DOES PSYCHIATRY MAKE YOU CRAZY. . . written by the daughter of a psychiatrist.
The author of this book, pen name Dru Anne Zane, grew up on the grounds of a mental institution. Her father was a psychiatrist. She saw patients at the mental hospital on a daily basis. She even talked to them. She was allowed to walk around the grounds freely and play there, as any child might play in his neighborhood.. She didn’t wonder too much about the patients as a child. She took them for granted. Just as there were storekeepers, dentists and farmers in the world, there were “patients.”
How was she to know that almost a half a century later, she would become a psych buster and write a book about it?
By the time Dru Anne decided to write this book, she knew many people who had been harmed by psychiatry, including her next door neighbor, a child who was forced to take Ritalin, because “she daydreamed too much in school.” There were many books about psychiatry, pro and con, but what about a book written in soap opera style, emotional, easy to read, and likely to get passed on? Dru Anne Zane also grew up listening to “soap operas” – melodramatic stories on the radio that were sponsored by soap companies: “The Romance of Helen Trent,” “Perry Mason,” “Our Gal Sunday.” They were very popular.
The book’s goal: To expose and decry one of the greatest abuses against mankind – psychiatry and its practices– that people, following authoritarian control, are not aware of.
The book’s purposes:
1. To tell real stories from real people of psychiatric abuse. (Names changed to protect the innocent)
2. To have the book be in an easy to read, enjoyable, “soap opera” style.
3. Since people in these stories are talking about it, get readers to “talk about it.”
4. Enlighten people that there are alternatives. They don’t have to do what is “ordinary” and protected by “authorities.”
5. To help create a movement for sound, safe mental health treatment.
People view psychiatric treatment as “the norm.” “If it weren’t good, it wouldn’t still be around” they say. There are psychiatric abuses everywhere. Just ask friends and neighbors. Trouble is people aren’t talking about it.
