Cracking Heads. Roger Van de Velde

“Shaking Heads” is a feature report by Belgian journalist Roger Van de Velde from a place he did not want to be. After undergoing several complex surgeries, Roger began using the painkiller Palfium, a synthetic opioid, and soon became addicted to it. In 1961, the journalist was arrested for drunk driving and found in possession of numerous forged prescriptions. He spent most of the next nine years in penitentiary psychiatric institutions. “Shaking Heads” is Roger Van de Velde’s critical commentary on the psychiatric system, full of empathy and irony sketches of his comrades in distress, and poignant stories about human relationships in special conditions.