Linda Andre is an American
psychiatric survivor activist and writer, living in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, who is the director of the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry (CTIP), an organization founded by
Marilyn Rice in 1984 to encourage the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...
(FDA) to regulate
electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatric treatment where a generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is electrically induced to manage refractory mental disorders.Rudorfer, MV, Henry, ME, Sackeim, HA (2003)"Electroconvulsive th ...
(ECT) machines.
Anti-ECT activism
Since receiving ECT in the early 1980s at age 25, Andre has been writing and doing research to help other ECT survivors cope with their cognitive and memory losses, and inform the general public about the risks of ECT. Linda has been interviewed by ''
20/20
Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...
'', ''
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', the ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and the
Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...
.
Interviewed by the ''Los Angeles Times'' in 2003, Andre commented on a British study that found that when patients helped to design or conduct ECT surveys, only one third of the respondents claimed to find ECT helpful, but when doctors designed and conducted the surveys, three-fourths claimed to find ECT beneficial. "This is what happens when you ask patients what they think," said Andre, "...you get a completely different story from the one psychiatrists are telling." She and her friends have formed the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry which has now over 500 former electric shock patients.
In 2009, her book, ''Doctors of Deception: What they don't want you to know about shock treatment'', was published. Reviewing this work, James Wood, of the University of Edinburgh wrote in the journal the ''Social History of Medicine'', "
er the course of its 17 often meticulously researched chapters, Andre provides a useful contrast to the claims made in Edward Shorter and
David Healy's recent paean to ECT and the men who were instrumental in its development (Edward Shorter and David Healy, ''Shock Therapy'', 2007), and offers a potentially devastating critique of both ECT and the modern American psychiatric profession.
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Published works
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See also
* Clifford Whittingham Beers
Clifford Whittingham Beers (March 30, 1876 – July 9, 1943) was the founder of the American mental hygiene movement.
Biography
Beers was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to Ida and Robert Beers on March 30, 1876. He was one of five children, all ...
* Electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatric treatment where a generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is electrically induced to manage refractory mental disorders.Rudorfer, MV, Henry, ME, Sackeim, HA (2003)"Electroconvulsive th ...
* Elizabeth Packard
Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard (28 December 1816 – 25 July 1897), also known as E.P.W. Packard, was an American advocate for the rights of women and people accused of insanity. She was wrongfully confined by her husband who claimed that she ...
* Icarus Project
The Icarus Project (2002-2020) was a network of peer-support groups and media projects with the stated aim of changing the language and culture of what gets called mental health and mental illness. The name is derived from Icarus, a hero in Greek ...
* Involuntary commitment
* Involuntary treatment
Involuntary treatment (also referred to by proponents as assisted treatment and by critics as forced drugging) refers to medical treatment undertaken without the consent of the person being treated. Involuntary treatment is permitted by law in so ...
* Judi Chamberlin
Judi Chamberlin (née Rosenberg; October 30, 1944 – January 16, 2010) was an American activist, leader, organizer, public speaker and educator in the psychiatric survivors movement. Her political activism followed her involuntary confinemen ...
* Kate Millett
Katherine Murray Millett (September 14, 1934 – September 6, 2017) was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honors ...
* Leonard Roy Frank
Leonard Roy Frank (July 15, 1932 – January 15, 2015,) was an American human rights activist, psychiatric survivor, editor, writer, aphorist, and lecturer.
Frank lived in San Francisco from 1959 until his death, where he managed an art gallery b ...
* List of psychiatric consumer/survivor/ex-patient related topics
* Lyn Duff
Lyn Duff (born 1976) is an American journalist. Her career began in eighth grade with an underground school newspaper and has continued in various written and audio mediums. She has done extensive reporting in Israel and Haiti. After being forced ...
* Mad Pride
Mad Pride is a mass movement of the users of mental health services, former users, and the aligned, which advocates that individuals with mental illness should be proud of their 'mad' identity. Mad Pride activists seek to reclaim terms such as " m ...
* MindFreedom International
MindFreedom International is an international coalition of over one hundred grassroots groups and thousands of individual members from fourteen nations. Based in the United States, it was founded in 1990 to advocate against forced medication, ...
* National Empowerment Center The National Empowerment Center (NEC) is an advocacy and peer-support organization in the United States that promotes an empowerment-based recovery model of mental disorders. It is run by consumers/survivors/ex-patients "in recovery" and is located ...
* Psychiatric survivors movement The psychiatric survivors movement (more broadly consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement) is a diverse association of individuals who either currently access mental health services (known as consumers or service users), or who are survivors of interv ...
* Ted Chabasinski
* World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry The World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP) is an international organisation representing, and led by what it terms " survivors of psychiatry". As of 2003, over 70 national organizations were members of WNUSP, based in 30 countrie ...
References
External links
"Electroshock Deception: Linda Andre"
Madness Radio, 12 May 2009
Review of ''Doctors of deception''
by Peter Lehmann in ''Advocacy Update – The latest in activism and community news from ENUSP'', no. 1 (2010), no. 1, pp. 19-20
{{DEFAULTSORT:Andre, Linda
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American human rights activists
Women human rights activists
Activists from New York City
Writers from New York City
Psychiatric survivor activists