Deep Sleep Therapy

Deep Sleep Therapy (or Deep Sedation Therapy, DST) was a psychiatric treatment pioneered by British psychiatrist William Sargant. It was most notoriously practiced (in combination with electroshock and other therapies) by Dr Harry Bailey between 1962 and 1979 in Sydney, Australia at the Chelmsford Private Hospital.

The Chelmsford Scandal
Deep Sleep Therapy as it was practiced by Bailey involved long periods of drug-induced coma, during which it was supposed that patients' minds would be able to overcome mental afflictions. DST was prescribed for anything from schizophrenia and depression to obesity, PMS and addiction.

Twenty-six Chelmsford patients died during that period with only perfunctory investigation by authorities. One prominent group campaigning for investigations was the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, part of the Church of Scientology. A series of articles in the early 1980s in the Sydney Morning Herald exposed the horrors that occurred at Chelmsford, forcing the hospital to close. Legal action on behalf of former patients is still being pursued in New South Wales.