MindFreedom International

Description

MindFreedom International is a nonprofit organization that fights for human rights in mental health care, based in the United States.

Its members are mostly psychiatric survivors, people who have experienced human rights violations through psychiatry, along with voluntary consumers of mental health services, family members, attorneys, advocates and dissident mental health professionals. The organization works through advocacy, public education, peaceful protest and lobbying to challenge abuses such as coerced or fraudulent drugging, electroshock and involuntary institutionalization. It also runs a Shield Program that sends alerts to a support network when a member faces involuntary psychiatric treatment, so others can take nonviolent action on that person’s behalf.

It is accredited by the United Nations as a non-governmental organization with Consultative Roster Status. It is not funded or controlled by pharmaceutical companies, governments, political parties or religious organizations, relying instead on individual contributions and independent foundation grants.

The organization traces its roots to an international movement of psychiatric survivors, dissident mental health professionals and advocates that began around 1970. A newsletter called Dendron, started in 1986, grew into a coalition named Support Coalition International in 1990, which was renamed MindFreedom International in 2005. It has affiliated groups in other countries, including Ghana, Ireland and Bangladesh.