Mad in Greece

WWhat Alexandros Krokidas remembers most about his brief stint as a patient in the British psychiatric system is a deep feeling of humiliation. As Alex explains, he came to the psychiatric hospital voluntarily, driven by desperation for “somewhere I could be protected from everything that was happening in my life.” But instead of genuine support, what he found was a “ready-made recipe” of solutions offered by professionals who seemed completely disinterested in his plight.

“I didn’t find any kind of basic human understanding of what I was going through,” he says. “That kind of shook me to my foundations. At the time, I felt very vulnerable for a number of reasons … I naively thought the psychiatric ward would be a refuge. Well, it wasn’t.”

As someone with an academic background in sociology and philosophy, Alex already had theoretical interests in issues such as structures of power, mechanisms of oppression, and the debasement and corruption of scientific knowledge for commercial and ideological interests.  Still, he says, it wasn’t until he started working in mental health (in the UK) that he started to gradually “unravel the whole rotten business of modern psychiatry”: revolving door patients, polypharmacy, an institutional framework that promoted a culture and practices of control instead of care. Within this Kafkaesque nightmare, he adds, there were pockets of light and resistance offering different ways of approaching human suffering, like the Hearing Voices Network, the Paranoia Network, Open Dialogue, various local initiatives, as well as professionals and researchers who were articulating a different narrative to the dominant psychiatric paradigm.

He returned to Greece after almost twenty years of work in the National Health Service in the UK. Unfortunately, Alex says, the problems with the Greek mental health system run even deeper than what he had encountered while living in London. “At least in England, things are happening,” he says. “There’s a long tradition of  human rights activism. I’m not idealizing it; it’s still a very coercive system, but in Greece, human rights for users of mental health services are deemed sort of an exotic luxury.”

Greece’s mental health system is still dominated by psychiatrists, while alternative approaches are likened to ultra-conservative ideologies like Holocaust denial. “You have to really, really search to find a different view,” Alex points out. While some small collectives are trying to push back against mainstream narratives about mental distress, their overall impact seems to be minimal.

“Greece is very, very conservative when it comes to mental health,” Alex explains. “The main thing is to get people medicated for their so-called psychotic conditions.” He opposes this approach not only because, he says, psychiatric medication causes more harm and suffering than good to those taking it, but also because, regardless of actual health outcomes, he sees forcing people to take medication as “an absolute violation of the most basic right for self-determination.”

Even if psychiatric drugs were proven harmless and beneficial, Alex says, he would never support the practice of forcing people labeled as mad to take them. “I choose my madness,” he says, “and you have no right to interfere with my body to make me sane.”

In his opinion, the argument that certain people should be hospitalized to prevent them from committing dangerous acts overlooks the need for all people to be equal before the law. “If I kill somebody or attack somebody let me, equally with everybody else, suffer the consequences.” Going to prison, he says, would be far better than “being sent to a psychiatric hospital forever, without any hope of coming out.”

Because Alex works in the mental health field, he has struggled to keep his views and his professional life from conflicting. “It’s extremely difficult, in Greece, to actually earn a living in the mental health system if you openly challenge what’s happening,” he says. “They just get rid of you like that.” This is exactly what’s happened to Alex on multiple occasions. He hasn’t shied away from expressing his views publicly, but that has come at a cost, and now, he feels compelled to hide his core beliefs in order to earn a living. “It’s unbearable,” he says. “You feel very lonely and very isolated.”

Mad in Greece came about as a small number of like-minded people who decided to create a space where voices of resistance could be heard and shared. The website’s goal is to serve as a collective for those interested in re-examining Greece’s current approach to mental distress. In particular, it aims to build awareness about the social factors involved in suffering and to use scientific evidence to start conversations with those within the mental health system.

The website publishes articles, personal stories from people with lived experience in the psychiatric system, videos, an arts section, and translations from other Mad in the World affiliate sites. In addition, it has various informational pages covering topics like the effects of psychiatric drugs on the brain and the legal frameworks in place for the treatment of people in the psychiatric system. The site also displays the motto “Madness doesn’t go to the mountains,” which is a well-known saying in Greece that the team intended as a lighthearted touch to Mad in Greece and its more serious overall focus.

Since its creation, the website has had its ups and downs,  but it slowly started becoming more visible and making its presence felt in the broader landscape. A couple of radical psychiatrists have even responded favorably and contributed their own articles voicing concerns about Greece’s mental health system from their position inside it.

Even so, Alex says, Mad in Greece remains “fraught with difficulties.” While they started off as a five-person team, difficult internal dynamics and jostling for positions have led to changes in the editorial team, which now numbers four.  Still, being part of the Mad in the World network has given Alex a sense of solidarity, particularly during monthly meetings where the affiliates all come together. “Despite the challenges, we are intent on preserving Mad in Greece as we all feel this is a collective mission worth pursuing,” he says.