A-Infos (en) Italy, FAS Sicilia Libertaria: Antipsychiatry, PSYCHIATRIC STRUCTURES AND TOTAL INSTITUTIONS: THE STELLA MARIS AFFAIR (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The trial for the mistreatment that occurred in the Montalto di Fauglia 
facility, in the province of Pisa, managed by the Stella Maris 
foundation is taking place at the Pisa court. In the summer of 2016, 
following a complaint from the parents of a young guest, the structure 
was placed under control with the installation of microcameras. After 
three months of wiretaps, the Pisa prosecutor's office established the 
hypothesis of a crime of mistreatment based on the video materials 
accumulated. ---- The parents, guardians and other witnesses already 
heard by the court have reported the violence suffered by the Montalto 
children and documented by video recordings: 284 episodes in less than 
three months, violence - therefore - not occasional but structural. The 
Scientific Institute - Specialized Hospital - Stella Maris Assistance 
Center deals with assistance and treatment of disorders and disabilities 
of childhood and adolescence. In fact it is a private institution with 
an agreement with the public, managed by the Curia of San Miniato and 
financed with public money (millions of euros per year) by the Tuscany 
Region, which despite the seriousness of the abuses did not deem it 
appropriate to join as a civil party to the process.

Among the guests of the residence, we remember Mattia, who later died in 
2018 from suffocation, following blockage of the glottis most likely due 
to the prolonged and excessive use of psychotropic drugs. The constant 
changes in therapy had led to dysfunctions and risks at mealtimes of 
which the family claims they were never informed. Another criminal case 
is underway for this matter, the trial in first instance ended with no 
responsibility on the part of the doctors and the structure.

The trial for mistreatment has been going on extremely slowly for more 
than five years: the hearings are too sparse considering the very high 
number of people invited to testify. In fact, it is the largest trial 
for violence against people with disabilities in Italy. At the moment 
there are 15 defendants. They also include the two doctors who managed 
the facility and the health director of Stella Maris. Two defendants 
left the scene: an operator who negotiated the sentence and the General 
Director Roberto Cutajar who, having chosen the abbreviated procedure, 
was sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison and was then acquitted 
in the appeal process.

As the technical consultant, Professor Alfredo Verde, called to report 
on the events that occurred, wrote in his report: "Reading the documents 
of this proceeding we certainly found mention of a long tradition of 
abuse and violence on the part of the operators, rooted over the years, 
and partly tolerated, partly ignored by the management of the 
structures". And again: "Such evident violence raises the possibility of 
hypothesizing that other violence occurred in less public contexts." "In 
these situations degenerations develop in which violence and oppression 
become the tools used every day, and the institution loses its 
therapeutic characteristics to become a merely coercive and afflictive 
place".

The technical report also states that "the behavior of the operators 
appeared typical of total institutions in which not only the guests are 
punished, but the punishment is also meted out in a situation of extreme 
visibility (such as the refectory), in which the guests they silently 
and acquiescently watch the treatment suffered by their companions: a 
sort of theatre". Professor Verde further states: "Institutional 
thinking presupposes, implies and justifies violence, which can be 
manifest or even just hinted at, therefore also assuming a symbolic 
function".

From the point of view of the technical report, what happened in the 
structure managed by Stella Maris then becomes emblematic of the 
coercive and degrading devices inherent in this type of structure, where 
people, frequently reduced to objects, become the target of daily 
violence and oppression . Places where physical and pharmacological 
restraint is often customary and where bullying is ordinary and structural.

We believe it is important not to turn off the spotlight on such 
widespread, widespread, non-episodic violence, accepted and supported 
daily by the silence of many "professionals", technicians and operators, 
assistants and educators. We would like to start from here, from the 
system of silence that supports these abuses. In no case can the lack of 
personnel and structures justify the use of violent and coercive 
practices. Even the arguments of "safety reasons", "state of necessity" 
or "aggressive people", which are often invoked in departments or 
structures, must be rejected as they are based on the still widespread 
prejudice of the potential danger of "madness". ". Many believe, due to 
cultural attitude or training, that it is justifiable to subject people 
diagnosed as mentally ill to coercive means, that it is in the order of 
things and corresponds to their own well-being, without ever asking what 
those directly involved think about it.

The problem therefore is to overcome the internment model, and not to 
re-propose the same mental hospital mechanisms and devices. The moment 
you reproduce the same practices (isolation, mechanical and 
pharmacological restraint, the obligation to take care), the logic of 
the total institution is reproduced and spreads to the wards, structures 
and healthcare residences such as that of Montalto di Fauglia: if there 
is the idea of the person as a dangerous subject who must be isolated, 
wherever he is placed it will always be a mental hospital. A concrete 
path to overcoming total institutions necessarily passes through the 
development of a widely spread non-segregationist culture, capable of 
practicing principles of freedom, solidarity and valorization of human 
differences, as opposed to the repressive and homogenizing methods of 
psychiatry.

Antonin Artaud Anti-Psychiatric Collective

via San Lorenzo 38, 56100 Pisa

antipsichiatriapisa@inventati.org

www.artaudpisa.noblogs.org 3357002669

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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