MindFreedom - Stop Human Rights Abuses in the Mental Health System

MindFreedom opposes forced psychiatry

Unlike most other mental health advocacy organizations in the world, MindFreedom is financially independent from pharmaceutical companies, governments, religions, and mental health systems — we get our support from our members, many of them psychiatric survivors. MindFreedom has every reason to work hard to oppose forced psychiatry and win the freedom of individuals currently being violated by psychiatric treatment without consent.

We know there are many people in terrible situations of human rights violations, abuse, and forced psychiatric drugging at the hands of mental health systems around the globe who are in desperate need of information and advocacy, and we’re dedicated to FIGHTING FOR THEM.

UN calls forced psychiatry “torture”

Did you know that the United Nations' top torture monitor has recently spoken out against forced psychiatry?

In a statement to a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva in March 2013, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment called for a ban on forced psychiatric interventions including forced drugging, shock, psychosurgery, restraint and seclusion, and for repeal of laws that allow compulsory mental health treatment and deprivation of liberty based on disability, including when it is motivated by “protection of the person or others.”

Says the U.N.: “Deprivation of liberty on grounds of mental illness...that inflicts severe pain or suffering falls under the scope of the Convention against Torture.” 

MindFreedom knows that many people both in the United States and abroad are being forced to have drugs put in their bodies against their will, even in their own homes. In many communities around the world, people are having their basic human right to self-determination and bodily integrity ripped away from them by violent mental health laws that crush dignity and hope.

(Read one MindFreedom member and forced drugging survivor’s moving essay on opposing forced drugging HERE)

MindFreedom believes in VOICE and CHOICE…not force!

MindFreedom believes in the dignity and VOICE of every human being, no matter how mentally or emotionally distressed, and we understand from firsthand experience that brutality in the name of psychiatric treatment is a horrific and deeply degrading practice that must end. We all have the right to CHOICE and true, informed consent in mental health care.

MindFreedom stands in solidarity with the United Nations’ pronouncement that “free and informed consent should be safeguarded on an equal basis for all individuals without any exception… provisions allowing confinement or compulsory treatment in mental health settings must be repealed.” 

MindFreedom is dedicated to fighting for the right of all people globally to be free from unwanted psychiatric labeling, drugging, and intervention.

Want to support MindFreedom in this important human rights work?

JOIN MINDFREEDOM TODAY.

You’ll have the opportunity to fight for the human rights of others and activate your very own MindFreedom Shield as a protection against any future threat of forced psychiatric treatment.

VOICE and CHOICE – secure both through the MindFreedom Shield program!

Every MindFreedom member has the opportunity to initiate a human rights protection against forced psychiatric interventions known as a “MindFreedom Shield.” If psychiatric force is threatened, the member may request MindFreedom issue a HUMAN RIGHTS ALERT to the network of psychiatric survivors and their allies who stand in solidarity with the Shield Program.

Picture thousands of survivors of forced medication writing and emailing your local newspapers, media, politicians, and mental health system administrators, all in support of YOUR human rights. You may not be able to protect yourself from terrifyingly powerful mental health laws in your state or province, but you can bring the full force of MindFreedom’s activism to bear with the Shield Program.

MIND YOUR FREEDOM!

JOIN MINDFREEDOM TODAY to activate your Shield and protect yourself from unwanted psychiatric intervention, and join the worldwide network of Shield Solidarity working to protect the rights of others.

An anonymous MindFreedom member said this of the shield program — "I don't know if psychiatrists will lock me up and forcibly drug me again, this is the fear we are forced to live with, but I do know that when it happens, if I can get a phone call out of the hospital and activate my MindFreedom Shield, the members of MindFreedom will do their best to lobby for my rights".

Click here to learn more about the Shield program.

MindFreedom Shield victories:

• November 2012: We activated a MindFreedom SHIELD on behalf of Glen K. of New York, who was being given electroshock against his will. It took just 48 hours of rallying MFI members to make the difference and stop the shock! 4 months later, Glen walked out of New York’s Rockland Psychiatric Institution a free man. His attorney said, “His ability to successfully live outside of the four walls of his inpatient unit was regained by the cessation of this most drastic remedy of ECT [electro-convulsive therapy].”

• May 2011: MindFreedom activated a successful MindFreedom SHIELD for Elizabeth Ellis of Minnesota. While in a psychiatric institution, she had endured numerous electroshock treatments against her will. At the close of the MindFreedom Shield campaign to stop the forced shock, Elizabeth wrote to us from her home, “If it hadn't been for MindFreedom I would still be getting forced shock. I know the hospital recognized they had a power to reckon with in MindFreedom. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for the support!"

• January-October 2009: MindFreedom conducted a year-long campaign to stop the forced outpatient electroshock of Ray Sanford (pictured at right). Ray described the procedure as "scary as hell" and did not consent to it. MindFreedom actions including numerous human rights alerts, letter-writing campaigns, and a protest in the Minnesota state capitol building just days before another of Ray's "treatments." In October 2009, after nearly 40 forced electroshocks, Ray was finally able to say "no" to the intervention! Click here to read more about how MindFreedom members helped stop Ray's forced Electroshock.

GET INVOLVED with MindFreedom!

The MindFreedom Shield Program is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to activism for human rights and alternatives in mental health care — click HERE to read about some of MindFreedom's recent activism TRIUMPHS!

and join our non-violent revolution in mental health care.