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MindFreedom International

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MindFreedom Internationalis an internationalcoalitionof over one hundredgrassrootsgroups and thousands of individual members from fourteen nations. Based in the United States, it was founded in 1990 to advocate againstforced medication,medical restraints,and involuntaryelectroconvulsive therapy.Its stated mission is to protect therightsof people who have been labeled withpsychiatricdisorders.Membership is open to anyone who supportshuman rights,includingmental health professionals,advocates,activists,and family members.[1]MindFreedom has been recognized by theUnited Nations Economic and Social Councilas a human rightsNGOwithConsultative Roster Status.[2]

Origins and purpose

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MindFreedom International is rooted in thepsychiatric survivors movement,[3]which arose out of thecivil rightsferment of the late 1960s and early 1970s and the personal histories of psychiatric abuse experienced by some ex-patients rather than the intradisciplinary discourse ofantipsychiatry.[4]The precursors of MFI include ex-patient groups of the 1970s[5]such as thePortland, Oregon-based Insane Liberation Front and the Mental Patients' Liberation Front in New York.[3]The key text in the intellectual development of the survivor movement, at least in the US, wasJudi Chamberlin's1978 text,On Our Own: Patient Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System.[3][6]Chamberlin was an ex-patient and co-founder of the Mental Patients' Liberation Front.[7]Coalescing around the ex-patient newsletterDendron,[8]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 withDavid W. Oaksas its director.[4]SCI's first public action was to stage a counter-conference andprotestin May 1990 inNew York Cityat the same time as (and directly outside of) theAmerican Psychiatric Association'sannual meeting.[9]

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'.[3]MFI is a contemporary and active coalition of grassroots groups which are carrying forward the historical tradition of survivor opposition to coercive psychiatry.[3]It does not define itself as an antipsychiatry organization and its members point to the role which 'compassionate' psychiatrists have played in MFI.[4]Activists within the coalition have been drawn from both left and right wing of politics.[4]

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.[4][5]The coalition regards the psychiatric practices of 'unscientific labeling, forced drugging, solitary confinement, restraints, involuntary commitment, electroshock' as human rights violations.[4][10]

In 2003, eight Mindfreedom members, led by then-executive directorDavid Oaks,went on a hunger strike to publicize a series of "challenges" they had put forth to theAmerican Psychiatric Association(APA), theUS Surgeon Generaland theNational Alliance on Mental Illness(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[dubious–discuss]the APA and NAMI to enter into a debate with them on this and other issues.[3]

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.[11]

See also

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References

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  1. ^Introductory FAQ's about MFI — MFI Portal
  2. ^"United Nations - Department of Economic and Social Affairs - NGO Section".Archived fromthe originalon 2011-06-11.Retrieved2007-11-28.
  3. ^abcdefCorrigan, Patrick W.; David Roe; Hector W. H. Tsang (2011-05-23).Challenging the Stigma of Mental Illness: Lessons for Therapists and Advocates.John Wiley and Sons.ISBN978-1-119-99612-5.
  4. ^abcdefOaks, David (2006-08-01)."The evolution of the consumer movement".Psychiatric Services.57(8): 1212.doi:10.1176/appi.ps.57.8.1212.PMID16870979.Retrieved2011-08-05.[permanent dead link]
  5. ^abPrice, Margaret (2011-02-17).Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life.University of Michigan Press. p. 10.ISBN978-0-472-07138-8.
  6. ^Chamberlin, Judi (1978).On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System.New York: Hawthorne.
  7. ^Rissmiller, David J.; Joshua H. Rissmiller (2006-06-01)."Evolution of the antipsychiatry movement into mental health consumerism".Psychiatric Services.57(6): 865.doi:10.1176/appi.ps.57.6.863.PMID16754765.S2CID19635873.Retrieved2011-08-05.
  8. ^Ludwig, Gregory (2006-08-01)."Letter".Psychiatric Services.57(8): 1213.doi:10.1176/appi.ps.57.8.1213.PMID16870981.Retrieved2011-08-05.[permanent dead link]
  9. ^About Us — MFI Portal
  10. ^See alsoOaks, David (2000-03-01)."No forced drugging".Psychiatric Services.51(3): 389.doi:10.1176/appi.ps.51.3.389.Retrieved2011-08-05.
  11. ^Fritz, Mark (2006-02-01). "Strong Medicine".Wall Street Journal.Karnowski, Steve (2009-05-10)."Minnesota patient wants right to refuse electroshocks".Associated Press.Retrieved2011-08-04.Mannix, Andy (2011-03-22)."Elizabeth Ellis protests her forced electroshock treatment on Mind Freedom".City Pages.Archived fromthe originalon 2015-05-10.Retrieved2011-08-04.Snyders, Matt (2009-05-20)."Minnesota mental health patient Ray Sandford forced into electro-shock therapy".City Pages.Archived fromthe originalon 2015-05-10.Retrieved2011-08-04."Campaign Victory! Forced Electroshock of Elizabeth Ellis Ended!".MindFreedom International.2011-05-30.Retrieved2011-08-04."Welcome to the MindFreedom Shield Campaign".MindFreedom International.Retrieved2011-08-04."MindFreedom Shield Launched Online".MindFreedom International.13 November 2006.Retrieved2011-08-04."Gabriel Hadd".MindFreedom International.15 October 2006.Retrieved2011-08-04."Introduction to MindFreedom Shield".MindFreedom International.9 October 2006.Retrieved2011-08-04.
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Literature

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  • 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.ISBN978-0-9545428-1-8(UK),ISBN978-0-9788399-1-8(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.ISBN978-3-925931-38-3.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.ISBN978-0-9545428-1-8(UK),ISBN978-0-9788399-1-8(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.ISBN978-3-925931-38-3.E-Book in 2018.
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