An extraordinary account of one man's experiences of mental illness and institutions: a rare insight into a hidden world

'I'd been in Claybury for four months before I was given ECT. I was sixteen. The day I went down for it I was wearing a striped hospital dressing gown and yellow pyjamas. I'd been given the Last Rites.'

John O'Donoghue was first admitted to Claybury asylum with manic depression aged sixteen, just after his mother had been institutionalised. He spent over a decade in asylums, halfway houses, therapeutic communities, hostels for homeless men, squats, and on the streets. Sectioned is an honest and moving account of his experiences. It is also ultimately the story of his survival against the odds, and of his coming of age in a Britain that was changing forever.