Human Rights

How do decriminalizing drug use and sex work advance mad liberation? What lessons can psychiatric survivors learn from the harm reduction movement? Caty Simon’s activist leadership spans the low-income rights, psychiatric survivors, sex worker, and drug users union movements, and she was a key organizer at Freedom Center in Western Massachusetts. Caty is on the leadership team of National Survivors Union (NSU), the US drug users union; is a founding co-organizer of Whose Corner Is It Anyway, a mutual aid group by and for low-income, street, and survival sex workers who use opioids and/or stimulants and/or experience housing insecurity; and leads Narcofeminism Storyshare, a collaborative autobiographical story development and key publics training stigma reduction project at NC Survivors Union, the flagship affiliate group of NSU. Caty is currently a research assistant at the Yale School of Medicine, and in 2023 received the International Drug Policy Reform Conference’s Alfred R. Lindesmith Award. Caty reunites with longtime colleagues and Madness Radio co-hosts Jacks McNamara and Will Hall to talk about psychiatric incarceration and her 20 years experience in the harm reduction movement for drug user, sex worker, and mad people liberation. (Transcript) 58 min version

To contact Caty: caty@urbansurvivorsunion.org

The principles of harm reduction, as defined by the National Harm Reduction Coalition: https://harmreduction.org/about-us/principles-of-harm-reduction/

Whose Corner Is It Anyway crowdfund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/whose-corner-is-it-anyway

Caty’s research publications on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bMlmEE4AAAAJ&hl=en

A Contemporary Drug Problems journal article on the Narcofeminism Storyshare project: https://bit.ly/3OMVdRz

NC Survivors Union website: https://www.ncsurvivorsunion.org

Caty Simon chapter in Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness https://bit.ly/42mRWQL

A series of interviews with late Arise for Social Justice Executive Director Michaelann Bewsee, discussed in the interview, from the Smith College Collection:  https://smith.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?pid=5afb0a04-510f-45d3-ac09-ae2201473430

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Will Hall’s June 2024 Grand Rounds talk at University of California San Francisco Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences – where he was locked up as a young man! – titled “New Visions of Psychosis: Abolition as Clinical Best Practice.” Revenge is a dish best served cold. Video here: https://youtu.be/adYrzmJ2w50?si=nwAQBM2F6oYmbShe transcript here. 58 min version

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Dina Tyler’s FANTASTIC, heartful, brilliant December 2023 Grand Rounds talk at UCSF Medical School, “Improving Outcomes for Psychosis: Psychiatric Survivor and Critical Psychiatry Perspectives.” Also available as a video. (Transcript) (Slides from talk) (58 min)

www.dinatyler.com
Journal of Humanistic Psychology

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Why are assault, kidnapping, and torture legal – when you have a psychiatric diagnosis? Is psychiatry’s legal double standard unjust in the same way a double standard would be for being female or Black? Does disability justice mean psychiatric abolition – and reparations? Tina Minkowitz, survivor of psychiatric institutionalization and a human rights lawyer, helped draft and negotiate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Tina joins Will Hall to discuss why abolition of forced psychiatric treatment means the non-negotiable right to be an equal human being. Tina is founder and president of the Center for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, and author of Reimagining Crisis Support: Matrix, Roadmap and Policy. 58 min version transcript here

National Council on Disability from Privileges to Rights report
http://chrusp.org/
10th International Conference on Human Rights and Psychiatric Oppression
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Reimagining Crisis Support: Matrix, Roadmap and Policy (free download) 
A Danger to Self and Others: Health and Criminal Consequences of Involuntary Hospitalization

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Read this book! Is discriminating against people who have — or are labeled with — psychiatric disabilities ever justified? Is denying equality before the law necessary in times of crisis – or does it open the door to widespread abuse and violence? Journalist and community development activist Rob Wipond’s new book Your Consent Is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships is a devastating investigative exposé of the normalized assault, kidnapping, and torture that is forced psychiatric treatment. It is hard to conclude anything other than this abusive practice must be brought to an end. So what can be done? Rob and Will Hall discuss these issues and more, and delve into what voluntary alternatives are possible — and how to stop the current dominant medicalized system from suppressing these alternatives. Rob has written a blistering account of some of psychiatry’s biggest lies; please read this book (if you can – advisory of upsetting content), join the abolition movement, and help sound the alarm to finally put an end to forced treatment based on disability. (58 min version) (transcript)
https://robwipond.com/

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Jay Mahler was one of the originators of the psychiatric survivors movement in the 1960s, joining protests with the Free Speech Movement at the University of California Berkeley- the beginnings of protest against the US war in Vietnam – and then dedicating his life to ending forced treatment and protecting psychiatric patient rights. He was a much loved leader in the movement with extensive impact on the lives of everyone involved in survivor / peer / consumer mental health advocacy, in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Jay passed away this May and will be dearly missed, he was a really genuine kindhearted man who touched everyone who knew him. Thanks to Dina Tyler for co-hosting this recent interview with Jay.

Pool of Consumer Champions https://www.pocc.org

Peers.net-Jay Mahler

Remembering Jay Mahler | Michael Cornwall

www.nyaprs.org/

nyaprs.org part 2

Do early psychosis programs serve healing – or function as surveillance and control? Are treatments for paranoia actually themselves forms of paranoia, based on scientific racism and white supremacy? By defining and enforcing “normal” does psychiatry wage a war on the imagination?

Rachel Jane Liebert is a multi-media artist and Critical Psychology senior lecturer at the University of East London, using feminist research to decolonize modern psychiatry. Her new book Psycurity: Colonialism, Paranoia, and the War on Imagination brings her background as a Pakeha (white/settler) New Zealander to free madness from whiteness and express the imaginative potential of states labeled paranoia. 58 min version

https://bit.ly/2ohWcQI
https://racheljaneliebert.com/
https://uel.academia.edu/racheljaneliebert

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Is mindfulness meditation about calming the mind and accepting things as they are? Or is it a force for social change and challenging oppression? Can meditation help us become intimate with our wild, primal and untamed creative force? Nirali Shah, certified UCLA mindfulness facilitator and teacher at Spirit Rock, has spent thousands of hours meditating, as well as serving in one of the largest slum communities of Asia. She currently teaches with technology companies such as Google as well as academic institutions and non-profits, with a focus on re-wilding the self.

http://www.niralis.com http://bit.ly/2nW1krF

https://www.spiritrock.org/InstructorDetails?calendarinstructorid=177996

https://gtalks-gs.appspot.com/talk/meditation-for-re-wilding-the-self

What is it like to flee a war-torn country as a child? What lasting psychological effects do refugees face? Can peer support and trauma informed care lead to lasting recovery? Khatera Aslami Tamplen, an Afghan-American and the Consumer Empowerment Manager for Alameda CountyBehavioral Health Services in California discusses war trauma, the activist struggle to end involuntary commitment, and the value of letting people have a say in their own mental health recovery. pocc.org/ https://copelandcenter.com/facilitators/khatera-aslami

Are psychiatric treatments, experts, and medications the best way for traumatized communities to heal their mental health problems? Could indigenous practices, including traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, offer a different way forward — through grassroots community development?

Herman Garcia is the Vice President and Ryan Bemis Founder of Crossroads Community Supported Healthcare, which offers practical skills training to local healers in the violence-stricken communities of Ciudad Juarez and Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico. Joined by health promotors Maria de Jesus, Sister Maria de Rosario Cordova, and Gloria of the Rahrami indigenous group, they discuss supporting communities harmed by the War on Drugs, severe poverty, and inequality. Thanks to Cynthia Pompa for translation.

http://bit.ly/2gu2MPN

www.freedom-center.org/files/FreedomCenteracupuncture_brochure.pdf

www.freedom-center.org/files/TrainingGazetteAcupuncture3-06Newspaper.pdf

http://bit.ly/2d4UmfF http://www.americamagazine.org/issue/valley-sorrows

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rar%C3%A1muri_people

How does the legacy of colonialism affect mental health in India? Are women’s rights, spiritual freedom, and ant-colonialism intertwined? Do women who choose a path of spiritual renunciation have the same freedom as men? Where are human rights more respected: in traditional temples, or in hospital locked wards?

Bhargavi Davar’s mother Bapu was a psychiatric abuse survivor persecuted for her religious devotion. Bapu’s struggle inspired Bhargavi to found the Bapu Trust, where she leads advocacy for mental health reform and community development throughout Asia. Bhargavi is also a lead organizer with INTAR, the International Network Towards Alternatives for Recovery.

www.baputrust.com http://bit.ly/1Mkn3u9 http://bit.ly/1TY2Ap0

http://bit.ly/25KXMp2

www.intar.org

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/12/03/india-women-disabilities-locked-away-and-abused

The Families in Mental Health Crisis Act HR 2646 — The Murphy Bill — proposes drastic changes to US mental health policies. Will the Murphy Bill curb violence and improve care? Or will more forced treatment, medication, and hospitalization only enrich pharmaceutical and medical industry power and reinforce stereotypes at the expense of real human needs?

Leah Harris, psychiatric abuse survivor and organizer for the Campaign for Real Change in Mental Health Policy, completed an investigative report on the Murphy Bill’s potential impact on people in crisis, how the gun manufacturer lobby is involved, and the role of Otsuka Pharmaceuticals.

www.realmhchange.org http://www.ndrn.org/en/issues/mental-health/protect-paimi.html www.proteus.com/press-releases/u-s-fda-accepts-first-digital-medicine-new-drug-application-for-otsuka-and-proteus-digital-health/

A few months ago I met your son. He said he would be waiting for us in the Berkeley park near where he sleeps outside at night, but at the last minute he called and was in San Francisco. He said he was at “the Mrs. Doubtfire house” with a photograph of his best friend, and that the photo showed numbers and codes predicting Robin Williams’ suicide. He found the house where Williams made one of his films, and was trying to talk to the owner. It was all part of a complex plan, marked mathematically in signs and omens he was collecting.

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Why are so many trauma survivors, especially women, diagnosed “borderline?” Is the label useful — or sexist and degrading? How can people who live through intergenerational violence be understood and supported — instead of discounted and silenced?

Rita Marshall, human rights activist and former psychiatric inmate from a family of Holocaust survivors, examines the social and political context for the controversial “Borderline Personality Disorder” diagnosis.

Note – this is an interview with a psych survivor activist who asked at the time that her name be disguised. They recently passed away from an illness.

Could a young man’s overwhelming visions of Christ and apocalypse be a creative response to life trauma, rather than signs of paranoid schizophrenia? Does madness unfold differently depending on whether it is supported – or feared?

Irish activist and punk musician Grainne Humphrys, herself a survivor of an extreme state, discusses the campaign for the release of former partner John Hunt. John has been incarcerated and drugged against his will since 2005, sparking international outcry.

http://freejohn-loverevolutionary.blogspot.com
http://www.mindfreedomireland.com

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