Child Pscyhiatric Services and Unjust Institutional Trends

As an author I regularly visit Amazon.co.uk to see how Delivered Unto Lions – my only published book (so far) – currently ranks in the Amazon bestsellers.  As write this, I see that it is placed at No. 70,247!  This Amazon chart is updated hourly, so my book – like most books – will drop down the chart as more and more other titles outsell it, but occasionally someone will buy a copy and send it leaping up to a much higher position. 

While checking on how my book is doing, relative to the competition, I will also look to see if a new customer review has been added.  Earlier this week I found that there was indeed a new review, and reading it left me quite stunned.  The review was by someone calling him or herself ‘Tworth’, and it said the following:

A ‘must’ read if nothing other than to make sure that this type of cruelty is non-existent in the future. Having been a student nurse at the actual real childrens unit that this is based in (names have been changed) I can remember with horror specific aspects of this sad but very well written book. [...] I sincerely hope some of the ex-staff are able to read this and feel remorse, horror and sadness for the effect their actions have had on the reader throughout his adult life, not to mention the poor children who were not so lucky. [...]

To be honest, I had half-expected some former member of staff (from the children’s unit where I was once a patient) to surface and contradict or discredit my book (and, of course, it could still happen).  But here we have an ex-student nurse coming out and endorsing what I have written.  Tworth’s comments reveal another aspect to the story that is only partly explored in my book: namely the impact that working in such an institution can have on a member of its staff.

I certainly hope that my book does not cast all the worker’s in the institution it portrays as villains!  One or two of them – obviously – are shown in that light, but on the whole, Delivered Unto Lions reserves its fire for the institution and its culture.  What we have here is an institution, a particular setting with its own rules and conventions, which allows – almost encourages – inappropriate, unpleasant, and sometimes abusive actions on the part of its staff.  Certain staff members get away with things because the system lets them, while others find themselves either unable to challenge what is going on or drawn in (possibly) to acting in ways which conflict with their consciences. 

Tworth expresses the hope that ‘some of the ex-staff [of the real unit which inspired my novel] are able to read this and feel remorse, horror and sadness’.  I am aware that some of these individuals are no longer living, so it’s too late to hope for remorse from them.  But of those who may still be around, I certainly hope that they can acknowledge where they went wrong, and if any of them are still involved in children’s psychiatric services, I hope they will have learnt from their past ‘mistakes’.

There is, however, something more that I hope for.  I hope there can now be a greater awareness of the impact that institutional cultures can have on the individuals working within them.  Just as we have seen institutional racism brought out into the light and challenged, I want to see any tendency towards unjust institutional trends in psychiatric services – especially those aimed at children – openly acknowledged and guarded against. Continued vigilance is needed if we are to avoid a return to how things used to be. 

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Delivered Unto Lions by David Austin is published by CheckPoint Press.

For more information visit www.davidaustin.eu