Psychiatric Retraumatization: A Conversation About Trauma and Madness in Mental Health Services
Noël Hunter: I think the more extensively one has been hurt in life, particularly if it was during development, the more likely one is to be hurt again and again and again in life. The mental health system is a reflection of that. I believe that, on the whole, the system is part of one large re-enactment of early dynamics—whether they be experiences of marginalization, discrimination, rejection, dismissiveness, judgment and condemnation, etc.—and there is a huge lack of awareness on the part of most professionals of how they are complicit in playing these out.
A [B]lack man spends his life being marginalized and aggressed, dismissed because of his fear and pain—should he enter the system, he is no longer “less-than” because of his blackness, now he’s marginalized and dismissed as “schizophrenic.” A sexually-abused young woman who was told she “wanted it,” was blamed, and was never given the opportunity to be angry enters the system—she now is “borderline” and once again blamed for being too sexualized, for causing staff to behave in shameful ways, and condemned for her anger, even when it is taken out on herself.
Perhaps more than any other, the most common enactment is that associated with the individual who grew up with a narcissistic parent in constant need of adulation, intolerant of discomfort or self-reflection, and who was a master in the art of gaslighting.
Why I saved this
Insight into why so many Black people fear medical institutions. It's another way to demean us.
Notes
This is a copy of someone else's work, kept as a source. Original: Psychiatric Retraumatization: A Conversation About Trauma and Madness in Mental Health Services