Banned by Bio-psychiatry: What
Users and Survivors of Psychiatry Really Want
Chaired by Peter Lehmann
The power and influence of modern biological psychiatry
depends on legally sanctioned force and coercion that would
be regarded as fundamental human rights violations in any
other sector of society. This symposium will discuss how
this power is also used to exclude alternative approaches
to psychic problems that many users and survivors want.
Biological psychiatry does not recognise the social nature
of psychic problems, the benefits of less harmful non-medical
therapies, and of peer-support self-help programs that many
users and survivors say helped them more than the drugs.
As well as promoting human rights violations, the ideology
of bio-psychiatry also promotes misinformation that suppresses
critical information for users and survivors, and dominates
funding of services so that non-medical services are starved
of resources. Withholding information on alternatives is
another form of coercion that denies users and survivors
of their right to give informed consent and access to the
services they most want.
Peter Lehmann
Respecting Human Rights as a sine qua non for
All Kind of Treatment and Support: The Strategy of MindFreedom
International David W. OaksVideo
documentation (1)
Strategies of Drug Companies to Optimize the Sales of Their
Psychiatric DrugsThe Rise and Fall of the 'Atypical' Neuroleptics:
A Case Study in How the Pharmaceutical Industry Hypes its Products Robert WhitakerVideo
documentation (2)
The International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery
(INTAR) Peter StastnyVideo
documentation (3)
Cooperation and Understanding versus Custodialism and Violence:
User- and Survivor Involvement in Services, Education, Administration
and Political Decision-making Mary NettleVideo
documentation (4)
< Symposium, held at June 7, 2007, at the congress "Coercive
Treatment in Psychiatry: A Comprehensive Review", run by
the World Psychiatric Association in Dresden, Germany, June 6-8,
2007