MindFreedom International is an international

coalition A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces. Formation According to ''A Gui ...

of over one hundred

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

groups and thousands of individual members from fourteen nations. Based in the United States, it was founded in 1990 to advocate against forced medication,

medical restraint Medical restraints are physical restraints used during certain medical procedures to restrain patients with (supposedly) the minimum of discomfort and pain and to prevent them from injuring themselves or others. Rationale There are many kinds of m ...

s, and involuntary

electroconvulsive therapy Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatric treatment where a generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is electrically induced to manage refractory mental disorders.Rudorfer, MV, Henry, ME, Sackeim, HA (2003)"Electroconvulsive th ...

. Its stated mission is to protect the

rights Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical the ...

of people who have been labeled with

psychiatric Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial psy ...

disorders. Membership is open to anyone who supports

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

, including

mental health professional A mental health professional is a health care practitioner or social and human services provider who offers services for the purpose of improving an individual's mental health or to treat mental disorders. This broad category was developed as a ...

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. Different countries' legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a barrister or a solicitor. However, ...

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

s, and family members. MindFreedom has been recognized by the

United Nations Economic and Social Council The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC; french: links=no, Conseil économique et social des Nations unies, ) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, responsible for coordinating the economic and social fields ...

as a human rights

NGO A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...

with Consultative Roster Status.

Origins and purpose

MindFreedom International is rooted in the

psychiatric survivors movement The psychiatric survivors movement (more broadly consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement) is a diverse association of individuals who either currently access mental health services (known as consumers or service users), or who are survivors of interv ...

, which arose out of the

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...

ferment of the late 1960s and early 1970s and the personal histories of psychiatric abuse experienced by some ex-patients rather than the intradisciplinary discourse of

antipsychiatry Anti-psychiatry is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment is often more damaging than helpful to patients, highlighting controversies about psychiatry. Objections include the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis, the questionabl ...

. The precursors of MFI include ex-patient groups of the 1970s such as the

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

-based Insane Liberation Front and the Mental Patients' Liberation Front in New York. The key text in the intellectual development of the survivor movement, at least in the US, was Judi Chamberlin's 1978 text, ''On Our Own: Patient Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System''. Chamberlin was an ex-patient and co-founder of the Mental Patients' Liberation Front. Coalescing around the ex-patient newsletter ''Dendron'', in late 1988 leaders from several of the main national and grassroots psychiatric survivor groups felt that an independent, human rights coalition focused on problems in the mental health system was needed. That year the Support Coalition International (SCI) was formed. In 2005 the SCI changed its name to MFI with David W. Oaks as its director. SCI's first public action was to stage a counter-conference and

protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...

in May 1990 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

at the same time as (and directly outside of) the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting. Many of the members of MFI, who feel that their human rights were violated by the mental health system, refer to themselves as ' psychiatric survivors'. MFI is a contemporary and active coalition of grassroots groups which are carrying forward the historical tradition of survivor opposition to coercive psychiatry. It does not define itself as an antipsychiatry organization and its members point to the role which 'compassionate' psychiatrists have played in MFI. Activists within the coalition have been drawn from both left and right wing of politics. MFI functions as a forum for its thousands of members to express their views and experiences, to form support networks and to organize activist campaigns in support of human rights in psychiatry. The coalition regards the psychiatric practices of 'unscientific labeling, forced drugging, solitary confinement, restraints, involuntary commitment, electroshock' as human rights violations. In 2003, eight Mindfreedom members, led by then-executive director

David Oaks David William Oaks (born September 16, 1955, Chicago, Illinois) is a civil rights activist and founder and former executive director of Eugene, Oregon-based MindFreedom International. Career David Oaks' organization MindFreedom International in ...

, went on a hunger strike to publicize a series of "challenges" they had put forth to the

American Psychiatric Association The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 37,000 members are involve ...

(APA), the

US Surgeon General The surgeon general of the United States is the operational head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government of the United States. ...

and the

National Alliance on Mental Illness The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is a United States-based nonprofit organization originally founded as a grassroots group by family members of people diagnosed with mental illness. NAMI identifies its mission as "providing advoc ...

(NAMI). The eight MFI members challenged the APA, US Surgeon General and NAMI to present MFI with "unambiguous proof that mental illness is brain disorder." By sustaining the hunger-strike for more than one month, MFI forced the APA and NAMI to enter into a debate with them on this and other issues. MindFreedom describes their Shield Program as "an all for one and one for all" network of members. When a registered member is receiving (or is being considered for) involuntary psychiatric treatment, an alert is sent to the MindFreedom Solidarity Network on that person's behalf. Members of the network are then expected to participate in organized, constructive, nonviolent actions—e.g., political action, publicity and media alerts, passive resistance, etc.—to stop or prevent the forced treatment.

References

External links

MindFreedom.org
- MindFreedom International homepage

Literature

* Oaks, David W. (2007). ‘MindFreedom International: Activism for Human Rights as the Basis for a Nonviolent Revolution in the Mental Health System’. In Peter Stastny & Peter Lehmann (Eds.), ''Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry'' (pp. 328–336). Berlin / Eugene / Shrewsbury: Peter Lehmann Publishing. (UK), (USA). E-Book in 2018. * Oaks, David W. (2007). ‘MindFreedom International – Engagement für Menschenrechte als Grundlage einer gewaltfreien Revolution im psychosozialen System’. In: Peter Lehmann & Peter Stastny (Hg.), ''Statt Psychiatrie 2'' (S. 344-352). Berlin / Eugene / Shrewsbury: Antipsychiatrieverlag. . E-Book in 2018. * Taylor, Dan (2007). ‘MindFreedom Ghana: Fighting for Basic Human Conditions of Psychiatric Patients’. In Peter Stastny & Peter Lehmann (Eds.), ''Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry'' (pp. 336–342). Berlin / Eugene / Shrewsbury: Peter Lehmann Publishing. (UK), (USA). E-Book in 2018. * Taylor, Dan (2007). ‘MindFreedom Ghana – Unser Kampf um humane Lebensbedingungen für Psychiatriebetroffene’. In: Peter Lehmann & Peter Stastny (Hg.), ''Statt Psychiatrie 2'' (S. 352-358). Berlin / Eugene / Shrewsbury: Antipsychiatrieverlag. . E-Book in 2018. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mindfreedom International Organizations established in 1988 International human rights organizations Civil disobedience Health and disability rights organizations in the United States Mental health organizations in Oregon Anti-psychiatry Psychiatric survivor activists Organizations based in Eugene, Oregon

Origins and purpose

See also

References

External links

Literature