"Deep Sleep Therapy": ABC/Channel 4 1990s documentary on a psychiatric treatment that directly and indirectly was associated with a number of deaths

Dolphin

Dolphin

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I'm clearing out my old video cassette tapes and just watched the following documentary which was broadcast on Channel 4 (UK) in 1992 as part of the "Secret History" series. According to this video it was first broadcast on ABC in Australia.

Possibly of interest to those who are interested in bad practice in psychiatry



Documentary proper starts after around a minute.
 
Re Dr Bailey: 7.20 mins
"He saw his cures as being a great answer to just about every mental illness. And with the force of his personality he gathered round him people who did believe in him, both medical people and nursing staff, but also a large personal following of patients. He was a very high profile, very public figure. And without that sort of personality, the type of thing which happened at Chelmsford would not have happened."

24.45 mins - compelling testimony from a wife who was a nurse

36.00 - the story of why it took so long to bring any of the doctors involved account. The treatment ended in 1979. "Finally, in 1988, the government announced a Royal Commission to thoroughly investigate the affair. After two and a half years of deliberations, the Commissioner made strong recommendations about the Chelmsford doctors. In spite of the Royal Commissions findings, 18 months on ..<the doctors> are still practising to this day."
 
Have not had time yet to watch it, but it will be interesting to look for references to William Sargant and Ewen Cameron. I don't know whether the links to deep sleep therapy for supposed hyperventilation in ME seemingly carried out at the (EDIT Charing Cross) by Nixon was related. There was a very odd newspaper report about that which I must try to rediscover.

There seems to have been some competition between Bailey and Sargant which was not to the benefit of patients.
 
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From my memory of the video:
Sargant (in the UK) came up with the idea and Bailey copied it and took it further. Sargant realised after two patients died that weeks restrained in heavy sedation was not a good idea - and so he 'roused' the patients for meals. Bailey had his patients tube-fed and didn't seem to work out something was wrong at any point, not when he had 16 patients dead or later when there was more.

The video says that Sargant replied to Bailey's lawyer that, if he was called as a witness, he would not speak in support of Bailey but would instead say that he had been irresponsible. That seemed to devastate Bailey.
 
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1090268/plotsummary
Summaries
  • The extraordinary story of one of the most scandalous episodes in the history of psychiatry. This documentary tells how a leading Australian psychiatrist, Dr Harry Bailey, instigated an experimental program of "Deep Sleep therapy" and caused a string of deaths in an Australian hospital. Surviving patients and relatives of the deceased provide compelling testimonies. The film unmasks the doctors who assisted Bailey in a cover-up of his crimes.
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https://thetvdb.com/series/secret-history/episodes/4292103

Deep Sleep
Developed by scientists in Britain and the USSR in the 1930s, deep sleep therapy was believed to be beneficial to people suffering from anxieties, depression and some forms of mental illness. The film suggests that these attempts to manipulate the human mind led to patients being subjected to brutal experimental treatment at a hospital in New South Wales

English
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William Sargant, Medical Science and British Intelligence. A BBC radio programme which gives further background and is less exculpatory of Sargant. It suggests involvement with Porton Down. They all seem to skirt around the subject of Cameron. I wonder why.

It seems that Sargant admitted to four deaths, but who knows whether this was accurate?
 
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