Morison's rotatory machine

Domain XVI · Historical, discredited & harmful · Alexander Morison · 1828

What it is

What it was. Rotation therapy belongs to a family of early-nineteenth-century asylum devices that Tromans (Tate Papers 13, 2010) groups with spinning, restraining and drenching apparatus. In it, a patient held in a chair was "swung around as if on a merry-go-round". Tromans identifies Morison's…

Format

• The frame describes the psychotherapist's work, not the practice. Session number and length follow the client's needs and the setting.
• Safety and safeguarding. Goal: act on any current coercion, abuse, restraint misuse or risk to self. This phase overrides all others and is revisited whenever new information appears.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Advocacy and follow-up. Goal: complaints, records access, advocacy and institutional change where wanted, plus the therapist's own professional duties. This phase ends when the client's chosen actions are complete or handed on.
• What it was. Rotation therapy belongs to a family of early-nineteenth-century asylum devices that Tromans (Tate Papers 13, 2010) groups with spinning, restraining and drenching apparatus. In it, a patient held in a chair was "swung around as if on a merry-go-round". Tromans identifies Morison's Cases of Mental Disease (1828) as the source of a well-known illustration of a "rotatory machine". Whether Morison designed…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• referral being experienced as rejection. It is working when the client attends and feels the choice was theirs.
• the process becoming retraumatising, or advocacy replacing therapy. It is working when the client feels effective and supported.
• pleasure in the subject pulling sessions away from the client's needs. It is working when the history serves the client's goals.
• health anxiety spirals, and missed medical causes. It is working when the client has a medical plan and the two strands are not confused.
• a client concealing risk for fear of admission. Address this openly. It is working when the client engages with a plan they helped write.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.