Click on the flowers to get to the most comprehensive list of Anti-Psychiatry links on the web.
I belong to a group called Mind Freedom and they send out email alerts once in a while to share the current status of the freedom movement in mental health, and the psychiatric professions response to us. Mind Freedom is made up of individuals who have serious issues with the current medical dogma regarding mental health and who believe psychiatry has been completely corrupted by Pharmaceutical Interests.
I have shared my story of coerced mental health care in serveral places on the web and most notably in my book A Mother’s Journey, my story of healing after post partum psychosis.
When I was originally healing from the trauma of being treated by the psychiatric profession in 1989, I kept a detailed journal of what happened, and this combined with my medical records formed the final chapter of Kathy Kendall Tacketts book, Post Partum Depression, A comprehensive approach for Nurses, which was a text book used in nursing schools.
Kathy contacted me in 2003 and told me she was doing a second edition of the book and wondered if she could again finish the book with my story. I said that would be fine. The book Depression in New Mothers which had been greatly expanded and enhanced by thirteen years of research and study on Post Partum Depression is probably the most comprehensive and complete book of its kind. Kathy is very pro-breastfeeding, and shares alternatives to drugs that are compatible with nursing when a new mother is depressed.
When I was fighting the psychiatrists legally while incarcerated in a state mental hospital in Pontiac Michigan, the number one reason I did not want to be medicated was because I was breastfeeding my daughter and wanted to continue. None of the staff seemed to understand how important this was to me, and just dismissed my desire as further evidence that I was insane. It was very comforting to me to receive the copy of Depression in New Mothers that Kathy sent to me last year after it was published, and realize how passionately she feels about this topic and how competently she shared the facts with her readers. I feel extremely grateful to have been a part of her work for the past fifteen years.
Here is a link to some of the reviews of the book. And here is a link to an excerpt from the book.

Here is the update from David Oaks, Mind Freedom Founder and Psychiatric survivor.
NEWS: Your Mind & Your Freedom – 1 August 2006
http://www.MindFreedom.org – please forward
The American Psychiatric Association Published
A Heated Debate About Psychiatric Survivors,
Mental Health Consumers and “Antipsychiatry.”
The Debate Mentions MindFreedom Several Times,
And The APA Published Replies From MindFreedom.
BELOW read the debate, letters, essay and more.
The American Psychiatric Association has published a heated back-and-forth debate in the August 2006 issue of their _Psychiatric Services_ journal about the history of the social change movement for human rights and alternatives in the mental health system.
The debate mentions MindFreedom International a number of times. The American Psychiatric Association published ten letters, including several by MindFreedom members, board and staff.
BELOW are two of these published letters, along with the original essay that sparked this controversy about our movement’s history published in their June 2006 issue, plus how you may read all ten published letters.
Please forward this exchange widely to help inform the media and public.
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_Psychiatric Services_ 57:1212, August 2006
published by American Psychiatric Association
Letter
The Evolution of the Consumer Movement
To the Editor: The essay “Evolution of the Antipsychiatry Movement Into Mental Health Consumerism” (1) in the June issue attempts to impose false labels and a skewed history on activists for human rights in mental health, including the nonprofit organization that I direct, MindFreedom International.
The origin of our social change movement cannot be traced to a few antipsychiatry theoreticians and campus intellectuals. Many of us actually credit the civil rights movement and our own experiences of psychiatric abuse as the original sources of our inspiration. We can and do organize on our own. The authors use the undefined term “antipsychiatry” 34 times in their essay, applying that label to many of us who do not describe ourselves or our groups in that way. There are, for example, compassionate, practicing psychiatrists who play an active role in MindFreedom.
The authors claim that psychiatry has addressed our key grievances “to some degree.” Even if some psychiatrists have reduced the dosages of neuroleptics prescribed, overall neuroleptic prescriptions are skyrocketing. Neuroleptic prescriptions for youths have shot up more than fivefold in less than a decade (2). From our perspective, both electroshock and psychosurgery have experienced a resurgence in popularity within psychiatry and the mainstream press. Many states have greatly expanded commitment criteria, and most states have implemented involuntary outpatient commitment. Courts now order some MindFreedom members who live peacefully in their own homes to take neuroleptics involuntarily.
The authors appear to observe us from afar through a flawed lens, which may explain their factual errors. The well-respected activist Leonard Roy Frank is not the founder of Support Coalition International. Support Coalition International and MindFreedom International are not two separate organizations–our name change occurred in 2005. The essay aligns the history of our movement with the “radical left” to a great extent, ignoring decades of outstanding work by conservatives and libertarians in fighting psychiatric abuse. Today, conservatives lead the grassroots opposition to mental health screening in schools.

Consider the bias inherent in this sentence: “Psychiatry continues to fight antipsychiatry disinformation on the use of involuntary commitment, electroconvulsive therapy, stimulants and antidepressants among children, and neuroleptics among adults.” The authors appear to transmogrify into “antipsychiatry disinformation” all public education efforts that are inconsistent with the American Psychiatric Association’s official position.
This is my 30th year working for human rights and alternatives in the mental health system. We have made mistakes. We are not perfect. But I am very proud of our social change movement, which includes concerned family members, advocates, attorneys, mental health professionals, and interested members of the public. The authors claim that the psychiatric profession finds it difficult to communicate with us. The fact is that the American Psychiatric Association has generally refused our repeated invitations for conversation.

Somehow, some people who have experienced serious human rights violations in the mental health system–including unscientific labeling, forced drugging, solitary confinement, restraints, involuntary commitment, electroshock, and more–have reached deep within the human spirit and found the power to speak out and unite nonviolently (3). Please reply with dialogue, not distortion.
David Oaks
Footnotes
Mr. Oaks is director of MindFreedom International, Eugene, Oregon.
References
1. Rissmiller D, Rissmiller J: Evolution of the Antipsychiatry Movement Into Mental Health Consumerism. Psychiatric Services 57:863-866,2006
2. Carey B: Use of antipsychotics by the young rose fivefold. New York Times, June 6, 2006, p A18
3. Mahler J, Unzicker R, Foner J, et al: Taking issue with taking issue: “psychiatric survivors” reconsidered. Psychiatric Services 48:601,1997
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_Psychiatric Services_ 57:1214, August 2006
published by American Psychiatric Association
Letter
To the Editor: Psychiatric Services has done a disservice to any of its readers who might want an accurate picture of our movement for the human rights of psychiatric consumers/survivors. Anyone familiar with our history would have a hard time recognizing us from the bizarre and highly inaccurate article that appeared in your most recent issue.
The authors got it partly right when they mentioned two of our long-time leaders, Leonard Frank and Judi Chamberlin. If the authors had interviewed either of them, their account might have some resemblance to reality. Instead, the authors seem to have relied completely on articles and books, rather than first-hand reports from the people who have actually been involved.
As for myself, my 35 years of activity in our movement wasn’t inspired by any books written by Drs. Szasz or Laing or the other seminal thinkers named, although I respect their contributions. It came about from my ten years in a state hospital as a child, after I received electroshock treatment at age six at the hands of one of the profession’s most honored child psychiatrists. And most activists in our movement have also become involved because of their own experiences.
Though I would hardly expect a journal of the American Psychiatric Association to support our criticisms of psychiatry, I think that it would be much more useful for your readers–and more interesting–if you exposed them to accurate reports of our positions and activities. Any psychiatrist who relied on articles such as this to get a picture of our movement would be living in a dream world.
Ted Chabasinski, J.D.
Footnotes
Mr. Chabasinski is a patients’ rights attorney, Berkeley, California. [Ted is also a MindFreedom International board member.]
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HOW TO READ ALL TEN LETTERS:
For a limited time, at no cost you may download a PDF with all ten letters, and/or read the text of each of the ten letters, in the August 2006 issue of _Psychiatric Services_ on the APA’s web site:
http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/content/vol57/issue8/?etoc#LETTERS
or use this smaller web address:
http://tinyurl.com/r8vqp
When these letters become unavailable from the APA for free, go to the MindFreedom International web site for information about how to access them at no cost, or contact the MindFreedom office.
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BELOW is the text of the original essay:
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_Psychiatric Services_ 57:863-866, June 2006
published by American Psychiatric Association
Evolution of the Antipsychiatry Movement Into Mental Health Consumerism
by David J. Rissmiller, D.O. and Joshua H. Rissmiller
Abstract
“This essay reviews the history and evolution of the antipsychiatry movement. Radical antipsychiatry over several decades has changed from an antiestablishment campus-based movement to a patient-based consumerist movement. The antecedents of the movement are traced to a crisis in self-conception between biological and psychoanalytic psychiatry occurring during a decade characterized by other radical movements.
It was promoted through the efforts of its four seminal thinkers: Michel Foucault in France, R. D. Laing in Great Britain, Thomas Szasz in the United States, and Franco Basaglia in Italy. They championed the concept that personal reality and freedom were independent of any definition of normalcy that organized psychiatry tried to impose. The original antipsychiatry movement made major contributions but also had significant weaknesses that ultimately undermined it. Today, antipsychiatry adherents have a broader base and no longer focus on dismantling organized psychiatry but look to promote radical consumerist reform.
Radical antipsychiatry in the past four decades has changed from an influential international movement dominated by intellectual psychiatrists to an ex-patient consumerist coalition fighting against pharmacological treatment, coercive hospitalizations, and other authoritarian psychiatric practices.”
Jenny Hatch