Asylum associates is the action arm of Asylum Working towards a social firm for training, conferences, publishing, advocacy and community facilitation

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Limbrick Centre, Limbrick Road Sheffield S6 2PE

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Bridge Collective (Exeter) are a democratic community where people who have experiences, beliefs, and feelings that have sometimes been labelled as mental illness are welcomed and can talk about these experiences freely, safely and without judgement; a place to participate in friendship, support, learning, teaching, discussion, being active, and making a valid contribution both within the collective and the wider community.

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Unit 4, King Street Business Centre, Exeter EX11BH

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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info@bridgecollective.org.uk

Call 01392433358

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Critical and Creative Approaches to Mental Health Practice is for Critical and Creative Approaches to Mental Health Practice all who are passionate about sustaining creative and critical practice in mental health.

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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ccramhp@gmail.com

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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admin@asylummagazine.org

The North-West Asylum group has started out of a collective interest in developing a space to talk about issues within, and possibilities for, democratic psychiatry, psychology and mental health. 

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Revision is a coalition of radical activists who believe in the social model of mental health. They operate as a voice for change by promoting and exploring knowledge and understandings of the social, economic and political causes of mental distress, and by proposing socially derived alternatives to medicalised approaches. Their vision is a society in which the social causes of mental distress are understood and treated with socially based solutions that improve individual lives and bring about wider social change. 

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The Paranoia Network brought together ideas from users and survivors of services as well as from clinicians and academics. Its history can be traced back at least through the experience and debates of the development of the Hearing Voices Network (HVN) and it continues in that ethos of creating safe spaces for the development of new knowledge and new ways of speaking.

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Limbrick Centre, Limbrick Road, Sheffield S6

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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paranoianetwork@asylumonline.net

Call 0114 2718210

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Mad in Asia Pacific is an online platform whose primary mission is to contribute to changing the narrative about madness and mental distress. We hope to showcase narratives that are contextually relevant for the Asia region that focus on the inclusion of persons with psychosocial disabilities as well as challenge the dominance of western biomedical psychiatry and clinical psychology. Led by persons with psychosocial disabilities from Asian countries and in collaboration with our allies including cross disability activists, mental health workers, academics, social justice campaigners, family and community members, Mad in Asia hopes to be a space for negotiating and nurturing such narratives. We welcome everyone interested in joining this online community for change.

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Brazil

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Finland

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Italy

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Norway

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post@madinnorway.org

Call 924 001 429

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Sweden

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MITUK’s mission is to serve as a catalyst for fundamentally re-thinking theory and practice in the field of mental health in the UK, and promoting positive change. We believe that the current diagnostically-based paradigm of care has comprehensively failed, and that the future lies in non-medical alternatives which explicitly acknowledge the causal role of social and relational conflicts, abuses, adversities and injustices. We campaign for a change in the professional and public discourse about emotional distress and unusual experiences; for support, both within and beyond services, which meets people’s real needs; and for social policy which addresses the causes of distress at its roots. MITUK will strive to do this in several ways by:

• Providing summaries of research articles that regularly go unnoticed in the general media because they challenge conventional wisdom.
• Hosting a community of writers with diverse experiences and backgrounds who share our belief that the current paradigm of mental health care has failed and needs to be rethought.
• Providing a forum for readers to add their thoughts and opinions to this discussion.
• Reporting in-depth pieces that deconstruct the conventional ‘evidence base’ for psychiatric drugs and other aspects of current mental health care and tell of alternatives to conventional interventions.
• Providing links to a range of websites, podcasts and blogs that also offer ideas, information, projects and resources beyond the current paradigm

Although most of our content will be determined by this fundamental vision, we do not wish to set rigid limits on content, and it may sometimes be useful to invite contributions and debates from people who come from a different perspective. Members of the MITUK collective may have their own preferences and opinions on these topics and will sometimes publicly express their thoughts under their own names in blogs or by commenting on articles. They do so as members of the larger MITUK community, and not as representatives of MITUK. Mad in the UK has no links with Scientology and will never knowingly promote or host Scientology content.

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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info@madintheuk.com

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Abuse in Mental Health System is a page on issues related to abuse. These include:

• Psychiatric Labels: harm caused by unscientific psychiatric diagnoses.
• Electroshock: information about electroconvulsive therapy.
• An Overview of Psychiatric Abuse
• School of Shock: Inside a school where mentally disturbed students are jolted into good behavior. The Village Voice looks at an institution that openly uses pain to try to control behavior of people labeled with mental disabilities.
• Psychiatric Coercion: techniques ranging from pressure to out right force in the mental health system.
• Racism
• Psychiatric Institutionalization: stories and information challenging the use of coerced lock-ups in psychiatric institutions.
• Veterans Mental Health: present and former military personnel and their family are often denied adequate alternatives and advocacy for mental and emotional well being.
• Brain Altering Technology Experiments: psychosurgery, vagus nerve stimulation, and rTMS (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation) are all examples of brain altering technology that may be used for psychiatric purposes and that are currently openly used internationally.
• Prescription Abuse Seen In U.S. Nursing Homes: a 4 December 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal, by Lucette Lagnado, describing the massive over-drugging of senior citizens.
• Restraint: information about restraint.
• E. Fuller Torrey: One of main opponents of human rights of mental health consumers & psychiatric survivors. One of the main crusaders to make it easier to forcibly administer psychiatric drugs to mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors — including in their own homes — is psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, and his extremist organization Treatment Advocacy Center.

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Action campaigns to challenge and transform the mental health system. These the boots on the ground launching human rights campaigns in communities throughout the world.

• Candlelight vigil remembers Jim Chasse, Jr.: James P. Chasse, Jr. was a resident of Portland, Oregon, USA diagnosed schizophrenic who died in police custody. Psychiatric survivors and mental health consumers marched from the Alternatives 2006 conference to a memorial on 27 October 2006.
• 2003 Actions: the MindFreedom Hunger Strike and march on the APA.
• Toronto Star Covers “Mad Pride” Movement: the mainstream newspaper Toronto Star in Canada published an article about the international psychiatric survivors and allies in the “Mad Pride” movement.
• Psychiatric Survivor Movement History: the current era of psychiatric survivor and ally activism is generally considered to have begun in about 1970.
• IAACM – Creative Maladjustment: International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment – Fulfilling Martin Luther King’s Vision
• Eastern Europe: activism regarding Eastern European psychiatric human rights violations
• Madness, Citizenship and Social Justice: A Human Rights Conference (Vancouver, B.C., Canada, from Jun 12, 2008 12:00 AM to Jun 15, 2008 12:00 AM). The Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver, B.C., is hosting conference on madness and society, to be held on June 12-15, 2008. MindFreedom director David W. Oaks is giving a keynote speech at the conference.
•  Asylum! Conference and Festival: the conference will bring together organisations, activists, campaigners and academics working for radical challenge and change in mental health. It will showcase critical work on psychiatry and psychology (‘Big Psy’) and the pharmaceutical industry (‘Big Pharma’), and alternatives to diagnostic medical labels like ‘schizophrenia’ and ‘paranoia’.” This event is being held on the Elizabeth Gaskell Campus, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
•  Al Galves Receives Humanitarian Award: MindFreedom sponsor group International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP) awarded Al Galves, PhD with a special award at their annual meeting in Arlington, Virginia. Al is a board member of MindFreedom International.
• A plan for a national mental health consumers memorial: mental health consumer Larry Fricks describes a campaign to build a USA national memorial in Washington, DC in memory of mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors.
• Acceptance Speech for “Award in Advocacy” from the Mental Health Legal Committee delivered at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health, Queen Street site, Toronto, Canada. Dedicated to my close and lifelong friend, editorial consultant, and brilliant advocate Carla McKague.
• Alternatives 2008: since the 1980’s, the US federal government helps fund a large conference of several hundred mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors, many of whom are leading consumer-driven projects such as support groups and drop-in centers. This year’s conference is being held in Buffalo, New York, USA.
• Alternatives 2009: the 23rd annual Alternatives conference has begun.
• Help Not Harm
• Critical Psychiatry Network Conference 2009 (Dunstan Hall, Norwich, United Kingdom, from Jun 22, 2009 12:00 AM to Jun 22, 2009 12:00 . The Critical Psychiatry Network is hosting its tenth annual conference, entitled “Promoting the critical mental health movement.”

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An advance directive is a written document that expresses your wishes in advance about what types of treatments, services and other assistance you want during a personal mental health crisis. A directive provides a clear statement of your medical treatment preferences and other wishes or instructions. You can also use it to grant legal decision-making authority to another person to be your advocate and agent until the crisis is over.

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Mindfreedom have mapped a number of advocay activities in the mental helalth consumer movement. These include:

• Court ruling on Illinois warehoused psychiatric inmates: Federal Court Advances Challenge to Illinois Policy Warehousing Residents Labeled with Mental Illnesses

• Psychiatric Advance Directives: “Advance directives” on mental health topics can sometimes help prevent forced psychiatric treatment, but too often the psychiatric industry is allowed to override these documents.

• US Supreme Court on Freedom of Mind and Irrational Thought: a couple of brief quotes in US Supreme Court rulings about how the First Amendment guarantees freedom of thought and freedom of mind, even to have so-called “irrational” beliefs.

• Information about Illinois court case regarding “deterioration” standard: an Illinois court struck down a commitment from 2008.

• Advocacy to Encourage More Openness at US Mental Health Agency (SAMHSA)

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Events related to alternatives & human rights in mental health are conferences, meetings, congresses, gatherings related to the topics of human rights in mental health. 

• Are We Mad? Critical Perspectives on the Canadian Mental Health System 
• Recovery from Psychosis: Healing through Relationship with keynote by Ron Bassman  
• International Conference on Self-Determination: the conference organizers announced: “International perspectives on progressive notions of mental health recovery, family supports, community membership, ending forced impoverishment and system change requirements will be part of the focus of the conference. The meetings will feature leaders from across disability and aging and relate the efforts being made across the world to make freedom a reality for individuals with disabilities.”
• David Oaks Lecture on the Mad Pride Movement: a free lecture by David Oaks at Harvard University.
• An Evening with David Oaks
• Petaluma Progressive Festival 
• Flyer for David Oaks Lecture
• PsychOUT: A Conference for Organizing Resistance Against Psychiatry: Toronto conference includes variety of speakers, workshops, plus protest about electroshock. David W. Oaks, Director of MindFreedom International, is one of the speakers.
• Celia Brown Moderates Panel on Mental Health, UN and Human Rights: on Human Rights Day, the Celia Brown will moderate and participate in a panel in United Nations Plaza about human rights and mental health.

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Alternatives to the Traditional Mental Health System include:

• Consumer-Driven Resources
• Non-Drug Alternatives for Label of Schizophrenia
• Mental health system due for radical reform: a guest column by dissdent mental health worker and MindFreedom Lane County activist Ron Unger says that a range of real choices in mental health care is crucial for for recovery.
• Trauma model as alternative: viewing emotional distress through a trauma perspective can be one alternative to the domination of the medical model.
• ecopsychology: alternatives to the traditional mental health system that involve nature and the environment.
• yoga-for-depression
• Easy access to acupuncture: Freedom Center in Northampton offers free treatments.
• Alternative Healing: How to navigate the psychiatric system if you’re caught, and how to present yourself as “normal.”
• Positive Psychology is Getting a Tryout at McLean Hospital: the major psychiatric institution McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, a Harvard teaching facility, announced it is introducing “positive psychology” as an alternative approach to assist in mental and emotional well being recovery.
• Recovery and Mental Health: full and complete recovery — meaning re-integration into society without dependence on the mental health system, is an achievable goal for every known problem labeled as a “psychiatric disorder.”
• Consumer-Driven Services – International: international consumer-driven resource
• Inspiration for a Creative Revolution” by Janet Foner
• Nutritional and Orthomolecular: this is a folder about alternatives to the conventional mental health system that involve supplements, vitamins, nutrients, orthomolecular approaches, herbs., etc.
• Peer support: peer mutual support is now proven through studies to, in many circumstances, add to the likelihood of recovery following a diagnosis with some mental health problems.
• Hearing Voices: there are a range of alternatives that individuals have successfully used to address the problem of experiencing extremely distressing voices, thoughts, visions, etc. that others do not experience. While some individuals choose a medical model approach, such as psychiatric drugs, many others have reached recovery or manage their challenges with a wide variety of options and choices. For example, the peer support network Hearing Voices USA is a sponsor group of MindFreedom International. There are many Hearing Voices peer support groups in Europe.
• Alternative Medicine Resources: links to websites providing alternative medicine resources
• Review: “Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry” reviewed by Mary Maddock: Mary Maddock of Cork, Ireland reviews the new book “Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry” co-edited by Peter Lehmann and Peter Stastny. Mary is co-founder of MindFreedom Ireland.
• BBC News: “More funds for talking therapies: the English government will spend millions more on “talking treatments” for depression and anxiety.
• Finland Open Dialogue: a Finnish alternative to the traditional mental health system for people diagnosed with “psychoses” such as “schizophrenia” is “Open Dialogue.” This approach aims to support the individual’s network of family and friends, as well as respect the decision-making of the individual. Here are two follow-up studies: One is a two-year follow-up and the other, which is the recommended study, is a five-year follow-up.
• Bruce Levine’s New England Book Tour: a New Englnad tour to promote Bruce Levine’s new book: “Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy”
• Link to info on Chinese herbal psychiatry: a link to a simple “pharmacopoeia” of traditional Chinese medicine herbal blends for mental heath diagnoses from depression to psychosis.
• Brainstorm of our favorite alternatives from Opal Meeting in Lane County, Oregon, USA: psychiatric survivor and vet Hugh Massengill addressed the sixth meeting of the Opal Network in Eugene, Oregon on 29 July 2008 about moving from madness to mental wellness. The Opal Network brings together advocates for empowerment of people in mental health system in Lane County. Moderators Bjo Ashwill and Tom Wilson led a brainstorm about our favorite methods to reach and maintain mental and emotional well being. Here is a draft based on notes by David Oaks
• A New Group for People Who Hear Voices Celebrates Mental Illness Diversity: a weekly newspaper in Portland, Oregon covers “mad pride” alternative medicine, and profiles MindFreedom member Will Hall.
• Mental health: Out of the cuckoo’s nest: UK Guardian is one of the most influential English-speaking newspaper in the world. They ran an article about psychiatrist and psychiatric survivor Dan Fisher, and his work for more empowering alternatives in the mental health system such as peer support.
• Therapy Without Force: A Treatment Model for Severe Psychiatric Problems: this paper offers real-world examples of how therapists can avoid resorting to coercive interventions while attempting to respectfully help those in severe distress.
• Events to Promote and Support Humane Alternatives to Conventional Mental Health System: these are calendar event entries about changing the mental health system through approaches different than the traditional mental health system. These are listed for informational purposes only, author responsible for content, and publicizing these does not necessarily mean endorsement of all or part of the event.
• Panel on life: Dr. Brent Potter has organized a panel to speak about the life and work of R.D. Laing, the controversial psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and human rights advocate, who Dr. Potter states, “laid the groundwork for therapeutic households, mental health law reform, and the peer recovery movement.”

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A sight focused on the role of art, music, dance, writing, theater in challenging psychiatric human rights violation and in assisting in the emergence of emotional and mental well being and recovery.

• Mad arts news: a few links, news items, announcements related to the ‘mad arts.’

• Mad Poetry: poetry cannot be silenced by psychiatric oppression. Here are some examples. Also, MindFreedom Journal has usually had a column of excerpts of Mad Poetry, edited by Bonnie Schell; see info about the journal elsewhere on this web site. You may submit poetry to that column at poetry(at)mindfreedom(dot)org. Please note that by submitting your poem you agree to MindFreedom publishing the whole poem, or excerpts of it. The MindFreedom poetry column is meant to give glimpses of the wonderful poetry out there, and so portions of poems are often used to illustrate this.

• Humor: nothing like humor to help challenge mental health oppression.

• Mad Theater: use of theater in ways that may help human rights and alternatives in mental health system.

• Mad Music: a few songs and musicians celebrating free minds, and challenging psychiatric human rights violations.

• Essay

• Audio activism: use of radio and other audible media to promote human rights and alternatives in the mental health system.

• The Art of Felice Debra Eliscu: some of the artwork of Felice Debra Eliscu.

• New Featured Products in the Mad Market: new products in MindFreedom’s online “Mad Market” store: DVD & CD. Plus there are books, brochures, and more. All proceeds benefit MindFreedom’s human rights work!

• New Mad Pride Jewelry: information about MindFreedom’s new ‘mad pride jewelry.’ You’ll find news release, photos, and more. Sale of these products benefits human rights campaigns by MindFreedom International.

• Celebrities who speak out about human rights in mental health: while many ‘cultural leaders’ in the film, TV, music and theater world have spoken out about having had mental and emotional problems, it seems most stories end simply with finding conventional mental health care they felt worked. These stories are often moving, and represent a segment of the public. But what about those who experienced some kind of trauma or human rights violations caused by their mental health care? What about celebrities who found recovery through less conventional alternatives than psychiatric prescriptions or electroshock? Why do we not hear more of their perspectives?

• Films and movies of interest to ‘mad movement’: activists in the mental health consumer and psychiatric survivor movement have found that showing movies that help inform the public about our issues can help. This folder is not meant to be comprehensive at all, but it’s a start about using various films to campaign for human rights and alternatives in mental health. There’s something fun about a film. (Listing film is not necessarily endorsement of all of it, the producers are responsible for content.)

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Mindfreedom International has collaborated a number of blogs on the topic of human rights and/or alternatives in the mental health system. 

•  A Little Local Color: A local oddball’s colorful quips: this Milwaukee, Wisconsin blogger is a mental health system survivor who writes about a variety of local activist fields, including mental health. The blogger wrote to MindFreedom that, “I am a peer specialist and an army veteran. I am one of the people participating in re-designing the mental health system of Milwaukee to be more community based. So I write a lot about mental health.” 

• Anti-Psychiatry Web Log: Livejournal provides web space for a number of communities, in this case one calling itself “Antipsychiatry.” It’s entries are like a blog, along with other resources. This is from their self-description: “This is a community for people who are opposed to the practice and theory of psychiatry. It is a place for people to post information about patient’s rights, the dangers of psychiatric drugs, personal experiences, questions, and thoughts. Please stay on-topic, and please do not join or post if you are just going to laud the ‘benefits’ of psychiatry. There are plenty of communities for that already.”

• Asylum Squad Side Story: a blog from a young artist with a psychiatric label, focusing on her comics. In her words: “This blog serves as a space to post text entries both related and unrelated to the subject matter my comics touch on.” A July 2010 post covers a Mad Pride event in Toronto.

• Bad Psych: the psychiatric survivor blogger focuses on the psychiatric drugging of children, and the dangers of benzodizapine psychiatric drugs.

• Beyond Meds

• Beyond the Psychiatric Box

• Bipolar Burbles of Natasha Tracy

• Bitchmagazine Guest Blogger Anna Palindrome: “We’re All Mad Here”

• Bitchmagazine Guest Blogger SE Smith on : “We’re All Mad Here”

• Blog by Canadian journalist Rob Wipond: Canadian journalist Rob Wipond of Canada has a blog on various issues, including monitoring analyzing current events, media coverage and scientific research surrounding ‘mental health’ issues in Canada and globally.

• Blue Hackers: By and for people labeled both “geek” and “psychiatrically disordered”

• Bruce E. Levine: Bruce E. Levine, PhD has been a practicing psychologist for decades, and he’s a dissident. Perhaps it’s that Bruce was raised working class, but he connects the dots between social change and societal despair. Bruce has several books in the MindFreedom MADMARKET. Bruce blogs via Arianna Huffington’s site.

• Cape Town Mad Pride

• Church of Schizophrenia

• Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault in Toronto, Canada: CAPA is an organization committed to dismantling the psychiatric system and building a better world through strategic activism. We see the very concept of mental illness as flawed. We object to incarceration, electroshock, and the vast array of brain-damaging drugs. We oppose the violation of human rights which is endemic to psychiatry. Currently, CAPA members are working on developing strategies and actions aimed at curtailing the use of psychiatric drugs and electroshock.

• Corinna West Blog: Blogger Corinna West of Kansas is a Certified Peer Specialist and her blog focuses on changing the mental health system, and she is “actively working to transform the mental health system into a recovery-focused community of hope.” Corinna has an MS in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. She was on the 1996 Olympic Judo Team and is a three-time National Champion and silver medalist at the Pan American Games.

• CounterPsych (Canada) Blog Talkspot

• Depression Mental Health: a support web-site based on depression and mental health problems constructed from a former sufferer.” Includes alternatives to conventional mental health system, and some human rights info.

• Different Thoughts: this blog is in English though it originates in Denmark.

• Discover and Recover: Resources for Mental Wellness

Contact Person / Email
news@mindfreedom.org

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Contemporary and historical approaches to the art of mental health diagnosis:

• Psychiatry: Medical Fraud or Incompetence: this artricle is a critique of psychiatry’s diagnostic practices, extracted from the work of Bonnie Sigren Busick, RN, MA and Martha Gorman originally published in 1986, delving into issues surrounding the fact that there are (still, to this day) no evidence of biochemical markers, biological tests, or hard evidence to “prove” the existence of “mental illness.”
• Psych meds drove my son crazy: a Salon.com article by Ann Bauer, in which she describes a story of hope and recovery in the wake of her son’s experiences with depression and psychiatric misdiagnosis.
• Rethinking the Potential of the Brain in Major Psychiatric Disorders: this article, by Steven Morgan, is a critical reevaluation of the theory that the brain is permanantly diseasedin psychiatric disorders, and an exploration of the role that neuroplasticity plays in healing and reviving its functioning. It was published in February 2008
• Psychiatric leaders note lack of science for psychiatric theories: a MindFreedom member forwards these quotes from leaders in the psychiatric profession who point out that science is still lacking for the neurobiological theories in the mental health field that many falsely assume have been proven.
• Pathologizing Your Period” by Paula Caplan, Ms. Magazine, December 2008: psychologist and author Paula Caplan, a long-time member of MindFreedom International, examines the fraud and sexism involved in creating psychiatry’s “label bible,” it’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).
•  Should bitterness become a mental disorder: tn the magazine Psychology Today, Professor Christopher Lane has a brief essay skewering one of the latest misadventures of the psychiatric industry, in which the American Psychiatric Association is seriously considering adding “bitterness” to one of their so-called scientific list of labels. Why not just add “dissent” and be done with it? Professor Lane is the author of Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness.
• EleMental – First USA Meeting: the first meeting in the United States of EleMental, an international organization introducing and developing the elements of Recovery and Thriving. 
• Mental health Trojan horse – It’s enough to make anyone sick: the conservative newspaper Washington Times published this guest column by two professors concerned that psychiatry’s unscientific labeling may harm attempts to implement universal health care in the USA.
• Dr. Allen Frances: “Vocal Opposition” to MindFreedom Protest: Dr. Allen Frances was a key architect of the current American Psychiatric Association “label bible” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (DSM IV). Dr. Frances became one of the main critics of APA’s proposed DSM 5. But a MindFreedom investigation revealed that – behind the scenes – Dr. Frances has “vocally oppose” the protest led by psychiatric survivors in front of the APA on 5 May 2012.

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The Directory of Alternative Providers is a searchable online database for mental and emotional support. 

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These documents explore the intersection between the disability movement and the movement to change the mental health system.

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Mindfreedom provides information in Ethics and Mental Health. Resources include:

• Swiss Court Ruling Allows Euthanasia For Mentally Ill: a ruling by Switzerland’s highest court has opened up the possibility that people with serious mental illnesses could be helped by doctors to take their own lives.
• Revealing Quotes on the Goals of Psychiatry and Psychology: this web site has quotes critical of psychiatry’s views on everything ranging from conservatives, education, religion, creating a slave society, world government, to morality and families. An example: “The reduction of intelligence is an important factor in the curative process… The fact is that some of the very best cures that one gets are in those individuals whom one reduces almost to amentia (feeble-mindedness)…” Dr. Abraham Myerson, Harvard Psychiatrist, 1942
• Psychiatry residents often skip informed consent: an investigation into the practices of 108 psychiatry residents revealed an excessively passive approach to informed consent discussions with patients. Asked to participate in hypothetical clinical vignettes, only 3% of the students managed to provide responses that met the criteria for adequate informed consent.
• Psychiatry and Freedom: 11th International Conference for Philosophy and Mental Health International Network of Philosophy and Psychiatry

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Mindfreedom International provides information that defines the role do parents, siblings, children, relatives, colleagues, friends on supporting psychiatric survivors. 

• Linda Mulinix on her daughter Michelle’s battle in the mental health system: Linda Mulinix is a mother of a psychiatric survivor, Michelle, who is 30 years old at the time Linda told her family’s story at the quarterly “Opal Network” meeting in Eugene, Oregon. MindFreedom Lane County is one of the sponsors in this coalition. 
• Linda Mulinix is mother of a psychiatric survivor Michelle: Linda Mulinix is the mother of thirty-year-old Michelle who has experienced abuse and neglect in the California mental health system. Linda told the family story at an Opal Network meeting in Eugene, Oregon.

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The Forced Drugging Defense Package developed by the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights for the MindFreedom Shield program. The Forced Drugging Defense Package is built around the written expert testimony of Grace E. Jackson, MD, and the award winning author of Mad in America, Robert Whitaker, which PsychRights has successfully used to stop forced drugging in one of its cases.

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Mindfreedom Information provides information on Genetics and Eugenics. This includes:

• Conference: Eugenics and Sterilization in Alberta

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Mindfreedom International provides information on international activist concerns on human rights and alternatives in the mental health system. These include:

• Globalization of psychiatry: concern about expansion of the mental health industry to poor & developing countries.

• Report documents human rights violations in Turkey psychiatric facilities: Mental Disability Rights International (MDRI) released a 2005 report about human rights abuses in Turkey, including electroshock of children. MDRI is a sponsor group of MindFreedom International.

•  World Health Organization (WHO) Exposes a Global Emergency of Human Rights Violations in the Mental Health System: the World Health Organization announced they are dedicating International Human Rights Day, 10 December 2005 to all people diagnosed with mental disorders “and the all-too-prevalent violations of their basic human rights.”

• A MindFreedom Delegation in the United Nations for Meetings on Disability and Human Rights: this essay celebrates the MindFreedom delegation once again entering the United Nations, in this case on Martin Luther King, Jr. day, 16 January 2006.

• Report by John McCarthy — MindFreedom delegate in the United Nations: John McCarthy flew in from Cork, Ireland to help represent MindFreedom in 2006 meetings in the United Nations to create a successful “Convention” or treaty about disability and human rights. Here’s John’s first hand report about the experience.

•  wpa-dresden: a number of psychiatric survivor and mental health consumer organizations have united to speak out directly inside a special conference by the World Psychiatric Association on the topic of ending coercion and force in the mental health system

• IAACM: watch for upcoming news about the launch of the International Association for the Advancement of Creative Maladjustment, with support from Mad Pride 2007 and MindFreedom International.

• Russian psychiatry: mental health system human rights abuse in Russia is gaining international attention.

• Torture: this material is on the controversial intersection between torture and the mental health system, such as the presence of mental health professionals during extreme interrogation of prisoners.

• Belgium Psychiatric Survivor Group Celebrates 10th Anniversary: the following news announcement was forwarded by European Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (ENUSP) about one of their member groups in Belgium, UilenSpiegel, which is celebrating their 10th anniversary. UilenSpiegel is also planning a Mad Pride celebration. Dan Taylor, secretary from MindFreedom Ghana in Accra, Ghana, Africa, intends to attend.

• United Nations and Disability Rights: MindFreedom’s team in the United Nations worked hard for years with activists from all over the world to create a treaty on disability and human rights.

• World Health Organization Study Comparing Mental Health Recovery in Developed & Developing Nations: the World Health Organization (WHO) sponsored major studies comparing how people recover in poor and more developed nations. The people in the poorer developing nations, on average, recovered at a far higher rate. Here is information about those studies. MindFreedom asked Professor Norman Sartorius to briefly summarize these studies, which he was directly involved in leading. The views expressed are those of Dr. Sartorius.

• Norman Sartorius: Norman Sartorius, MD, past Director of the Division of Mental Health of World Health Organization, retired in 1993. Dr. Sartorius helped conduct studies comparing mental health recovery rates in poor and more developed nations.

• Healing Angola’s Mind: The Medical Rehabilitation of Those Affected by Civil War

  A paper by Samantha Figueroa, available here as an MS Word document, on transitional justice and pychosocial rehabilitation in the aftermath of the civil war in Angola, Africa

• Nepal: tnformation regarding mental health human rights in Nepal.

• Freedom from Torture or Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment: a piece by Kate Millett, read at the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in New York City on January 18, 2005.

• Norway: information on mental health human rights in Norway.

• Human Rights for All” Tour: MindFreedom is one of the co-sponsors of a national tour by the US Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry. Here is current information available.

• The Americanization of Mental Illness: in this New York Times article, Ethan Watters explores the impact of the spread of American culture on the understanding of mental health issues outside of the United States.

• Americanizing the global mind: this is a review by Andrew Rasmussen of the book “Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche” by Ethan Watters. The review is published by STATS, affiliated with George Mason University in Virginia, USA.

• Bendetto Saraceno, MD – Psychiatrist: Dr. Benedetto Saraceno is a psychiatrist trained in public health who served as Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse of the World Health Organization (WHO) until February 2010. While at WHO, Dr. Saraceno has made a number of supportive statements about MindFreedom International and its director, David Oaks. Dr. Saraceno had WHO call the current human rights situation in mental health an “emergency,” and agreed there should be no forced electroshock. On 1 March 2011, Global Initiative on Psychiatry (GIP) announced that Dr. Benedetto Saraceno has become chairman of its board.

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MindFreedom published a comprehensive handbook for psychiatric survivors. This guide is intended to help survivors protect themselves and others from psychiatric harm as well as organize for human rights throughout the world.

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The MindFreedom Shield Campaign seeks to help any individual at risk of psychiatric human rights violations, by filling out a convenient online Shield form well in advance, you make the process much easier. Campaigns may be as small as a volunteer inquiring with an institution, or much larger; the level of activity cannot be guaranteed.

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Looking back on MindFreedom and history of our movement.

MindFreedom is connecting mentors to emerging leaders and activists who fight for human rights in the mental health system.  If you are interested in being connected to a mentor. This program aims to:

• Assist psychiatric survivors and allies to plan and put into writing, a simple but effective human rights campaign.
• Teach people to plan campaigns that meet the needs of a specific individual or group of individuals.
• Mentorship may be centered around helping a particular individual gain access to an alternative to forced/coerced psychiatric treatment.

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A variety of information about psychiatric prescribed medications, including neuroleptic brain damage, deaths and psychiatric drugs, and resources about quitting psychiatric drugs.

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