Dennis O'Donnell: The Locked Ward: Memoirs of a Psychiatric Orderly

by O, Donnell Dennis

ISBN: 9780224093606

Published: 2012

In 2000 Dennis O'Donnell was approached to work as an orderly in the Intensive Psychiatric Care Unit of a large hospital in central Scotland. "I don't know if I'm the man you want," he told the charge nurse. "I'm not a fighter." "I don't need fighters," the nurse replied. "I need people who can listen." The Locked Ward is an extraordinary memoir that sets out to reveal the true story of life in a psychiatric ward--the fear, the violence, and despair, and also the care and the compassion. Recounting the stories of the patients he worked with and those of the friends he made on the ward, O'Donnell provides a detailed account of day-to-day life behind the doors of the most feared and stigmatized environment in healthcare. In doing so, he examines the major mental disorders, their symptoms, and manifestations, and how certain triggers such as religion, sex, wealth, health, and drugs bear influence; the methods of treatment, by medication, therapy, and conversation; the love and support...