Psychiatric Survivor Movement History
Up one levelThe current era of psychiatric survivor and ally activism is generally considered to have begun in about 1970.
Principles adopted by 1982 gathering of psychiatric survivors.
Each year for many years in the 1970's and 1980's, there was an annual gathering of psychiatric survivors, usually on a different college campus in the US or Canada. It became known as the "International Conference on Human Rights and Against Psychiatric Association." At the 1982 gathering in Toronto, participants agreed to these principles.
Logo for Madness Network News
Madness Network News, out of the Bay Area of California, helped network thousands of psychiatric survivors and allies internatioanlly. Their logo was a woman breaking free from a strait jacket.
A personal history of the "consumer movement"
Sally Clay is a long-time activist in the movement for a nonviolent revoluion in the mental health system, and is a past president of MindFreedom International. Here's personal perspective on our social change movement's history.
A history of mental health advocacy
The National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA), a founding Sponsor Group of MindFreedom, published this brief overview of mental heatlh advocacy history.
Hearing Voices: Resistance Among Psychiatric Survivors and Consumers
Maria Duerr presented this thesis about the history of the psychiatric survivor movement for her Masters Degree in Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in June 1996. (This PDF is 141 pages.)
