One Flew Under the Cuckoo’s Nest takes place at New Hope Hospital, UK where Psychiatrists pick and choose from an A-Z of Diagnosis. A new patient loses his name and gains a label: Anorexic, Bulimic, Catatonic, Depressed….or Whatever…
Vulnerable and fragile patients admitted to New Hope need to be Treated With Care, with a little bit of TLC. They want someone who will listen to them, someone who will understand them. But there’s never any time for that. Instead they receive Treatment. Do they recover, improve? Not really! They are disempowered, medicated, stigmatized. But there are some changes: they are now dehumanized!
Maybe R D Laing’s words still apply today: ‘Doctors in all ages have made fortunes by killing their patients by means of their cures. The difference in psychiatry is that it is the death of the soul.’
