By: Roshi Chadha, SFU Student
Content Warning: Mentions and descriptions of psychiatric solitary confinement, traumatic experiences, mental health policies, and mistreatment of mental health patients
On July 7, SFU department of English hosted X: Psychiatric Solitary Confinement, a live performance by Erin Soros, SFU Shadbolt fellow. This event was conducted through Zoom and focused on mental health policies around solitary confinement for psychiatric patients. The discussion and Q&A portion of the event was moderated by Harsha Walia, an activist and author from South Asia with a home base in Vancouver.
Previously, I had never thought of the plight that mental health patients go through within different psychiatric wards across the world. As someone who plans on working within the healthcare field, I knew this was an important topic to learn about.
The event had accessibility features like live transcription, links to various articles and resources related to the event, spoken words by performers in the chat, and audio description throughout the performance. As the event could trigger audience members’ traumatic experiences, a content warning prefaced the performance and they welcomed anonymous questions from participants.
As the event unfolded, I tried to imagine entering a room with no sound. Suddenly a voice tells you, “No window, no lamp for reading. You cannot read, no clock. The one light in the ceiling is inescapable.”
There were several performers who voluntarily joined Soros to help her run the event through their voices and powerful words. Many of them had also experienced forced mental health treatments and had joined to share their opinions and thoughts. This had a powerful effect of conveying solidarity to the audience.
The performance started with the description of a person who is isolated in a dark room. As one of the performers said, “Words like ‘solitary confinement’ [are] borrowed from the realms of prison and its punishments.” As mentioned during the performance, restraint and seclusion are two different words in literature but in psychiatric language, are used interchangeably. This conveyed how convoluted the whole psychiatric model is and why there is a need to address these social concerns.
I could feel the tension, uncertainty, and sadness as the performers kept on explaining the sufferings of someone who goes into confinement. “Come back. You cry to the wall. Come release me.” The performance showed their need to be released and free in the outside world. As they uttered the words, “No dialogue no movement,” I imagined it must feel like everything comes to a standstill for a person held in there. What kind of life or treatment is this?
After an incredibly powerful performance, some audience members shared their experiences with one another, followed by a Q&A session. Soros discussed the legal challenges around BC laws. She explained how the government fought against the Council of Canadians with Disabilities’ charter challenge to the Mental Health Act. Now, the topic of solitary confinement is being challenged under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, drawing on principles from the United Nations Convention of People with Disabilities. Soros concluded the event by highlighting the importance of being a witness and how she hopes to be a witness for others who go through these actions of ill treatment and be a voice for them.
