Poor But Not Mad, The Scandal Of Forced Internments
How could being an orphan mean forced commitment to psychiatric hospitals for young adults? In Switzerland, in the 1950s, a psychiatric clinic could have one third of so-called "socially ill" patients. These institutionalized children had accumulated suffering and trauma to such a degree that they were considered unfit for society. Not knowing what to do with the anger of their pupils, the tutors sometimes called psychiatry to the rescue. The result meant years of forced internment, where young adults were often subjected against their will to psychotropic drugs that had never even been officially approved. Through the moving account of Nelly and Walter, this report revisits the dark past of Swiss psychiatry.
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