The Mad Student Society (MSS) is not a typical campus group and its founding member, Chris Dubey, is not a typical campus group leader. In fact, Dubey is not even a student at the University. A resident of Middletown and a student at Middlesex Community College, he chose Wesleyan as a venue to launch a crusade against involuntary psychiatric care.
“I don’t use the term ’anti-psychiatry’ so much,” Dubey explained. “I want this to be a positive thing.”
In a nation in which Ritalin is one of the most prescribed drugs and films such as “Charlie Bartlett” show the prevalence and accessibility of prescription drugs, Dubey hopes to communicate one message: although psychiatry can be helpful, it can also be a danger.
Established last year in Canada, MSS is an inter-university group that currently lacks a United States chapter—something Dubey is trying to change.
Laden with pamphlets and printouts, Dubey was well prepared to address a roomful of students at his first meeting on Feb. 1. As a non-student, Dubey’s access to the student body is relatively limited, restricted to the spotty success of posters on bulletin boards. No one attended the meeting, and the scheduled time ultimately became a one-on-one interview.
A University of Hartford alum, Dubey was exposed to Wesleyan as a teenager through a campus summer program in the creative arts. He said that, although the campus is not particularly welcoming to non-staff and non-students, its size and reputation for activism would make it more receptive to a chapter of MSS.
His campaign against involuntary care began with the hospitalization of a close friend. Dubey said that, while admitted in a Connecticut psychiatric ward, the friend received more than 10 electroshock treatments against his will.
“Psychiatry is expanding its influence, and it’s becoming more and more likely that you or someone you know will be affected by it,” Dubey said. “People who historically would not have been diagnosed with mental disorders now are.”
Dubey cited the increase in diagnoses of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and bipolar disorder as evidence of both a society that is overly reliant on psychiatry and a field of study that is all too willing to diagnose and assert mental homogeneity. He believes that all people should be afforded the right to “neuro-diversity.”
Neuro-diversity, as Dubey phrased it, is a basic principle of Mad Pride, with “mad” referring to mental madness rather than an acronym.
“Mad Pride is not an organization,” he asserted. “It’s a philosophy—pride in one’s neuro-atypicality.”
Among the goals that Dubey outlined for his fledgling chapter of MSS are support for neuro-diversity and an enforcement of patient autonomy, which he described as lacking in the psychiatric field. He said that, while he recognizes the difficulty in fully accepting anti-psychiatry, using other people’s bodies without consent is immoral and against all medical codes of ethics. Dubey added that the path from being a voluntary psychiatric patient to becoming an involuntary patient is an easy one to traverse.
It is this path that he hopes the chapter will raise consciousness about. Dubey’s response to the first, low attendance rate was simple and determined:
“My plan is to just keep coming,” he said. “I want people to get involved, or even curious. I’ll be here every Friday at 2 p.m.”
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