"MY grandmother talks to herself and all the saints continually, still lays a place at the table for her husband (dead 30 years now), and will not go to beduntil that nice man on the television has said good night at the end of the transmission. Her behaviour is typical of Irish Catholic women of her generation. But I'll grant you some of our highly esteemed specialists in mind control would say she's barking."
That might raise a bit of a laugh. But when Julie McNamara takes to the podium in Brighton tomorrow she plans some acute discomfort for some specialists in the field of mental health.
A member of the campaigning group "Survivors Speak Out", Julie - raised in Liverpool, whose family comes from Wexford - will challenge much of the received wisdom about the definition and treatment of mental illness. She will address "the institutionalised violation of women's civil rights within the mental health system". And she will raise questions about "bigotry" within that system, which, she argues, manifests itself in the approach to young black males and Irish women.
Julie will be addressing the fifth and final day of the week long International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Women's Citizenship. The conference, the first of its kind in Britain, marks the 20th anniversary of the first ever International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women, and comes one year on from the UN world conference on women in Beijing.
Its aims include greater understanding of the ways in which violence, abuse and gendered power relations affect women's citizenship and human rights; the strengthening of alliances within the international women's movement; and the development of action plans in the areas of social and public policy legislation, research and education, and intervention and prevention.
The final session of the conference has been devoted entirely to a discussion of violence against children. Research confirms the link between domestic violence and child abuse. As the organisers argue: "Many children are dependent on their mothers for safety; if society cannot safeguard the mother, it cannot safeguard the children."
Julie (37) speaks "as a survivor of sexual abuse and as an ex-user of the mental health systems".
She had "a complete breakdown" in 1979 but recovered to complete her education and acquire a degree. Until 1994 she worked as mental health coordinator in education in Hackney, east London.
In March of that year she was resident at a clinic for people experiencing mental distress. She describes responding to the abuse of a suffering young man who had "become aggressive with the shrink on duty". Says Julie: "He had clearly not been trained to diffuse potentially explosive situations ... He rang the police.
"I was later seized from the grounds by six police officers, restrained at the ankles and handcuffed. I was then thrown into the back of a van and imprisoned at Haringey police station. My rights were not read, I was not accompanied by anybody trained in mental health.
"I was denied access to the telephone and at no time was I seen by medical personnel at the lock in facility I was eventually removed to. I was made to leave under the supervision of the three remaining police officers in attendance, having had it made clear to me that co operating would be in my best interests and preferable to a longer spell in the lock in."
She continues: "I sustained heavy bruising on the face and arms, the mark of a bootprint on my back and was treated for post traumatic stress disorder for over a year after the event. But one of the comments made by the sergeant will stay with me for some time to come. On asking why it had taken six police officers and two vans to remove one woman, he laughed and said: `Well... we were told we were looking for a thick set Irish woman Julie will tell the conference hem own experience fuels her mission "to close the false divide between those who provide mental health care and those who receive". She identifies a "terrible us" and them culture which often means people "are denied their basic human rights and treated in degrading, inhuman ways."
While not denying "the reality of psychic pain" she will challenge the use of Section 136 referrals under the 1983 Mental Health Act, which empowers police to detain anyone they think is mentally disordered or "a danger to the public" for up to 72 hours. And she will quote Hackney statistics in support of her contention that "much of our current mental health care is about policing and containing particular communities".
Hackney has the largest number of Section 136 referrals in the country. "Interestingly," says Julie, "the majority of those taken in... are young black males. The next largest group are Irish."