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Escape from Psychiatry

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"Escape from Psychiatry," the autobiography of "Clover Smith" is a harrowing account of one woman's odyssey through the mental health care system of the `50s, '60s and `70s. This is not a book that can be evaluated as a piece of literature, because strictly speaking, it just isn't. But, like other first person accounts in the same vein - Frances Farmer's "Will There Really Be a Morning?" comes to mind - Clover's story is valuable for its portrayal of the shocking abuses and neglect endured by the mentally ill at the hands of psychiatrists.

From her seemingly-credible perspective, she was just a young woman cut off from emotional support who put her trust in doctors to heal her simple fears. All she desired was one person with whom to talk about her feelings of isolation and terror. Instead she was scarred and scared, literally out of her wits, by a series of "treatments" which resembled torture more closely than they did rehabilitation. At the hands of doctors she spent thirty-one years undergoing electro-shock and neuroleptic drug therapies which left her filled with increasingly justified, internal rage and external symptoms ranging from the loss of her teeth and memory to the constant muscle spasms of tardive dyskinesia - a known neurotoxic side-effect from the brain damage caused by a range of neuroleptic drugs.

She never did find a psychiatrist who wanted to talk with her, with the exception of one scurrilous egotist who also tried to bed her. Yet some preternatural strength, resident inside Clover, allowed her to outlast the convoluted mental health care system. Her recovery finally came as a result of entering an Alcoholics Anonymous program and weaning herself from the medications she instinctively knew to be toxic. She is no longer schizophrenic or paranoid, two diagnoses that may never have been accurate for her or countless others who have undergone similar treatment.

Clover's story brings to light the travesty of presenting "mental illness" as irreversible and explodes the myth that medications can silence the symptoms. It also raises significant questions concerning accepted methods of 'treatment' that require the ultimate isolation of mental health patients making visitation (and monitoring) of the standard of care difficult, if not altogether impossible, to monitor. Her expose presents the inside story on mental health institutions, raising many questions and illuminating an area of medical care that seems to have been allowed to operate in obscurity for too long.

This book truely touched my heart. I felt like a kindred spirit with the author. Clover's childhood reminded me so much of my own and brought back so many difficult emotions for me that I wept bitterly throughout the first five chapters. The book also gave me a complete understanding of what my mother, who died at the age of 53, went through with psychiatry and being diagnosed with manic-depressive illness. The way Clover explains feelings and behaviors she and others experienced in the book is nothing short of remarkable. I have never read a book that touched me at such a deep emotional level. This book made it impossible for me not to look deep within myself in an attempt to rescue my soul from the depths of spiritual turmoil and restlessness that I have allowed myself to fall prey to for 36 years. This book is extremely climactic in that it starts with a child that is isolated and withdrawn, being held hostage by the confines of a confused, angry, lonely, and miserable soul ultimately blooming into a beautiful, thriving, giving, understanding, accepting, and luminous spirit reaching out to help and be helped. Becoming one with all spirituality. Becoming complete. Clover, you are truely blessed. My spirit loves yours because you have the mind of Christ. Absolutely marvelous book. A must for everyone in search of self. You find it in this book because Clover holds your hand and leads you directly to it.

I have had the pleasure of meeting Clover and was able to spend some time getting to know her and though the book is great in person she is truly amazing. Having studied psychiatry and the effects of long term treatment I can tell you that hardly anyone makes it out and is able to function on their own. Clover has done that and was able to write and self publish her story all with the intent to help others. This book is great, it is truly a testament to one woman's strength and love for all. I would encourage you to also contact her through the info. given and support her cause, she is a real hero and a wonderful woman.

"Escape from Psychiatry" is an amazing story that made me shake my head in disbelief. Horror is perpetually disguised as "treatment" in the psychiatric community. Every time this woman turns to get help, she is again victimized by the authoritarian regime called psychiatry. Yet, through an incredible strength of character, she finds help through a group of people outside of psychiatry that use the powerful tools of love, hope and self-responsibility.

ESCAPE FROM PSYCHIATRY is a very powerful story! I am awed by Clover's strength and courage in being able to recall and relive all of her experiences of psychiatric abuse in order to write about what she went through. Her story is very important because it shows how the core of so-called "schizophrenia" often traces back to feeling desperate for love and yet very afraid of it. Mostly, however, her story documents how the pessimistic expectations that psychiatrists have for people who are extreme mental cases can become self-fulfilling prophecies for people who remain trapped as "patients" in the "mental health" system. When Clover found different people who gave her kindness, love, and hope, she recovered and healed. This is the kind of story that most psychiatrists can't stand hearing about because it shows how they contribute to the very conditions they claim they are trying to cure, and it shows that their beliefs about "chronic mental cases" can be totally wrong.

Al Siebert, Ph.D Host of the "Successful Schizophrenia" web site. Executive Director of the Kenneth Donaldson Archive for the Autobiographies of Psychiatric Survivors

Escape from Psychiatry made me run the gamut of emotions. At times its text felt like the memoir of a holocaust survivor, revealing all manner of abuse and horror against humanity. I was mystified and intrigued, angered and repugned, saddened and humiliated. But mostly I was joyous...joyous that the invulnerable holy spirit, in all its divinity, ultimately emerges triumphant, giving hope and inspiring all who share this journey.

Clover Smith-Greene will tell you herself, she is one of the most truly blessed--she escaped the deadly clutches of psychiatry! Her remarkable recovery is a living testimony that through God's love and forgiveness anyone and everyone can heal.

Gwen Olsen, Author of Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher