Kingston Psychiatric Hospital Summary

Throughout David’s journal entries, he outlines events of abused and discrimination against the patients at the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital. From a Mad Studies perspective, these entries solidify the contextualization of mad experiences through social exclusion and a structural lens.

Early on in the journal excerpt David looses consciousness and overhears a hospital worker say, “'You'd better watch this one--suicidal." followed by laughter. The insensitivity to emotional distress can lead to isolation and exclusion of the individual. David mentions that in all his time at the hospital he rarely received any psychiatric help as the doctor would come in once a week for only an hour on some wards and noted that most patients were sedated …show more content…
Not only through society distancing itself from the individual but the individual themselves moving away from society. As he experiences the constant ridicule his trust in the staff and society in general deteriorate. While on the sixth ward David writes, “But I can't get used to the lack of love and warmth and tenderness. That's the big turn-off and that must be the biggest single obstacle to recovery for everybody here. Nobody gives a fuck. I read Camus and support his isolation first-hand. No one can share my suffering. I can't share theirs.” He seldom reports any worker showing him any kindness asides from the graze of possible sympathy at the end of his journal in which they find his wife wishes to leave him after the six-month period of separation. This further instilling that he is alone, fighting for his own survival but is unsuccessful in a place that one would think is suppose to help. The individual feels alone and is something that is separate from society as it shuns them, they begin to feel as though there is no one to trust but no where to turn either. David often ponders what will he return to once leaving the hospital as he feels society has abandoned the ones considered