Dialogue with Indigenous Leader and Psych Survivor Michael

Abstract

In this chapter, we delve into the horror that was the Sixties Scoop (where Indigenous infants were stolen from Canada and Mexico and adopted out to white parents in the US), with a further look at the psychiatrization, that, alas, all too often followed. Michael recounts the horrendous story of his being abducted as a child himself, deprived of his heritage, and later twice psychiatrized. One highlight of the chapter is the healing that eventually came to Michael when he partook of Indigenous ceremony. The chapter ends with Michael reflecting on the possibility of Indigenous psychiatric survivors joining the antipsychiatry movement and the two creating testimony together.