Donald Ewen Cameron And Psychiatry As Manipulation

There is a great contradiction around Donald Ewen Cameron’s name and biography. On the one hand, he is remembered as one of the most important psychiatrists in history. He was none other than the first president of the World Psychiatric Association and also of the American Psychiatric Association and the Canadian Psychiatric Association.

On the other hand, he was the protagonist of one of the darkest episodes in psychiatry. In many circles he is remembered as “the father of torture”. This nickname was given to him for having been behind some of the most barbaric thought experiments ever heard.

In fact, a group of people in Canada is currently doing a review of events that Donald Ewen Cameron was involved in. Most of them are relatives of the victims of this psychiatrist and what they want is for what happened to be made public and, finally, to be sanctioned historically and morally.

In this article, we propose a brief review of his life and those actions that were (and continue to be) heavily censored.

Donald Ewen Cameron’s Biography

Donald Ewen Cameron’s biography begins with his birth in Bridge of Allen, a small town in Scotland, on December 24, 1901. He studied Medicine at the University of Glasgow, earned his degree in 1924 and later specialized in Psychology.

In 1926 he emigrated to the United States thanks to a research grant in psychiatry offered by the Phillips Clinic, based in Baltimore. Later, he worked in several institutions in the United States, Canada and Europe, becoming a prominent figure in the field of psychiatry.

Donald Ewen Cameron has made several publications over the years, all of them academic in nature and without major innovations. However, in 1937 he published a particularly impressive article on epilepsy.

At that time, epileptics were considered mentally ill. In his text, Cameron talked about treatments that, according to him, generated improvements. These treatments included practices to completely dehydrate patients and infect them with malaria, in addition to the indiscriminate application of insulin, electroshocks, and lobotomies. In this way, Cameron left his purely academic texts aside to enter a path full of polemics.

a CIA man

With the outbreak of World War II, the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) recruited Donald Ewen Cameron; the organization was the forerunner of the CIA. In 1943 Cameron settled in Canada to create the department of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal; he also became the director of the Allan Memorial Institute.

In the latter institution, several macabre thought experiments were carried out between 1950 and 1965. They were directed by Donald Ewen Cameron and most of these investigations were carried out clandestinely and financed by the CIA and the Canadian government.

Cameron implemented a ‘deprogramming’ treatment of the brain. For its development, it counted on several mental health patients that included children, women with postpartum depression and schizophrenics, among others.

Treatment included three phases: in the first, coma was induced for a period of up to three months or more; the second phase consisted of the application of electroshocks that caused severe amnesia; finally, during the third phase, the patient was isolated in a cell and given high doses of LSD.

At this point, the patient was ready for his mind to be “reprogrammed”. Many of them behaved like babies, to the point of sucking their thumbs like children do. The treatment left patients absolutely helpless and unable to decide. For these reasons, Cameron has been seen as “the father of torture”, an unscrupulous man capable of pushing his research to the limit, leaving aside all ethics and morals.

A crime against humanity without consequences?

It is not known how many people were deprogrammed in total. In Canada, victims are counted at a minimum of 100, but the exact number is not known. Many of the patients undergoing these treatments died or never recovered, becoming totally nullified and incapable.

The US government is known to have indemnified nine patients for permanent damage. In Canada, 77 victims received financial compensation for torture and at least 12 other patients received extrajudicial compensation, but with secrecy clauses.

The truth is that in May 2018, for the first time, the victims’ families got together. Together, they decided to file a lawsuit against the Canadian government. Its main objective is for the State to publicly admit its participation in these events, apologize for it and commit to preventing something like this from happening again.

However, Donald Ewen Cameron died in 1967 with his prestige intact. His death occurred while climbing a mountain. As soon as he learned he was dead, his family burned all the files he kept in his possession.