ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author satisfies that the telling of stories is and will continue to be one of the more influential aspects of the "consumer movement" to elicit change to systems of detention and treatment. The power of story telling can be immense and has the capacity to capture and influence people's minds and emotions in a way that no academic lecture or paper can. Mental hospitals are about containment, control and suppression of people and symptoms. A mental hospital can be misconstrued as a place of care and assistance, at times even of cure by those who have never been involuntarily detained in one. In New Zealand, Aotearoa professionals steadfastly follow the trends of modern psychiatry from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. People could have real asylum in the green and pleasant land. In effect, understanding what happened to the author has been thwarted and complicated by the need to overcome the experience of hospitalisation.
