Subversive Apologia (Voiceless Psychiatric Patients‪)‬

The mentally ill have been described as "a historically voiceless group." (1) History is more complicated than that. To be sure, it is hard to identify a more marginalized group of individuals, but sometimes their voices have rung out. One place they did was an underappreciated publication at one of the nation's oldest and largest in-patient psychiatric facilities. The Bryce News: Of the Patients, By the Patients, For the Patients was a weekly newsletter produced, as the subtitle states, by the patients of Bryce Hospital. The first issue came out May 17, 1951, and the last, July 17, 1972. I estimate a circulation of 476 copies per week around the middle of its run, which at least occasionally included copies sent to outside newspapers and others. (2) In this short essay, I review several dozen issues of the newsletter. The Bryce News contained surprisingly direct criticism of the institution, or at least those funding it. This may have in part reflected common concerns of patients and caregivers. On the other hand, there was apparently a heavy dose of institutional pressure to discourage litigation and encourage adherence to rules. But the great legacy of The Bryce News is the light it sheds on life as a patient. This essay is in part an introduction to the examples that follow of patient self-expression taken directly from the newsletter.