'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.

'"Sectioned: A Life Interrupted" should be required reading for mental health professionals...it is as thought-provoking as it is compelling. O'Donoghue's unsentimental honesty...avoids the melodramatic, while holding unflinchingly to what is harrowing' * The Herald, Ron Ferguson *
'Here you will find an eloquent and compelling insight into one person's battles with mental illness ... it is his literary powers and keen observations that shine through the murk ... alongside the pain there is little self-pity and plenty of humour' * Herald *
This is a rare insight intoa hidden world * Greenock Telegraph *
'Sectioned should be compulsory reading for anyone working in the mental health system: they'll laugh, they'll cry, they'll think twice before using ECT' * Disability Now *
'Vividly put together [and] full of indelible images' * The Age (Australia) *
'While the subject matter is undoubtedly harrowing, what is most memorable about Donoghue's vivid memoir is its inspirational quality' * Good Book Guide *

John O'Donoghue was born in North London, of Irish parents, in the late 1950s. He first became mentally ill in the 1970s and suffered a series of breakdowns. In 1988, at the age of 30, with only three O Levels and an Elementary Swimming Cerificate, he got into the University of East Anglia, and met his wife. From 2000-2005 he was Chair of Survivors' Poetry, a national charity which publishes and promotes the work of survivors' of mental distress. He lectures in Creative Writing and lives in Brighton with his wife and four children.