“Psychiatry is the enemy incarnate”… “About This Document: Speech of ‘Dr. Henry Anonymous’ at the American Psychiatric Association 125th Annual Meeting, May 2, 1972,” Historical Society of Pennsylvania Digital Histories Project (website), http://digitalhistory.hsp.org/pafrm/doc/speech-dr-henry-anonymous-john-fryer-american-psychiatric-association-125th-annual-meeting.
One panelist was John Fryer… I relied on the following sources to depict John Fryer’s Dr. Anonymous: Glass, “Episode 204: 81 Words”; John Fryer Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; and Dudley Clendinen, “John Fryer, 65, Psychiatrist Who Said He Was Gay in 1972, Dies,” New York Times, March 5, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/05/obituaries/05FRYE.html.
Fryer would cross paths with Rosenhan… I confirmed this detail with documents from both John Fryer’s papers and David Rosenhan’s private collection.
Handwritten excerpt of John Fryer’s speech… John Fryer, “Speech for the American Psychiatric Association 125th Annual Meeting,” undated, John Fryer Papers, Collection 3465, 1950–2000, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).
publicly reveal his identity as “Dr. Anonymous”… Dudley Clendinen, “Dr. John Fryer, 65, Psychiatrist Who Said in 1972 He Was Gay,” New York Times, March 5, 2003, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/05/us/dr-john-fryer-65-psychiatrist-who-said-in-1972-he-was-gay.html.
the APA’s board of trustees… Decker, The Making of the DSM-III, 312.
“deep concerns over rampant criticism”… “Summary Report of the Special Policy Meeting of the Board of Trustees, Atlanta, Georgia. February 1–3, 1973,” American Journal of Psychiatry 130, no. 6 (1973): 732.
“If you’re going to have some people”… Jack Drescher, “An Interview with Robert L. Spitzer,” in Jack Drescher and Joseph P. Merlino, eds., American Psychiatry and Homosexuality: An Oral History (London: Routledge, 2007), 101.
a secret group… Kutchins and Kirk, Making Us Crazy, 69.
“Sexual Orientation Disturbance”… Drescher, “Out of DSM,” 571.
described people distressed by their sexuality… For more information on gay rights and its connection to mental illness, see Eric Marcus, Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002).
A local newspaper satirized the removal… Vern L. Bullough, Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (London: Routledge, 2002), 249.
“Not only are women being punished”… Marcie Kaplan, “A Woman’s View of the DSM-III,” American Psychologist (July 1983): 791.
13: W. UNDERWOOD
the first paid installment… Doubleday & Company, Inc. v. David L. Rosenhan.
“More work of this kind”… Luther Nichols, letter to David Rosenhan, September 17, 1974, David Rosenhan private files.
Excerpt of David’s outline… Outline for “Odyssey into Lunacy,” David Rosenhan private files.
In 1973 and 1974, a Wilburn Underwood… Bill Underwood, Bert S. Moore, and David L. Rosenhan, “Affect and Self-Gratification,” Developmental Psychology 8, no. 2 (1973): 209–14; and David L. Rosenhan, Bill Underwood, and Bert Moore, “Affect Moderates Self-Gratification and Altruism,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 30, no. 4 (1974): 546–52.
Excerpt from yearbook… Stanford University, Stanford Quad, 1973. Print, Stanford University Archives.
Bert returned the email… Bert Moore, “Re: Request for help with contact information,” email to Susannah Cahalan, January 15, 2015.
the soft-spoken, red-bearded… David Rosenhan, Odyssey into Lunacy, chapter 3, 38.
Hi Susannah… Bill Underwood, “Re: Request for Interview,” email to Susannah Cahalan, January 31, 2015.
14: CRAZY EIGHTS
The bulk of this chapter came from various interviews with Bill Underwood and Maryon Underwood over a four-year period, but especially the first time I visited them in person at their home in Texas, February 9, 2015.
Charles Whitman climbed the tower… For more on Charles Whitman, see the powerful documentary Tower, directed by Keith Maitland, Go-Valley Productions, 2016.
“I don’t really understand myself”… Lauren Silverman, “Gun Violence and Mental Health Laws, 50 Years After Texas Tower Sniper,” Morning Edition, National Public Radio, July 29, 2016, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/29/487767127/gun-violence-and-mental-health-laws-50-years-after-texas-tower-sniper.
An autopsy revealed a glioblastoma… David Eagleman, “The Brain on Trial,” The Atlantic, July–August 2011, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/the-brain-on-trial/308520.
A flurry of brain studies followed… Thank you to Dr. William Carpenter for insights into the history of neuro-imaging.
enlarged ventricles… N. C. Andreasen, S. A. Olsen, J. W. Dennert, and M. R. Smith, “Ventricular Enlargement in Schizophrenia: Relationship to Positive and Negative Symptoms,” American Journal of Psychiatry 139, no. 3 (1982): 297–302.
gray matter thinning… Martha E. Shenton, Chandlee C. Dickey, Melissa Frumin, and Robert W. McCarley, “A Review of MRI Findings in Schizophrenia,” Schizophrenia Research 49, nos. 1–2 (2001): 1–52.
Thank you to Dr. William Carpenter for speaking with me about the advancements and continued limitations of scanning technology.
But the hope that CT scans… Robin Murray, “Mistakes I Have Made in My Research Career,” Schizophrenia Bulletin 43, no. 1 (2017): 253–56, https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/43/2/253/2730504.
the “riddle of schizophrenia”… Nancy Andreasen, The Broken Brain: The Biological Revolution in Psychiatry (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), 53.
Everything from sustained antipsychotic use… Thank you to Maree Webster, who, on January 14, 2016, explained many of the complexities of studying the brain and also showed me around the truly jaw-dropping brain bank that she runs.
“despite vigorous study over the past century”… R. Tandon, M. S. Keshavan, and H. A. Nasrallah, “Schizophrenia, Just the Facts: What We Know in 2008. Part 1: Overview,” Schizophrenia Research 100 (2008): 4, 11.
Stanford University campus’s Bing Nursery… Janine Zacharia, “The Bing ‘Marshmallow Studies’: 50 Years of Continuing Research,” Distinguished Lecture Series, Stanford, https://bingschool.stanford.edu/news/bing-marshmallow-studies-50-years-continuing-research.
Mischel found that a child’s ability… W. Mischel et al., “Delay of Gratification in Children,” Science 24, no. 4 (1989): 933–38.
All Robyn remembers… Robyn Harrigan, phone interview, November 2, 2016.
“I didn’t want David to be my lifeline”… Craig Haney, in-person interview, February 17, 2017.
“least likely” to be admitted… Rosenhan, Odyssey into Lunacy, chapter 3, 38.
the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act… Marc F. Abramson, “The Criminalization of Mentally Disordered Behavior: Possible Side-Effect of a New Mental Health Law,” Hospital & Community Psychiatry 23, no. 4 (1972): 101–5.
Located less than half an hour… The history of Agnews was compiled from a variety of sources, including from a private tour of the Agnews Museum provided to me by Kathleen Lee on October 21, 2015. Santa Clara University’s archives were also helpful: “Agnews State Hospital,” Silicon Valley History online, Santa Clara University Library Digital Collections, http://content.scu.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/svhocdm.
“They were tense times”… Izzy Talesnick, in-person interview, October 22, 2015.
case #115733… I found this in Bill Underwood’s Agnews State Hospital medical records, tracked down with help from Bill Underwood and Florence Keller.
I had tracked down the ACLU lawyer… Robert Bartels, phone interview, January 15, 2015.
15: WARD 11
on a special unit called Ward 11… Alma Menn, in-person interview, October 23, 2015. I’ve also seen it referred to as I-Ward.
“Not only do people publicly neck”… Jane Howard, “Inhibitions Thrown to the Gen
tle Winds: A New Movement to Unlock the Potential of What People Could Be—But Aren’t,” Life, July 12, 1968, 48–65.
Bob Dylan visited… Art Harris, “Esalen: From ’60s Outpost to the Me Generation,” Washington Post, September 24, 1978, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1978/09/24/esalen-from-60s-outpost-to-the-me-generation/f1db58bb-e77f-4bdf-9457-e07e6b4cc800/?utm_term=.a8248c047098.
Charles Manson showed up… Walter Truett Anderson, The Upstart Spring: Esalen and the American Awakening (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1983), 239.
Dick Price was supposed to follow… Dick Price’s backstory was compiled from a variety of sources, including Jeffrey J. Kripal, Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007); Wade Hudson, “Dick Price: An Interview,” Esalen.org, 1985, https://www.esalen.org/page/dick-price-interview; and Anderson, The Upstart Spring.
he heard a disembodied voice… Anderson, The Upstart Spring, 38.
“He felt a tremendous opening up”… Anderson, The Upstart Spring, 39.
a fancier private hospital… The description of the Institute of Living came from an in-person tour of the museum on their grounds; also from Luke Dittrich, Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets (New York: Random House, 2016), 60.
The Chatterbox, which once ran an illustration… Barry Werth, “Father’s Helper,” New Yorker, June 9, 2003, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/06/09/fathers-helper.
The institute’s psychiatrist-in-chief, Dr. Francis J. Braceland… Werth, “Father’s Helper.”
“private prison”… The Gestalt Legacy Project, The Life and Practice of Richard Price: A Gestalt Biography (Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press, 2017), 39.
he underwent ten electroshock therapies… Kripal, Esalen, 80.
“the complete debilitator”… The Gestalt Legacy Project, The Life and Practice of Richard Price, 40.
This is what Dick would have faced… The description of insulin coma therapy came from “A Brilliant Madness,” American Experience, PBS, directed by Mark Samels, WGBH Educational Foundation, 2002.
he underwent fifty-nine of these therapies… The Gestalt Legacy Project, The Life and Practice of Richard Price, 4.
put on over seventy pounds… The Gestalt Legacy Project, The Life and Practice of Richard Price, 40.
screen actress Gene Tierney… Kent Demaret, “Gene Tierney Began Her Trip Back from Madness on a Ledge 14 Floors Above the Street,” People, May, 7, 1979, https://people.com/archive/gene-tierney-began-her-trip-back-from-madness-on-a-ledge-14-floors-above-the-street-vol-11-no-18.
“would serve people”… The Gestalt Legacy Project, The Life and Practice of Richard Price, 77.
“live through experience”… Hudson, “Dick Price: An Interview.”
R. D. Laing came to Esalen… For more on Kingsley Hall, see the documentary Asylum, directed by Peter Robinson, 1972. Thank you to Richard Adams, one of the cameramen who filmed the movie, who gave me valuable insights and supplied an unedited version.
That same year psychologist Julian Silverman… Kripal, Esalen, 169.
befriended the Grateful Dead… Alma Menn, in-person interview, October 23, 2015.
John Rosen, the inventor of “direct analysis”… Joel Paris, Fall of an Icon: Psychoanalysis and Academic Psychiatry (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 30.
Rosen later lost his license… United Press International, “79-Year-Old Former Doctor Loses License to Practice,” Logansport Pharos-Tribune, April 8, 1983, 3.
“ding dong city”… The Gestalt Legacy Project, The Life and Practice of Richard Price, 76.
They selected a few Agnews staff… My description of Ward 11 came from a variety of sources, including interviews with Alma Menn (October 23, 2015) and Voyce Hendrix (December 8, 2016); the research paper published on it: Maurice Rappaport et al., “Are There Schizophrenics for Whom Drugs May Be Unnecessary or Contraindicated?” International Pharmapsychiatry 13 (1978): 100–111; and secondary sources like Michael Cornwall, “The Esalen Connection: Fifty Years of Re-Visioning Madness and Trying to Transform the World,” Mad in America (blog), December 12, 2013, https://www.madinamerica.com/2013/12/esalen-connection-fifty-years-re-visioning-madness-trying-transform-world.
“The first thing we did”… Alma Menn, in-person interview, October 23, 2015.
published in the 1978 paper… Rappaport, “Are There Schizophrenics.”
a series of “med-free sanctuaries”… Michael Cornwall, “Remembering a Medication-Free Madness Sanctuary,” Mad in America (blog), February 3, 2012, https://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/remembering-a-medication-free-madness-sanctuary.
Soteria House, an experiment in communal living… John R. Bola and Loren Mosher, “Treatment of Acute Psychosis Without Neuroleptics: Two-Year Outcomes from Soteria Project,” Journal of Nervous Disease 191, no. 4 (2003): 219–29.
The average stay was forty-two days… John Reed and Richard Bentall, eds., Models of Madness: Psychological, Social, and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia (London: Routledge, 2004), 358.
three to five times lower… Reed and Bentall, Models of Madness, 358.
One former Soteria resident… B. Mooney, phone interview, January 18, 2017.
in the clubhouse model… For more on the clubhouse model approach, see Colleen McKay, Katie L. Nugent, Matthew Johnsen, William W. Easton, and Charles W. Lidz, “A Systematic Review of Evidence for the Clubhouse Model of Psychosocial Rehabilitation,” Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services 45, no. 1 (2018): 28–47, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27580614.
We see it also in Geel… For more on Geel, a fascinating place with an even more fascinating history, see Angus Chen, “For Centuries, a Small Town Has Embraced Strangers with Mental Illness,” NPR, July 1, 2016, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/01/484083305/for-centuries-a-small-town-has-embraced-strangers-with-mental-illness.
In Trieste, Italy… Elena Portacolone, Steven P. Segal, Roberto Mezzina, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “A Tale of Two Cities: The Exploration of the Trieste Public Psychiatry Model in San Francisco,” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 39, no. 4 (2015). Thank you also to Kerry Morrison for making me aware of this amazing place.
Price suffered another break… The Gestalt Legacy Project, The Life and Practice of Richard Price, 83.
16: SOUL ON ICE
This chapter again was based on several in-person and phone interviews with the Underwoods.
nicknamed “Dr. Sparky”… Izzy Talesnick and Jo Gampon, in-person interview, October 22, 2015.
Ugo Cerletti, who came up with the idea… Valenstein, Great and Desperate Cures, 51.
A psych technician from that era… Interview with “Jim” at Agnews Historic Cemetery and Museum, October 21, 2015, http://santaclaraca.gov/Home/Components/ServiceDirectory/ServiceDirectory/1316/2674.
I saw an electroshock box… Interview with Anthony Ortega at Patton Hospital Museum, October 29, 2016, http://www.dsh.ca.gov/Patton/Museum.aspx.
when Olivia de Havilland seizes… The Snake Pit (film), directed by Anatole Litvak, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1948.
Patients would sometimes break their backs… Valenstein, Great and Desperate Cures, 53.
“clever little procedure”… Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 62.
patients who are “treatment resistant”… S. G. Korenstein and R. K. Schneider, “Clinical Features of Treatment-Resistant Depression,” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 62, no. 16 (2001): 18–25.
“now a fully safe and painless procedure”… Charles Kellner, “ECT Today: The Good It Can Do,” Psychiatric Times, September 15, 2010, http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/electroconvulsive-therapy/ect-today-good-it-can-do.
is paired with an immobilizing agent… Scott O. Lilienfeld, “The Truth About Shock Therapy,” Scientific American, May 1, 2014, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-truth-about-shock-therapy.
In one study, 65 percent of patien
ts… Hilary J. Bernstein et al., “Patient Attitudes About ECT After Treatment,” Psychiatric Annals 28 (1998): 524–27, https://www.healio.com/psychiatry/journals/psycann/1998-9-28-9/%7B189440aa-c05e-4cbb-ae9b-992c9ec85dba%7D/patient-attitudes-about-ect-after-treatment. For a hilarious pro-ECT take, see Carrie Fisher, Shockaholic (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011).
“a crime against humanity”… “Resolution Against Electroshock: A Crime Against Humanity,” ECT.org, http://www.ect.org/resources/resolution.html.
more hospitals have used it on the East Coast… Brady G. Case, David N. Bertolio, Eugene M. Laska, Lawrence H. Price, Carole E. Siegel, Mark Olfson, and Steven C. Marcus, “Declining Use of Electroconvulsive Therapy in US General Hospitals,” Biological Psychiatry 73, no. 2 (2013): 119–26.
Hollywood’s vilification of the procedure… Garry Walter and Andrew McDonald, “About to Have ECT? Fine, But Don’t Watch It in the Movies,” Psychiatric Times, June 1, 2004, https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/antisocial-personality-disorder/about-have-ect-fine-dont-watch-it-movies-sorry-portrayal-ect-film/page/0/1.
“reason for discharge” blank… Special thanks to Bill Underwood and Florence Keller for tracking down this record.
ten days less than the norm… Scull, Decarceration, 147.
which hovered around 130 days… Scull, Decarceration, 147.
In 2009, Agnews closed for good… Linda Goldston, “After More than 120 Years, Agnews Is Closing This Week,” Mercury News, March 24, 2009, https://www.mercurynews.com/2009/03/24/after-more-than-120-years-agnews-is-closing-this-week.
17: ROSEMARY KENNEDY
This chapter was aided tremendously by the work of E. Fuller Torrey in his book American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), as well as several in-person and phone interviews conducted with him.
“The anti-psychiatrists could now”… Rael Jean Isaac and Virginia Armat, Madness in the Streets: How Psychiatry and the Law Abandoned the Mentally Ill (Arlington, VA: Treatment Advocacy Center, 1990), 56.
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