painter has no ability to even do a simple, accurate
representational drawing of a human figure.

Though hospital life had already become distasteful to me I was
young and poor when I graduated. So after nursing school I buckled
down and worked just long enough to save enough money to obtain a
masters degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of British
Columbia. Then I started working at Riverview Hospital in Vancouver,
B.C., doing diagnostic testing, and group therapy, mostly with
psychotic people. At Riverview I had a three-year-long opportunity
to observe the results of conventional psychiatric treatment.

The first thing I noticed was the 'revolving door' phenomena. That
is, people go out, and then they're back in, over and over again,
demonstrating that standard treatment--drugs, electroshock and group
therapy--had been ineffective. Worse, the treatments given at
Riverside were dangerous, often with long term side effects that
were more damaging than the disease being treated. It felt like
nursing school all over again; in the core of my being I somehow
knew there was a better way, a more effective way of helping people
to regain their mental health. Feeling like an outsider, I started
investigating the hospital's nooks and crannies. Much to my
surprise, in a back ward, one not open to the public, I noticed a
number of people with bright purple skins.

I asked the staff about this and every one of the psychiatrists
denied these patients existed. This outright and widely-agreed-upon
lie really raised my curiosity. Finally after pouring through the
journals in the hospital library I found an article describing
psycho tropic-drug-induced disruptions of melanin (the dark skin