental health professionals." (Pg. xi)
She adds, "No one denies that people in emotional pain can use help---the questions arise over what kinds of help, and under what circumstances. The present mental health system focuses much of its attention on people who do not want help, people who have been defined as mentally ill and unable to judge their own best interests... Although all is done in the name of care and concern, the underlying coercive nature of the system constantly makes itself felt. Patients are not supposed to speak of it... Only when the patient learns the rules of the game---that black is to be called white, and punishment called treatment---does the staff consider him or her to be on the road to recovery. The real lesson is that one must always hide one's true feelings---hardly a prescription for emotional well-being." (Pg. xiv)
Later, she adds, "The reliance on medical expertise leads to passive patients submitting to 'treatments' such as the heavy use of psychiatric drugs, which is often perceived by the patients as torture. Only agreeing that one is ill and in need of help brings the possibility of ending the treatment." (Pg. 111)
She notes, "The alternative programs that form the subject of this book are different, because their underlying philosophy is different. Nonprofessional, client-controlled services don't divide people into 'sick' and 'well'... They see every person as having a combination of strengths and weaknesses, and the need for help in one area does not negate the ability to help others also." (Pg. 63)
She concludes, "Community mental health centers are not replacing the state hospital system; they are a growing, parallel bureaucracy. Community mental health centers need state hospitals as weapons with which to threaten their 'difficult' patients. And the state hospital bureaucracies, which have held power within each state for well over a hundred years, are not simply folding their tents... In many states, new state hospitals are being built (and filled). And in nearly every state the scandals of patient mistreatment and abuse continue..." (Pg. 219)
This book was one of the "foundational" texts of the psychiatric survivors' movement, and is an inspiration as well to the later Mad Pride movement.
April 2, 2018
Every behavioral health advocate should read this.
November 27, 2022
This book is so important to understand what anti-psychiatry is about.
I will try to write a longer review, but I cannot recommend this enough.
I will try to write a longer review, but I cannot recommend this enough.
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January 9, 2026if it's not voluntary it's not treatment
April 6, 2025
So important! I thoroughly enjoyed its insight and bravery. Not just a “mental patient” book but a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, and how to meet suffering and troubled people with compassion. What an amazing person she was.
January 30, 2025
An essential reading for Disability Studies, Ethics, the History of Disability and Psychology, and anyone in studying/working in fields centered around Mental Health. This book shows how the use psychology can control those living under capitalism and other oppressive systems (like the patriarchy) while also offering alternatives to psychiatric institutions. While this book is from the late 70s, many of the issues faced by those deemed "mentally ill" then are still occuring 50+ years later. My only note is to make a list of acronyms to refer back to later as you read.
January 19, 2015
Judi has just left us; long live her visions. Inspiring and brave story of her own mental illness and abuse by the metnal health system
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews