Psychiatric survivors movement
Encyclopedia
The psychiatric survivors movement (more broadly the psychiatric consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement) is a diverse association of individuals who are either currently clients of mental health services ('consumers' or in the UK 'service users'), or who consider themselves survivors of interventions by psychiatry
, or who identify themselves as ex-patients of mental health services. The movement typically campaigns for more choice and improved services, and/or empowerment
and user-led alternatives, and against prejudice in society more generally. Common themes are "talking back to the power of psychiatry", rights protection and advocacy, and self-determination. While activists in this movement may share a collective identity, individuals can be seen as enacting their concerns along a continuum from conservative to radical, according to their position in relation to psychiatric treatment and their relative levels of resistance and patienthood. This can in turn relate to an individual's experiences of the mental health system, particularly if subject to Involuntary commitment
and/or forced medication or electroshock
.
. A number of ex-patients published pamphlets against the system in the 18th century, such as Samuel Bruckshaw (1774), on the "iniquitous abuse of private madhouses", and William Belcher (1796) with his "Address to humanity, Containing a letter to Dr Munro, a receipt to make a lunatic, and a sketch of a true smiling hyena". Such reformist efforts were generally opposed by madhouse keepers and medics.
In the late 18th century, moral treatment
reforms developed which were originally based in part on the approach of French ex-patient turned hospital-superintendent Jean-Baptiste Pussin
and his wife Margueritte. From 1848 in England, the Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society
campaigned for sweeping reforms to the asylum system and abuses of the moral treatment approach. In the United States, The Opal
(1851–1860) was a ten volume Journal produced by patients of Utica State Lunatic Asylum
in New York, which has been viewed in part as an early liberation movement. Beginning in 1868, Elizabeth Packard
, founder of the Anti-Insane Asylum Society, published a series of books and pamphlets describing her experiences in the Illinois insane asylum to which her husband had had her committed.
and the psychiatric establishment, and toned down his hostility as he needed their support for reforms. His reliance on rich donors and his need for approval from experts led him to hand over to psychiatrists the organization he helped establish. In the UK, the National Society for Lunacy Law Reform was established in 1920 by angry ex-patients sick of their experiences and complaints being patronisingly discounted by the authorities who were using medical "window dressing" for essentially custodial and punitive practices. In 1922, ex-patient Rachel Grant-Smith added to calls for reform of the system of neglect and abuse she had suffered by publishing "The Experiences of an Asylum Patient".
We Are Not Alone (WANA) was founded by a group of patients at Rockland State Hospital in New York
(now the Rockland Psychiatric Center) in the mid to late 1940s, and continued to meet as an ex-patient group. Their goal was to provide support and advice and help others make the difficult transition from hospital to community. By the early 1950s WANA dissolved after it was taken over by mental health professionals who transformed it into Fountain House, a psychosocial rehabilitation service for people leaving state mental institutions. The founders of WANA found themselves pushed aside by professionals with money and influence, who made them “members” of the new organization . During that period, people who received psychiatric treatment identified themselves as patients, and this term was generally unchallenged as a self-description until the 1970s. A patronizing attitude by some health care workers led to resentment among some current and former patients, which eventually found expression in more militant groups beginning in the early 1970s.
Originated by crusaders in periods of liberal social change, and appealing not so much to other sufferers as to elite groups with power, when the early reformer's energy or influence waned, mental patients were again mostly friendless and forgotten.
and shock therapy
. These used to be associated with concerns and much opposition on grounds of basic morality, harmful effects, or misuse. Towards the 1960s, psychiatric medication
s came in to widespread use and also caused controversy relating to adverse effects and misuse. There were also associated moves away from large psychiatric institutions to community-based services (later to become a full-scale deinstitutionalization), which sometimes empowered service users, although community-based services were often deficient.
Coming to the fore in the 1960s, an anti-psychiatry
movement challenged the fundamental claims and practices of mainstream psychiatry. The ex-patient movement of this time contributed to, and derived much from, antipsychiatry ideology, but has also been described as having its own agenda, described as humanistic socialism
. For a time, the movement shared aims and practices with "radical therapists", who tended to be Marxist. However, the consumer/survivor/ex-patients gradually felt that the radical therapists did not necessarily share the same goals and were taking over, and they broke away from them in order to maintain independence.
By the 1970s, the women's movement
, gay rights movement, and disability rights movements
had emerged. It was in this context that former mental patients began to organize groups with the common goals of fighting for patients' rights and against forced treatment, stigma and discrimination, and often to promote peer-run services as an alternative to the traditional mental health system. Unlike professional mental health services, which were usually based on the medical model
, peer-run services
were based on the principle that individuals who have shared similar experiences can help themselves and each other through self-help and mutual support. Many of the individuals who organized these early groups identified themselves as psychiatric survivors. Their groups had names such as Insane Liberation Front and the Network Against Psychiatric Assault.
Dorothy Weiner and about 10 others, including Tom Wittick, established the Insane Liberation Front in the spring of 1970 in Portland, Oregon
. Though it only lasted 6 months, it had a notable influence in the history of North American ex-patients groups. News that former inmates of mental institutions were organizing was carried to other parts of North America. Individuals such as Howard Geld, known as Howie the Harp for his harmonica playing, left Portland where he been involved in ILF to return to his native New York to help found the Mental Patients Liberation Project in 1971. During the early 1970s, groups spread to California, New York, and Boston, which were primarily antipsychiatry, opposed to forced treatment including forced drugging, shock treatment and involuntary committal. In 1972, the first organized group in Canada
, the Mental Patients Association, started to publish In A Nutshell, while in the US the first edition of the first national publication by ex-mental patients, Madness Network News, was published in Oakland, continuing until 1986.
Some all-women groups developed such as Women Against Psychiatric Assault, begun in 1975 in San Fransisco.
The major spokespeople of the movement have been described in generalities as largely white, middle-class and well-educated. It has been suggested that other activists were often more anarchistic and anti-capitalist, felt more cut-off from society and more like a minority with more in common with the poor, ethnic minorities, feminists, prisoners & gay rights than with the white middle classes. The leaders were sometimes considered to be merely reformist and, because of their "stratified position" within society, to be uncomprehending of the problems of the poor. The "radicals" saw no sense in seeking solutions within a capitalist system that creates mental problems. However, they were united in considering society and psychiatric domination to be the problem, rather than people designated mentally ill.
Some activists condemned psychiatry under any conditions, voluntary or involuntary, while others believed in the right of people to undergo psychiatric treatment on a voluntary basis. Voluntary psychotherapy, at the time mainly psychoanalysis, did not therefore come under the same severe attack as the somatic therapies. The ex-patients emphasized individual support from other patients; they espoused assertiveness, liberation, and equality; and they advocated user-controlled services as part of a totally voluntary continuum. However, although the movement espoused egalitarianism
and opposed the concept of leadership, it is said to have developed a cadre of known, articulate, and literate men and women who did the writing, talking, organizing, and contacting. Very much the product of the rebellious, populist, anti-elitist mood of the 1960s, they strived above all for self-determination and self-reliance. In generally, the work of some psychiatrists, as well as the lack of criticism by the psychiatric establishment, was interpreted as an abandonment of a moral commitment to do no harm. There was anger and resentment toward a profession that had the authority to label them as mentally disabled and was perceived as infantilizing them and disregarding their wishes.
A 1986 report on developments in the United States noted that "there are now three national organizations ... The ‘conservatives’ have created the National Mental Health Consumers' Association ... The ‘moderates’ have formed the National Alliance of Mental Patients ... The ‘radical’ group is called the Network to Abolish Psychiatry". Many, however, felt that they had survived the psychiatric system and its "treatments" and resented being called consumers. The National Association of Mental Patients in the United States became the National Association of Psychiatric Survivors. "Phoenix Rising: The Voice of the Psychiatrized" was published by ex-inmates (of psychiatric hospitals) in Toronto from 1980 to 1990, known across Canada for its antipsychiatry stance.
In late 1988, leaders from several of the main national and grassroots psychiatric survivor groups decided an independent coalition was needed, and Support Coalition International (SCI) was formed in 1988, later to become MindFreedom International
. In addition, the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
(WNUSP), was founded in 1991 as the World Federation of Psychiatric Users (WFPU), an international organisation of recipients of mental health services.
An emphasis on voluntary involvement in services is said to have presented problems to the movement since, especially in the wake of deinstitutionalization, community services were fragmented and many individuals in distressed states of mind were being put in prisons or re-institutionalized in community services, or became homeless, often distrusting and resisting any help.
Science journalist Robert Whitaker has concluded that patients rights groups have been speaking out against psychiatric abuses for decades - the torturous treatments, the loss of freedom and dignity, the misuse of seclusion and restraints, the neurological damage caused by drugs - but have been condemned and dismissed by the psychiatric establishment and others. Reading about the experiences they suffered through has been described as comparable to reading the stories of Holocaust survivors. Recipients of mental health services demanded control over their own treatment and sought to influence the mental health system and society's views.
The most common terms in Germany are "Psychiatrie-Betroffene" (people afflicted by/confronted with psychiatry) and "Psychiatrie-Erfahrene" (people who have experienced psychiatry). Sometimes the terms are considered as synonymous but sometimes the former emphasizes the violence and negative aspects of psychiatry. The German national association of (ex-)users and survivors of psychiatry is called the Bundesverband Psychiatrie-Erfahrener (BPE).
There are many grassroots self-help groups of consumers/survivors, local and national, all over the world, which are an important cornerstone of empowerment. A considerable obstacle to realizing more consumer/survivor alternatives is lack of funding. Alternative consumer/survivor groups like the National Empowerment Center
http://www.power2u.org/ in the US which receive public funds but question orthodox psychiatric treatment, have often come under attack for receiving public funding and been subject to funding cuts.
As well as advocacy and reform campaigns, the development of self-help and user/survivor controlled services is a central issue. The Runaway-House in Berlin
, Germany
, is an example. Run by the Organisation for the Protection from Psychiatric Violence, it is an antipsychiatric crisis centre for homeless survivors of psychiatry where the residents can live for a limited amount of time and where half the staff members are survivors of psychiatry themselves. In Helsingborg
, Sweden
, the Hotel Magnus Stenbock is run by a user/survivor organization "RSMH" that gives users/survivors a possibility to live in their own apartments. It is financed by the Swedish government and run entirely by users. Voice of Soul is a user/survivor organization in Hungary
. Creative Routes is a user/survivor organization in London
, England
, that among other support and advocacy activities puts on an annual "Bonkersfest
".
WNUSP is a consultant organization for the United Nations
. After a "long and difficult discussion", ENUSP and WNUSP (European and World Networks of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry) decided to employ the term (ex-)users and survivors of psychiatry in order to include the identities of the different groups and positions represented in these international NGOs. WNUSP contributed to the development of the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
and produced a manual to help people use it called "Implementing the Disability Rights Treaty, for Users, Survivors of Psychiatry" and ENUSP is consulted by the European Union
and World Health Organization
.
In 2007 at a Conference held in Dresden on "Coercive Treatment in Psychiatry: A Comprehensive Review", the president and other leaders of the World Psychiatric Association
met, following a formal request from the World Health Organization, with four representatives from leading consumer/survivor groups.
The National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery (formerly known as National Coalition for Mental Health Consumer/Survivor Organizations) campaigns in the United States to ensure that consumer/survivors have a major voice in the development and implementation of health care, mental health, and social policies at the state and national levels, empowering people to recover and lead a full life in the community.
The United States Massachusetts-based Freedom Center provides and promotes alternative and holistic approaches and takes a stand for greater choice and options in treatments and care. The center and the New York-based Icarus Project
(which does not self-identify as a consumer/survivor organization but has participants that identify as such) have published a Harm Reduction Guide To Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs and were recently a featured charity in Forbes
business magazine.
Mad pride
events, organized by loosely connected groups in at least seven countries including Australia, South Africa, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ghana, draw thousands of participants. For some, the objective is to continue the destigmatization of mental illness. Another wing rejects the need to treat mental afflictions with psychotropic drugs and seeks alternatives to the "care" of the medical establishment. Many members of the movement say they are publicly discussing their own struggles to help those with similar conditions and to inform the general public.
Survivor David Oakes, Director of MindFreedom, hosts a monthly radio show and the Freedom Center initiated a weekly FM radio show now syndicated on the Pacifica Network, Madness Radio http://www.madnessradio.net, hosted by Freedom Center co-founder Will Hall
.
A new International Coalition of National Consumer/User Organizations was launched in Canada in 2007, called Interrelate.
A recent series of studies in Canada compared individuals who participated in CSIs with those who did not. The two groups were comparable at baseline on a wide range of demographic variables, self-reported psychiatric diagnosis, service use, and outcome measures. After a year and a half, those who had participated in CSIs showed significant improvement in social support and quality of life (daily activities), less days of psychiatric hospitalization, and more were likely to have stayed in employment (paid or volunteer) and/or education. There was no significant difference on measures of community integration and personal empowerment, however. There were some limitations to the findings; although the active and nonactive groups did not differ significantly at baseline on measures of distress or hospitalization, the active group did have a higher mean score and there may have been a natural pattern of recovery over time for that group (regression to the mean). The authors noted that the apparent positive impacts of consumer-run organizations were achieved at a fraction of the cost of professional community programs.
Further qualitative studies indicated that CSIs can provide safe environments that are a positive, welcoming place to go; social arenas that provide opportunities to meet and talk with peers; an alternative worldview that provides opportunities for members to participate and contribute; and effective facilitators of community integration that provide opportunities to connect members to the community at large. System-level activism was perceived to result in changes in perceptions by the public and mental health professionals (about mental health or mental illness, the lived experience of consumer/survivors, the legitimacy of their opinions, and the perceived value of CSIs) and in concrete changes in service delivery practice, service planning, public policy, or funding allocations. The authors noted that the evidence indicated that the work benefits other consumers/survivors (present and future), other service providers, the general public, and communities. They also noted that there were various barriers to this, most notably lack of funding, and also that the range of views represented by the CSIs appeared less narrow and more nuanced and complex than previously, and that perhaps the consumer/survivor social movement is at a different place than it was 25 years ago.
A significant theme that has emerged from consumer/survivor work, as well as from some psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, has been a recovery model
which seeks to overturn therapeutic pessimism and to support sufferers to forge their own personal journal towards the life they want to live; some argue however that it has been used as a cover to blame people for not recovering or to cut public services.
There has also been criticism of the movement. Organized psychiatry often views radical consumerist groups as extremist, as having little scientific foundation and no defined leadership, as "continually trying to restrict the work of psychiatrists and care for the seriously mentally ill", and as promoting disinformation on the use of involuntary commitment
, electroconvulsive therapy
, stimulants and antidepressants among children, and neuroleptics among adults. However, opponents consistently argue that psychiatry is territorial and profit-driven and stigmatizes and undermines the self-determination of patients and ex-patients The movement has also argued against social stigma
or mentalism/saneism
by wider society.
Well-positioned forces in the USA, led by figures such as psychiatrists E. Fuller Torrey
and Sally Satel
, and some leaders of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, have lobbied against the funding of consumer/survivor groups that promote antipsychiatry views or promote social and experiential recovery rather than a biomedical model, or who protest against outpatient commitment
. Torrey has said the term "psychiatric survivor" used by ex-patients to describe themselves is just political correctness and has blamed them, along with civil rights lawyers, for the deaths of half a million people due to suicides and deaths on the street. His accusations have been described as inflammatory and completely unsubstantiated, however, and issues of self-determination and self-identity said to be more complex than that. Such claims have also been controverted by recent publications such as U.S.A. Today where a director of psychiatric services argues that the medical model and the way persons with mental illnesses are treated today cause people to die up to 25 years earlier on average.
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
, or who identify themselves as ex-patients of mental health services. The movement typically campaigns for more choice and improved services, and/or empowerment
Empowerment
Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities...
and user-led alternatives, and against prejudice in society more generally. Common themes are "talking back to the power of psychiatry", rights protection and advocacy, and self-determination. While activists in this movement may share a collective identity, individuals can be seen as enacting their concerns along a continuum from conservative to radical, according to their position in relation to psychiatric treatment and their relative levels of resistance and patienthood. This can in turn relate to an individual's experiences of the mental health system, particularly if subject to Involuntary commitment
Involuntary commitment
Involuntary commitment or civil commitment is a legal process through which an individual with symptoms of severe mental illness is court-ordered into treatment in a hospital or in the community ....
and/or forced medication or electroshock
Involuntary treatment
Involuntary treatment refers to medical treatment undertaken without a person's consent. In almost all circumstances, involuntary treatment refers to psychiatric treatment administered despite an individual's objections...
.
Human rights
People diagnosed with with mental disorders may "suffer from widespread systemic discrimination and are consistently denied the rights and services to which they are entitled". According to members of the Psychiatric Survivors movement, coerced and/or forced psychiatric interventions are a violation of a person's basic human rights; including the right to autonomy, the freedom to make one's own choices, the right to liberty and security of the person, the right to physical and mental integrity, freedom from torture, the right to health care on the basis of free and informed consent.Precursors
The modern self-help and advocacy movement in the field of mental health services developed in the 1970s, but former psychiatric patients have been campaigning for centuries to change laws, treatments, services and public policies. "The most persistent critics of psychiatry have always been former mental hospital patients", although few were able to tell their stories publicly or to openly confront the psychiatric establishment, and those who did so were commonly considered so extreme in their charges that they could seldom gain credibility. In 1620 in England, patients of the notoriously harsh Bethlem Hospital banded together and sent a "Petition of the Poor Distracted People in the House of Bedlam (concerned with conditions for inmates)" to the House of LordsHouse of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
. A number of ex-patients published pamphlets against the system in the 18th century, such as Samuel Bruckshaw (1774), on the "iniquitous abuse of private madhouses", and William Belcher (1796) with his "Address to humanity, Containing a letter to Dr Munro, a receipt to make a lunatic, and a sketch of a true smiling hyena". Such reformist efforts were generally opposed by madhouse keepers and medics.
In the late 18th century, moral treatment
Moral treatment
Moral treatment was an approach to mental disorder based on humane psychosocial care or moral discipline that emerged in the 18th century and came to the fore for much of the 19th century, deriving partly from psychiatry or psychology and partly from religious or moral concerns...
reforms developed which were originally based in part on the approach of French ex-patient turned hospital-superintendent Jean-Baptiste Pussin
Jean-Baptiste Pussin
Jean-Baptiste Pussin was a hospital superintendent who, along with his wife and colleague Marguerite, is recognized as having established more humane treatment of patients with mental disorders...
and his wife Margueritte. From 1848 in England, the Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society
Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society
The Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society was a pressure group started by ex-patients in 19th century Britain that campaigned for the human rights of people alleged to have mental disorders...
campaigned for sweeping reforms to the asylum system and abuses of the moral treatment approach. In the United States, The Opal
The Opal
The Opal is a ten volume journal written and edited by the patients of the Utica State Lunatic Asylum, circa 1851. On its more than 3,000 pages, writers talked of their experiences and world views, giving great insight to the environment of New York's premiere state-operated Asylum, in Utica, New...
(1851–1860) was a ten volume Journal produced by patients of Utica State Lunatic Asylum
Utica Psychiatric Center
The Utica Psychiatric Center, also known as Utica State Hospital, which opened in Utica in 1843, was New York's first state-run facility designed to care for the mentally ill and was one of the first such institutions in the United States, predating and perhaps influencing the Kirkbride Plan which...
in New York, which has been viewed in part as an early liberation movement. Beginning in 1868, Elizabeth Packard
Elizabeth Packard
Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard was an advocate for the rights of women and people accused of insanity.-Life:...
, founder of the Anti-Insane Asylum Society, published a series of books and pamphlets describing her experiences in the Illinois insane asylum to which her husband had had her committed.
Early 20th century
A few decades later, another former psychiatric patient, Clifford W. Beers, founded the National Committee on Mental Hygiene, which eventually became the National Mental Health Association. Beers sought to improve the plight of individuals receiving public psychiatric care, particularly those committed to state institutions. His book, A Mind that Found Itself (1908), described his experience with mental illness and the treatment he encountered in mental hospitals. Beers' work stimulated public interest in more responsible care and treatment. However, while Beers initially damned psychiatrists for tolerating mistreatment of patients, and envisioned more ex-patient involvement in the movement, he was influenced by Adolf MeyerAdolf Meyer (psychiatrist)
Adolf Meyer, M.D., LL.D., , was a Swiss psychiatrist who rose to prominence as the president of the American Psychiatric Association and was one of the most influential figures in psychiatry in the first half of the twentieth century...
and the psychiatric establishment, and toned down his hostility as he needed their support for reforms. His reliance on rich donors and his need for approval from experts led him to hand over to psychiatrists the organization he helped establish. In the UK, the National Society for Lunacy Law Reform was established in 1920 by angry ex-patients sick of their experiences and complaints being patronisingly discounted by the authorities who were using medical "window dressing" for essentially custodial and punitive practices. In 1922, ex-patient Rachel Grant-Smith added to calls for reform of the system of neglect and abuse she had suffered by publishing "The Experiences of an Asylum Patient".
We Are Not Alone (WANA) was founded by a group of patients at Rockland State Hospital in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
(now the Rockland Psychiatric Center) in the mid to late 1940s, and continued to meet as an ex-patient group. Their goal was to provide support and advice and help others make the difficult transition from hospital to community. By the early 1950s WANA dissolved after it was taken over by mental health professionals who transformed it into Fountain House, a psychosocial rehabilitation service for people leaving state mental institutions. The founders of WANA found themselves pushed aside by professionals with money and influence, who made them “members” of the new organization . During that period, people who received psychiatric treatment identified themselves as patients, and this term was generally unchallenged as a self-description until the 1970s. A patronizing attitude by some health care workers led to resentment among some current and former patients, which eventually found expression in more militant groups beginning in the early 1970s.
Originated by crusaders in periods of liberal social change, and appealing not so much to other sufferers as to elite groups with power, when the early reformer's energy or influence waned, mental patients were again mostly friendless and forgotten.
1950s to 1970s
The 1950s saw the reduction in the use of lobotomyLobotomy
Lobotomy "; τομή – tomē: "cut/slice") is a neurosurgical procedure, a form of psychosurgery, also known as a leukotomy or leucotomy . It consists of cutting the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the anterior part of the frontal lobes of the brain...
and shock therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy , formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Its mode of action is unknown...
. These used to be associated with concerns and much opposition on grounds of basic morality, harmful effects, or misuse. Towards the 1960s, psychiatric medication
Psychiatric medication
A psychiatric medication is a licensed psychoactive drug taken to exert an effect on the mental state and used to treat mental disorders. Usually prescribed in psychiatric settings, these medications are typically made of synthetic chemical compounds, although some are naturally occurring, or at...
s came in to widespread use and also caused controversy relating to adverse effects and misuse. There were also associated moves away from large psychiatric institutions to community-based services (later to become a full-scale deinstitutionalization), which sometimes empowered service users, although community-based services were often deficient.
Coming to the fore in the 1960s, an anti-psychiatry
Anti-psychiatry
Anti-psychiatry is a configuration of groups and theoretical constructs that emerged in the 1960s, and questioned the fundamental assumptions and practices of psychiatry, such as its claim that it achieves universal, scientific objectivity. Its igniting influences were Michel Foucault, R.D. Laing,...
movement challenged the fundamental claims and practices of mainstream psychiatry. The ex-patient movement of this time contributed to, and derived much from, antipsychiatry ideology, but has also been described as having its own agenda, described as humanistic socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. For a time, the movement shared aims and practices with "radical therapists", who tended to be Marxist. However, the consumer/survivor/ex-patients gradually felt that the radical therapists did not necessarily share the same goals and were taking over, and they broke away from them in order to maintain independence.
By the 1970s, the women's movement
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, gay rights movement, and disability rights movements
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
had emerged. It was in this context that former mental patients began to organize groups with the common goals of fighting for patients' rights and against forced treatment, stigma and discrimination, and often to promote peer-run services as an alternative to the traditional mental health system. Unlike professional mental health services, which were usually based on the medical model
Medical model
Medical model is the term cited by psychiatrist Ronald D. Laing in his The Politics of the Family and Other Essays , for the "set of procedures in which all doctors are trained." This set includes complaint, history, physical examination, ancillary tests if needed, diagnosis, treatment, and...
, peer-run services
Peer support
Peer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters, and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, listening, or counseling...
were based on the principle that individuals who have shared similar experiences can help themselves and each other through self-help and mutual support. Many of the individuals who organized these early groups identified themselves as psychiatric survivors. Their groups had names such as Insane Liberation Front and the Network Against Psychiatric Assault.
Dorothy Weiner and about 10 others, including Tom Wittick, established the Insane Liberation Front in the spring of 1970 in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
. Though it only lasted 6 months, it had a notable influence in the history of North American ex-patients groups. News that former inmates of mental institutions were organizing was carried to other parts of North America. Individuals such as Howard Geld, known as Howie the Harp for his harmonica playing, left Portland where he been involved in ILF to return to his native New York to help found the Mental Patients Liberation Project in 1971. During the early 1970s, groups spread to California, New York, and Boston, which were primarily antipsychiatry, opposed to forced treatment including forced drugging, shock treatment and involuntary committal. In 1972, the first organized group in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the Mental Patients Association, started to publish In A Nutshell, while in the US the first edition of the first national publication by ex-mental patients, Madness Network News, was published in Oakland, continuing until 1986.
Some all-women groups developed such as Women Against Psychiatric Assault, begun in 1975 in San Fransisco.
The major spokespeople of the movement have been described in generalities as largely white, middle-class and well-educated. It has been suggested that other activists were often more anarchistic and anti-capitalist, felt more cut-off from society and more like a minority with more in common with the poor, ethnic minorities, feminists, prisoners & gay rights than with the white middle classes. The leaders were sometimes considered to be merely reformist and, because of their "stratified position" within society, to be uncomprehending of the problems of the poor. The "radicals" saw no sense in seeking solutions within a capitalist system that creates mental problems. However, they were united in considering society and psychiatric domination to be the problem, rather than people designated mentally ill.
Some activists condemned psychiatry under any conditions, voluntary or involuntary, while others believed in the right of people to undergo psychiatric treatment on a voluntary basis. Voluntary psychotherapy, at the time mainly psychoanalysis, did not therefore come under the same severe attack as the somatic therapies. The ex-patients emphasized individual support from other patients; they espoused assertiveness, liberation, and equality; and they advocated user-controlled services as part of a totally voluntary continuum. However, although the movement espoused egalitarianism
Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
and opposed the concept of leadership, it is said to have developed a cadre of known, articulate, and literate men and women who did the writing, talking, organizing, and contacting. Very much the product of the rebellious, populist, anti-elitist mood of the 1960s, they strived above all for self-determination and self-reliance. In generally, the work of some psychiatrists, as well as the lack of criticism by the psychiatric establishment, was interpreted as an abandonment of a moral commitment to do no harm. There was anger and resentment toward a profession that had the authority to label them as mentally disabled and was perceived as infantilizing them and disregarding their wishes.
1980s and 1990s
By the 1980s, individuals who considered themselves "consumers" of mental health services rather than passive "patients" had begun to organize self-help/advocacy groups and peer-run services. While sharing some of the goals of the earlier movement, consumer groups did not seek to abolish the traditional mental health system, which they believed was necessary. Instead, they wanted to reform it and have more choice. Consumer groups encouraged their members to learn as much as possible about the mental health system so that they could gain access to the best services and treatments available. In 1985, the National Mental Health Consumers' Association was formed in the United States.A 1986 report on developments in the United States noted that "there are now three national organizations ... The ‘conservatives’ have created the National Mental Health Consumers' Association ... The ‘moderates’ have formed the National Alliance of Mental Patients ... The ‘radical’ group is called the Network to Abolish Psychiatry". Many, however, felt that they had survived the psychiatric system and its "treatments" and resented being called consumers. The National Association of Mental Patients in the United States became the National Association of Psychiatric Survivors. "Phoenix Rising: The Voice of the Psychiatrized" was published by ex-inmates (of psychiatric hospitals) in Toronto from 1980 to 1990, known across Canada for its antipsychiatry stance.
In late 1988, leaders from several of the main national and grassroots psychiatric survivor groups decided an independent coalition was needed, and Support Coalition International (SCI) was formed in 1988, later to become MindFreedom International
MindFreedom International
MindFreedom International is an international coalition of over one hundred grassroots groups and thousands of individual members from fourteen nations. It was founded in 1990 to advocate against forced medication, medical restraints, and involuntary electroconvulsive therapy. Its stated mission is...
. In addition, the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
The World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry is an international organisation representing, and led by "survivors of psychiatry". As of 2003, over 70 national organizations were members of WNUSP, based in 30 countries...
(WNUSP), was founded in 1991 as the World Federation of Psychiatric Users (WFPU), an international organisation of recipients of mental health services.
An emphasis on voluntary involvement in services is said to have presented problems to the movement since, especially in the wake of deinstitutionalization, community services were fragmented and many individuals in distressed states of mind were being put in prisons or re-institutionalized in community services, or became homeless, often distrusting and resisting any help.
Science journalist Robert Whitaker has concluded that patients rights groups have been speaking out against psychiatric abuses for decades - the torturous treatments, the loss of freedom and dignity, the misuse of seclusion and restraints, the neurological damage caused by drugs - but have been condemned and dismissed by the psychiatric establishment and others. Reading about the experiences they suffered through has been described as comparable to reading the stories of Holocaust survivors. Recipients of mental health services demanded control over their own treatment and sought to influence the mental health system and society's views.
The movement today
In the United States, the number of mental health mutual support groups (MSG), self-help organizations (SHO) (run by and for mental health consumers and/or family members) and consumer-operated services (COS) was recently estimated to be 7,467. The movement may express a preference for the "survivor" label over the "consumer" label, with more than 60 percent of ex-patient groups reported to support anti-psychiatry beliefs and considering themselves to be "psychiatric survivors." There is some variation between the perspective on the consumer/survivor movement coming from psychiatry, anti-psychiatry or consumers/survivors themselves.The most common terms in Germany are "Psychiatrie-Betroffene" (people afflicted by/confronted with psychiatry) and "Psychiatrie-Erfahrene" (people who have experienced psychiatry). Sometimes the terms are considered as synonymous but sometimes the former emphasizes the violence and negative aspects of psychiatry. The German national association of (ex-)users and survivors of psychiatry is called the Bundesverband Psychiatrie-Erfahrener (BPE).
There are many grassroots self-help groups of consumers/survivors, local and national, all over the world, which are an important cornerstone of empowerment. A considerable obstacle to realizing more consumer/survivor alternatives is lack of funding. Alternative consumer/survivor groups like the National Empowerment Center
National Empowerment Center
The National Empowerment Center is an advocacy and peer-support organization in the United States that promotes an empowerment-based recovery model of mental disorder. It is run by consumers/survivors/ex-patients in recovery....
http://www.power2u.org/ in the US which receive public funds but question orthodox psychiatric treatment, have often come under attack for receiving public funding and been subject to funding cuts.
As well as advocacy and reform campaigns, the development of self-help and user/survivor controlled services is a central issue. The Runaway-House in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, is an example. Run by the Organisation for the Protection from Psychiatric Violence, it is an antipsychiatric crisis centre for homeless survivors of psychiatry where the residents can live for a limited amount of time and where half the staff members are survivors of psychiatry themselves. In Helsingborg
Helsingborg
Helsingborg is a city and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 97,122 inhabitants in 2010. Helsingborg is the centre of an area in the Øresund region of about 320,000 inhabitants in north-west Scania, and is Sweden's closest point to Denmark, with the Danish city...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, the Hotel Magnus Stenbock is run by a user/survivor organization "RSMH" that gives users/survivors a possibility to live in their own apartments. It is financed by the Swedish government and run entirely by users. Voice of Soul is a user/survivor organization in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
. Creative Routes is a user/survivor organization in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, that among other support and advocacy activities puts on an annual "Bonkersfest
Bonkersfest
Bonkersfest is a free music and arts festival held in Camberwell, South London, which aims to approach mental distress/health issues and people who are affected from them with positivity and creativity, to challenge stigma and exclusion, and to celebrate psychological diversity...
".
WNUSP is a consultant organization for the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. After a "long and difficult discussion", ENUSP and WNUSP (European and World Networks of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry) decided to employ the term (ex-)users and survivors of psychiatry in order to include the identities of the different groups and positions represented in these international NGOs. WNUSP contributed to the development of the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights instrument of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities...
and produced a manual to help people use it called "Implementing the Disability Rights Treaty, for Users, Survivors of Psychiatry" and ENUSP is consulted by the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
and World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
.
In 2007 at a Conference held in Dresden on "Coercive Treatment in Psychiatry: A Comprehensive Review", the president and other leaders of the World Psychiatric Association
World Psychiatric Association
The World Psychiatric Association is an international umbrella organisation of psychiatric societies.-Objectives and goals:Originally created to produce world psychiatric congresses, it has evolved to hold regional meetings, to promote professional education and to set ethical, scientific and...
met, following a formal request from the World Health Organization, with four representatives from leading consumer/survivor groups.
The National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery (formerly known as National Coalition for Mental Health Consumer/Survivor Organizations) campaigns in the United States to ensure that consumer/survivors have a major voice in the development and implementation of health care, mental health, and social policies at the state and national levels, empowering people to recover and lead a full life in the community.
The United States Massachusetts-based Freedom Center provides and promotes alternative and holistic approaches and takes a stand for greater choice and options in treatments and care. The center and the New York-based Icarus Project
Icarus Project
.The Icarus Project http://theicarusproject.net is a mental health movement characterized by the view that many phenomena commonly labeled as mental illness should actually be regarded as "dangerous gifts"...
(which does not self-identify as a consumer/survivor organization but has participants that identify as such) have published a Harm Reduction Guide To Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs and were recently a featured charity in Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
business magazine.
Mad pride
Mad Pride
Mad Pride is a mass movement of mental health services users and their allies. The first known event specifically organized as a Pride event by people who identify as psychiatric survivors/consumer/ex-patients was in Toronto, Canada when it was called "Psychiatric Survivor Pride Day", held on...
events, organized by loosely connected groups in at least seven countries including Australia, South Africa, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Ghana, draw thousands of participants. For some, the objective is to continue the destigmatization of mental illness. Another wing rejects the need to treat mental afflictions with psychotropic drugs and seeks alternatives to the "care" of the medical establishment. Many members of the movement say they are publicly discussing their own struggles to help those with similar conditions and to inform the general public.
Survivor David Oakes, Director of MindFreedom, hosts a monthly radio show and the Freedom Center initiated a weekly FM radio show now syndicated on the Pacifica Network, Madness Radio http://www.madnessradio.net, hosted by Freedom Center co-founder Will Hall
Will Hall
Will Hall , is a mental health advocate, writer, and counselor. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, he is recognized internationally as a leading organizer with the psychiatric survivors movement. In 2001 he co-founded the Freedom Center and in 2005 became a co-coordinator of The Icarus Project...
.
A new International Coalition of National Consumer/User Organizations was launched in Canada in 2007, called Interrelate.
Impact
Research into consumer/survivor initiatives (CSIs) suggests they can help with social support, empowerment, mental wellbeing, self-management and reduced service use, identity transformation and enhanced quality of life. However, studies have focused on the support and self-help aspects of CSIs, neglecting that many organizations locate the causes of members’ problems in political and social institutions and are involved in activities to address issues of social justice.A recent series of studies in Canada compared individuals who participated in CSIs with those who did not. The two groups were comparable at baseline on a wide range of demographic variables, self-reported psychiatric diagnosis, service use, and outcome measures. After a year and a half, those who had participated in CSIs showed significant improvement in social support and quality of life (daily activities), less days of psychiatric hospitalization, and more were likely to have stayed in employment (paid or volunteer) and/or education. There was no significant difference on measures of community integration and personal empowerment, however. There were some limitations to the findings; although the active and nonactive groups did not differ significantly at baseline on measures of distress or hospitalization, the active group did have a higher mean score and there may have been a natural pattern of recovery over time for that group (regression to the mean). The authors noted that the apparent positive impacts of consumer-run organizations were achieved at a fraction of the cost of professional community programs.
Further qualitative studies indicated that CSIs can provide safe environments that are a positive, welcoming place to go; social arenas that provide opportunities to meet and talk with peers; an alternative worldview that provides opportunities for members to participate and contribute; and effective facilitators of community integration that provide opportunities to connect members to the community at large. System-level activism was perceived to result in changes in perceptions by the public and mental health professionals (about mental health or mental illness, the lived experience of consumer/survivors, the legitimacy of their opinions, and the perceived value of CSIs) and in concrete changes in service delivery practice, service planning, public policy, or funding allocations. The authors noted that the evidence indicated that the work benefits other consumers/survivors (present and future), other service providers, the general public, and communities. They also noted that there were various barriers to this, most notably lack of funding, and also that the range of views represented by the CSIs appeared less narrow and more nuanced and complex than previously, and that perhaps the consumer/survivor social movement is at a different place than it was 25 years ago.
A significant theme that has emerged from consumer/survivor work, as well as from some psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, has been a recovery model
Recovery model
The Recovery Model as it applies to mental health is an approach to mental disorder or substance dependence that emphasizes and supports each individual's potential for recovery...
which seeks to overturn therapeutic pessimism and to support sufferers to forge their own personal journal towards the life they want to live; some argue however that it has been used as a cover to blame people for not recovering or to cut public services.
There has also been criticism of the movement. Organized psychiatry often views radical consumerist groups as extremist, as having little scientific foundation and no defined leadership, as "continually trying to restrict the work of psychiatrists and care for the seriously mentally ill", and as promoting disinformation on the use of involuntary commitment
Involuntary commitment
Involuntary commitment or civil commitment is a legal process through which an individual with symptoms of severe mental illness is court-ordered into treatment in a hospital or in the community ....
, electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy , formerly known as electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment in which seizures are electrically induced in anesthetized patients for therapeutic effect. Its mode of action is unknown...
, stimulants and antidepressants among children, and neuroleptics among adults. However, opponents consistently argue that psychiatry is territorial and profit-driven and stigmatizes and undermines the self-determination of patients and ex-patients The movement has also argued against social stigma
Social stigma
Social stigma is the severe disapproval of or discontent with a person on the grounds of characteristics that distinguish them from other members of a society.Almost all stigma is based on a person differing from social or cultural norms...
or mentalism/saneism
Mentalism (discrimination)
Mentalism is a form of discrimination and oppression against people based on categorization of mental type , mental action , supposed intelligence, or neurology Mentalism (also known as sanism) is a form of discrimination and oppression against people based on categorization of mental type (e.g....
by wider society.
Well-positioned forces in the USA, led by figures such as psychiatrists E. Fuller Torrey
E. Fuller Torrey
Edwin Fuller Torrey, M.D. , is an American psychiatrist and schizophrenia researcher. He is Executive Director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center , a nonprofit organization with the goals of eliminating legal and clinical obstacles to the...
and Sally Satel
Sally Satel
Sally Satel, is an American psychiatrist based in Washington, D.C. She is a lecturer at Yale University School of Medicine, the W.H. Brady Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and author. Books written by Satel include P.C. M.D.: How Political Correctness is Corrupting Medicine and Drug...
, and some leaders of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, have lobbied against the funding of consumer/survivor groups that promote antipsychiatry views or promote social and experiential recovery rather than a biomedical model, or who protest against outpatient commitment
Outpatient commitment
Outpatient commitment refers to mental health law that allows the compulsory, community-based treatment of individuals with mental illness.In the United States the term "assisted outpatient treatment" or "AOT" is often used and refers to a process whereby a judge orders a qualifying person with...
. Torrey has said the term "psychiatric survivor" used by ex-patients to describe themselves is just political correctness and has blamed them, along with civil rights lawyers, for the deaths of half a million people due to suicides and deaths on the street. His accusations have been described as inflammatory and completely unsubstantiated, however, and issues of self-determination and self-identity said to be more complex than that. Such claims have also been controverted by recent publications such as U.S.A. Today where a director of psychiatric services argues that the medical model and the way persons with mental illnesses are treated today cause people to die up to 25 years earlier on average.
See also
- Icarus ProjectIcarus Project.The Icarus Project http://theicarusproject.net is a mental health movement characterized by the view that many phenomena commonly labeled as mental illness should actually be regarded as "dangerous gifts"...
- Involuntary treatmentInvoluntary treatmentInvoluntary treatment refers to medical treatment undertaken without a person's consent. In almost all circumstances, involuntary treatment refers to psychiatric treatment administered despite an individual's objections...
- Judi ChamberlinJudi ChamberlinJudi Chamberlin was an American activist, leader, organizer, public speaker and educator in the psychiatric survivors movement. Her political activism followed her involuntary confinement in a psychiatric facility in the 1960s...
- Kate MillettKate MillettKate Millett is an American lesbian feminist writer and activist. A seminal influence on second-wave feminism, Millet is best known for her 1970 book Sexual Politics.-Career:...
- Leonard Roy FrankLeonard Roy FrankLeonard Roy Frank is an American human rights activist, electroconvulsive therapy survivor and writer from New York. Since 1959 he has lived in San Francisco, where he managed an art gallery before he began collecting great quotations.Leonard Roy Frank (born July 15, 1932) is an American human...
- Linda AndreLinda AndreLinda Andre is an American psychiatric survivor activist and writer, living in New York City, who is the director of the Committee for Truth in Psychiatry , an organization founded by Marilyn Rice in 1984 to encourage the U.S...
- List of psychiatric survivor related topics
- Lyn DuffLyn DuffLyn Duff is an American journalist with the Pacific News Service and KPFA radio's "Flashpoints", an evening drive-time public affairs show heard daily on Pacifica Radio.- Early years :...
- Mad PrideMad PrideMad Pride is a mass movement of mental health services users and their allies. The first known event specifically organized as a Pride event by people who identify as psychiatric survivors/consumer/ex-patients was in Toronto, Canada when it was called "Psychiatric Survivor Pride Day", held on...
- MindFreedom InternationalMindFreedom InternationalMindFreedom International is an international coalition of over one hundred grassroots groups and thousands of individual members from fourteen nations. It was founded in 1990 to advocate against forced medication, medical restraints, and involuntary electroconvulsive therapy. Its stated mission is...
- National Empowerment CenterNational Empowerment CenterThe National Empowerment Center is an advocacy and peer-support organization in the United States that promotes an empowerment-based recovery model of mental disorder. It is run by consumers/survivors/ex-patients in recovery....
- Peer supportPeer supportPeer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters, and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, listening, or counseling...
- Peer support specialistPeer support specialist-Peer Recovery Support Specialist:A Peer Recovery Support Specialist is an occupational title for a person who has progressed in their own recovery from alcohol or other drug abuse or mental disorder and is willing to self-identify as a peer and work to assist other individuals with chemical...
- Psychiatric rehabilitationPsychiatric rehabilitationPsychiatric rehabilitation, also known as psychosocial rehabilitation, and usually simplified to psych rehab, is the process of restoration of community functioning and well-being of an individual who has a psychiatric disability...
- PsychiatryPsychiatryPsychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
- Self-help groups for mental healthSelf-help groups for mental healthSelf-help groups for mental health are voluntary associations of people who share a common desire to overcome mental illness or otherwise increase their level of cognitive or emotional wellbeing. There are several international mental health self-help organizations including Emotions Anonymous, the...
- Social firms
- Social psychiatrySocial psychiatrySocial psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that focuses on the "interpersonal" and cultural context of mental disorder and mental wellbeing. It involves a sometimes disparate set of theories and approaches, with work stretching from epidemiological survey research on the one hand, to an indistinct...
- SoteriaSoteriaSoteria is a community service that provides a space for people experiencing mental distress or crisis. Based on a recovery model, common elements of the Soteria approach include primarily non-medical staffing; preserving resident's personal power, social networks, and communal responsibilities;...
- Ted ChabasinskiTed ChabasinskiTed Chabasinski is an American psychiatric survivor, human rights activist and attorney who lives in Berkeley, California. At the age of six he was taken from his foster family's home and committed to a New York psychiatric facility...
- World Network of Users and Survivors of PsychiatryWorld Network of Users and Survivors of PsychiatryThe World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry is an international organisation representing, and led by "survivors of psychiatry". As of 2003, over 70 national organizations were members of WNUSP, based in 30 countries...
External links
- Guide on the History of the Consumer Movement from the National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse
- Cohen, Oryx (2001) Psychiatric Survivor Oral Histories: Implications for Contemporary Mental Health Policy. Center for Public Policy and Administration, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- Linda J Morrison. (2006) A Matter of Definition: Acknowledging Consumer/Survivor Experiences through Narrative Radical Psychology Volume Five
- Shock Treatment - The Killing of Susan Kelly A poem by insulin/electro shock survivor Dorothy Dundas
- McLean, A. (2003). Recovering Consumers and a Broken Mental Health System in the United States: Ongoing Challenges for Consumers/ Survivors and the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. Part I: Legitimization of the Consumer Movement and Obstacles to It. International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation. 8, 47-57
- McLean, A. (2003) Recovering Consumers and a Broken Mental Health System in the United States: Ongoing Challenges for Consumers/ Survivors and the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. Part II: Impact of Managed Care and Continuing Challenges International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation. 8, 58-70.
- American Iatrogenic Association "Promoting accountability for medical professiunals and institutions"
- Transcript of interview with Peter Breggin, M.D., author of "Toxic Psychiatry," Talking Back To Prozac" and "Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex."
- Psychiatry chapter from Heart Failure - Diary of a Third Year Medical Student by Michael Greger, M.D.