My time as a teenage psychiatric patient | Letter

The fear of electroconvulsive therapy and its after-effects loomed over Alison Tudor Hart’s stay in a psychiatric unit in the 1960sBlake Morrison’s review of Jon Stock’s book The Sleep Room (Shocking tales from 1960s psychiatry, 9 April) mentioned that Celia Imrie was admitted to a psychiatric unit in 1966, when she was 14. I was too, in the same year and at the same age – in my case, a large acute adult ward at Stratheden hospital in Fife, their adolescent unit having no beds at the time. I was an inpatient for three weeks and am for ever indebted to the consultant psychiatrist who managed my admission, treatment and discharge to a safer environment.Morrison’s review of Stock’s exposé of William Sargant and 1960s psychiatry reinforces my sense of good fortune, against all the odds at the time. Continue reading...