‘cure’ gay men Howard Barrell Being called a nutter by the defence force that serviced apartheid might, in the eyes of many, be an endorsement of one’s sanity. But, for those conscripts who were victims of the form of psychiatry practised in the former South African Defence Force (SADF), it could be a horrifying experience. SADF psychiatrists reasoned that sensitive souls who had difficulty adjusting to military life, gays, political and conscientious objectors, recreational and dedicated
dopeheads, (uncooperative) psychopaths and the genuinely psychotic were all deviants in need of a psychiatric cure. And that “cure” was often far short of kind. Under a highly authoritarian military and medical regime, the lucky ones were those discarded by the SADF early in the treatment process – by means of exemption from any further “national service”.
In the process, scores, perhaps hundreds, of what would otherwise probably have been psychologically composed lives were seriously disturbed. One such victim is a 48-year-old professional who objected on political grounds to doing military service in the early 1970s and was “treated” in the psychiatric ward at Number 1 Military hospital at Voortrekkerhoogte in the early 1970s. Speaking on condition of anonymity this week, “Harold” said: “After what has been, cumulatively, 16 years of psychoanalysis and therapy, every minute of every day is still a battle to find a way through the echoes of what happened then. More than 25 years on, I still cannot formulate a narrative of that time which I can hold on to.” According to a new study, just published by a gay and lesbian group, Simply Said and Done, he is not alone in this experience. He is one of an increasing number whose stories of inappropriate psychiatric treatment and abuse in the SADF are now being told. The new study, The Aversion Project: Human Rights Abuses of Gays and Lesbians in the South African Defence Force by Health Workers During the Apartheid Era, quotes from a policy directive issued on April 28 1982. It reads (translated from the Afrikaans): “Policy Decision: All possible steps must be taken to combat the phenomenon of homosexuality or lesbianism in the Army.” This decision gave the SADF’s psychiatric unit considerable leeway. Yet the unit seemed to operate outside almost any kind of control. The Aversion Project quotes a psychologist who worked for a while at No 1 Military hospital as saying: “The psychiatric unit at the defence force appeared to function completely independently.” The head of the unit at No 1 Military hospital in the 1970s was Colonel Aubrey Levine, a psychiatrist who proudly proclaimed far-right-wing views, and who is held responsible by many former conscripts for the abusive or inappropriate psychiatric treatment they received in the SADF. Levine left for Canada in the mid-1990s as the apartheid era came to an end.
Earlier in his career, Levine worked at Addington hospital in Durban. After leaving the SADF, he was professor of psychiatry at the University of the Orange Free State, where he again treated conscripts and other military personnel. He then became a senior official at Fort England, the psychiatric hospital in Grahams-town, before becoming government head of mental health for the country as a whole. Among Levine’s favoured forms of treatment were narco- analysis and aversion/conversion therapy. Narco-analysis is a treatment usually reserved for people in severe catatonic or mute states. It involves the slow injection into the patient of a drug – in the 1970s usually a barbiturate, though more recently one of a different class of drugs – so that the patient can be questioned while being held at the borderline between consciousness and unconsciousness. In spy novels, narco- analysis is popularly called the “truth drug” – the theory being that it breaks down the recipient’s inhibitions. Aversion/conversion therapy involves an attempt to change a patient’s behaviour. Under Levine it involved shocking patients while inducing in them thoughts of which Levine disapproved – along the lines narrated in Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange. Levine’s use of narco-analysis extended far beyond people in mute or catatonic states. It included Harold and many others who had no difficulty at all in talking about, or expressing, their feelings. According to several
psychiatrists interviewed this week, use of narco-analysis
on such people would be “inappropriate”, “dangerous” and “could be abusive”. Harold was given two narco- analyses by Levine – without parental permission although he was legally a minor at the time. In each case, Levine then played back to him tape recordings of what he had said in this clinically uninhibited state. “It was horrifying. I was shouting, screaming, sobbing. Like an animal. And Levine was baiting me to get wilder still. “It has taken me many years to be able to conclude that Levine could have had only one motive – to drive me out of my mind. And he very nearly succeeded,” Harold said. “Many others like me in ward 11 at Number 1 Military hospital were given narco-analyses by Levine. It seemed to be the rule rather than the exception.” The Aversion Project alleges the use of aversion/conversion
therapy against homosexuals, people of whom Levine
disapproved strongly. It reports: “Electrodes were strapped to the arms of the subject, and wires leading from these were in turn connected to a machine operated by a dial calibrated from one to 10. The subject was then shown black-and-white pictures of a naked man and encouraged to fantasise. The increase in the current would cause the muscles of the forearm to contract – an intensely painful sensation. When the subject was either screaming with pain or verbally requested that the dial be turned off, the current would be stopped and a colour Playboy centrefold substituted for the previous pictures …”
“What went on in SADF psychiatry was apartheid’s answer to Soviet psychiatry,” says Harold.