A Radical Vision

A Radical Vision: a world without psychiatry

by Don Weitz

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
- Martin Luther King, Jr. [U.S. civil rights leader, Nobel Peace Award Winner, 1963 (1)

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
- John Lennon [songwriter, musician, peace activist], lyrics from "Imagine", 1971

Over 60 years ago in the 1950s in Boston I was locked up for 15 months, labeled "schizophrenic" and tortured with 110 subcoma insulin shock treatments in McLean Hospital, the notorious psychoprison affiliated with Harvard Medical School. In fact, I was going through a common existential adolescent idenity crisis panthologized as "schizophrenia" by psychiatrists.I survived psychiatric incarceration and the insulin shocks, but I wish there had been a community alternative like a peer support/self-help group, crisis centre, dropin or safe house where I could have been humanely treated, not forcibly drugged, listened to, understood, where my human rights of freedom and autonomy were respecteed - but there was no such alternative for me 60 years ago.

Today there are very few, non-medical alternatives and community resources for the millions of brothers and sisters who are being psychiatrized worldwide. Of course, there are alternatives to mental health centres and psychiatric wards, and psychiatric interventions in Canada and the United States - there just aren't enough of them. That's largely because mental health professionals, the public and the media have been so indoctrinated into psychiatry's fraudulent medical model that most can't imagine any non-medical, survivor-run alternatives for people going through a crisis. I see this as a form of tunnel vision and discrimination. (2) Psychiatry and Big Pharma (transnational drug corporations) have fraudulently medicalized our common personal crises; psychiatric drugs, electroshock, physical restraints, and locked psychiatric wards are then prescribed as treatment for millions of us who "go crazy," "freak out," or behave in ways that the mental health professionals, our families, the media, and public find strange or can't understand. At the same time, they stereotype us and spread vicious myths about how dangerous, unpredictable,violent and incompetent "mental patients" are - it's called "mentalism" current, US politicians, including President Barak Obama target us in state and federal "background checks" in United States gun laws. This is discrimination, bigotry, and psychiatric and state oppression - violations of our human rights under the guise of "mental health."

"Deinstitutionalization" and Housing

Here's the grim context. Today, it's widely acknowledged that "deinstitutionalization" has been a total failure and fraud; it was from the very start. Why? Because of government incompetence and negligence, poor urban planning, and public indifference to "discharged" psychiatric survivors the vast majority of whom are poor, marginalized, stigmatized people in our communities. Since the 1960s, more and more psychoprisons have been shut down; yet there was, and still is, virtually no affordable and accessible housing built for the many thousands of people who have ended up on city mean streets as a result. As inner-city refugees, homeless psychiatric survivors, forcibly drugged, traumatized and discriminated against, frequently have no safe place to go. For all too many, the street, an overcrowded, disease-ridden and violent shelter or an emergency ward are the only alternatives. In the wake of the failure of "deinstitutionalization," thousands were and still are homeless, unemployed, poor, and forced to survive on minimal financial aid such as welfare, "family benefits," or disability allowance.

Over the past forty years, this homelessness crisis has escalated in major cities across Canada and the United States. Tragically for the many thousands of vulnerable, alienated and traumatized people fraudulently labelled "mentally ill" in our allegedly caring and just society, instead of affordable and accessible housing, high-rise condominiums for the rich have become the top priority for the corporate CEOs and real estate developers who control and manipulate the "housing market." For these greedy capitalists, the bottom line is always profit, not people. Today, Toronto, for example, is so saturated with condos and other high-rise apartment buildings on virtually every city block that it should be called Condo City or New York North.

As you read this, in Toronto thousands of homeless and underhoused psychiatric survivors are struggling to survive on the street or in overcrowded,disease-ridden and violent shelters where they are often exposed to tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. Faced with minimal community support and a criminal lack of alternatives, many are forced back into psychiatric hospitals or wards, where they're drugged, degraded and traumatized all over again. On the street, these survivors are easy targets for the psychiatric SWAT teams and the police. In Ontario, these agents of social control are called assertive community treatment teams (ACTTs) or Mobile Crisis Teams (each of the latter "teams" consist of a psychiatric nurse and an armed plainclothes police officer who ride around in umarked police cars). Our government put these people in place to enforce its draconian community treatment orders (CTOs), which authorize outpatient forced drugging and arrests of survivors refusing psychiatric "medication" or "voluntary" hospitalization (see Chapter10).

Ten years ago, at a public meeting of the Toronto City Council's Neighbourhoods Committee, I tried to convince those in attendance that affordable and supportive housing for psychiatric survivors and other marginalized people was urgently needed. I pointed out that affordable housing should replace all psychiatric facilities, including the notorious Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and that government-funded housing initiatives could save not only the health and lives of thousands of survivors and others, but also millions of tax dollars every year. All that was needed was the political will; there is still no national affordable housing strategy in Canada, no political will.

During the last ten years, together with many other social justice activists, I have delivered similar messages for affordable housing and crisis centres to Toronto City Council and Toronto Police Services Board which supposedly oversees the police. As usual, the response was minimal- no action - no firm commitment; no official announcement of building plans or timelines. During the last five years, fewer than five thousand affordable or "social housing" units have been built in Toronto; at least 50,000 are needed. Consider these facts provided by J. .qDavid Hulchanski, Professor of Housing and Community Development at the University of Toronto's School of Social Work:
- 140, 649: total number of people on Housing Connections centralized waiting list for
social housing [in Toronto] as of September 30, 2010.
- 29,917: number of children under the age of 17 on household applications for social housing; this number includes 13,190 single parents. (3)

Before he decided not to seek re-election as Toronto's mayor in 2010,David Miller once agreed that building 3000 social housing units a year in Toronto was a reasonable and necessary target. However, despite their publicly voiced concerns, former Toronto mayor David Miller, currently mayor Rob Ford, and Toronto City Council (along with provincial government officials) have repeatedly and shamelessly done virtually nothing. They have been content to congratulate themselves on token housing initiatives, such as building a few hundred housing units a year or releasing a few million dollars for renovating existing, run-down rooming houses closing shelters like "The School House", while rubber-stamping developers applications for more obscene condominiums for the rich.

Considerthe following facts:

" Well over 75,000 citizens have been on Toronto's "social housing" waiting list for several years.
" There are currently more than 140,000 households on affordable-housing waiting lists across Ontario.
" There are currently 1.5 million homeless people, including over half a million poor children and thousands of psychiatric survivors, in Canada, struggling to survive on under-funded government welfare and disability support programs that grudgingly provide single individuals with approximately $550 a month for rent, while they go hungry, malnourished, driven to madness or suicide - on or off the drugs.
The average rent for a bachelor apartment in downtown Toronto is currently $800-$900. Adding insult to injury, Ontario's Liberal government plans to eliminate its Special Diet Allowance program in 2010 or 2011. Conceived and initiated by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), the Special Diet program has been hugely successful; during the last three years it has provided an additional, desperately needed a $250 monthly food allowance for many thousands of poor and unemployed people, psychiatric survivors and others with disabilities or serious medical conditions. Many Special Diet recipients are immigrants and refugees from Somalia and other African countries, as well as Canadian psychiatric survivors.This is just one more example of government-sanctioned injustice and racial discrimination in the ruling establishment's continuing war against the poor. (4)
Alternatives
There are a few non-medical, non-coercive, community-based alternatives in Ontario and other provinces. Some are controlled by psychiatric survivors; others by a partnership between survivors and supportive health workers. Here I refer t "club houses" boarding homes, and similar supportive houses managed by mental health workers and funded by government agencies and branches of the Canadian Mental Health Association. I exclude them because they're based on and promote the fraudulent medical model of "me/ntal illness" and treatment, especially "medication."
The community resources that empower and respect vulnerable people can provide real support and relief for people trying to overcome personal crises or recover from psychiatry's "safe and effective" treatments - doctor-inflicted traumas, brain damage and other disabilities. Sadly, in Toronto and other major cities there are too few to allow many people to avoid psychiatric hospitalization and treatment; too few to assist us in reclaiming our lives so we can feel whole and human again.

Support groups

Many of these peer and grassroots advocacy groups exist in Canada, the United States and Europe, but we need many more in all communities. A genuine support group is controlled by psychiatric survivors These groups offer real emotional and social support to people going through crisis or trauma. They encourage self-empowerment and provide peer support to combat survivors' feelings of alienation, isolation, discrimination, and stigmatization.

An important historical note: On Our Own was the first grassroots self-help group in Ontario totally and proudly controlled by psychiatric survivors. It began in August 1977, in Toronto, under the name Ontario Mental Patients Association (OMPA), partly inspired by the Mental Patients Association in Vancouver, the first survivor-controlled self-help group in Canada founded in 1970, and which prioneered and practiced partizcipatory democracy. In 1980 OMPA changed its name to On Our Own, the title of Judi Chamberlin's movement classic, to emhadize our p;rinciple and goal of self-empowerment and ability to make our own decisions without psychiatrists and other mental heath professionals.
Until the Ministry of Health forced its closure in 1996, based on allegations of financial and board problems, On Our Own provided community support to hundreds of survivors who had been dehumanized, traumatized, patronized, and stigmatized in Ontario's "mental health" system. (5) it provided members with:

" a drop-in where people were always welcome, and where they could feel safe
" a sense of belonging through the encouragement of participatory democracy in small groups and general meetings where every member had the right to speak and vote on policy and other issues
" a newsletter where they could share information and ideas
" computer training
" the opportunity to learn or relearn practical business, computer and social skills, become more self-confident and reclaim their self-respect and dignity while working in The Mad Market (the first used goods store in Canada established and managed by psychiatric survivors)

Sound Times Support Services

Sound Times is another Toronto-based peer advocacy group, one of the largest in Ontario with over 400 members. Sound Times has grown steadily since it was incorporated as a non-profit organization in August 1992. It's located near the corner of Parliament Street and Dundas Street East in downtown Toronto. Like On Our Own, Sound Times is totally controlled by psychiatric survivors. It helps members find affordable housing and apply for and receive financial aid (e.g., welfare, ODSP); provides free food and clothing, computer training, peer support, legal advice and advocacy. One of its recent outreach projects is providing educational material and legal support in a class action lawsuit re the neuroleptic Zyprexa. (6)

PARC: The Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre
This drop-in/social agency was founded in1980 by a handful of psychiatric survivors and community worker activists who wanted to create community support for the many survivors living in the Parkdale neighbourhood in the west end of Toronto; most are former inmates CAMH, some are homeless or seriously underhoused. PARC employs a mix of community workers and survivors; its constitution mandates that a minimum of 50% of the board of directors be survivors. PARC offers:

" emergency housing/shelter referral and assistance
" emergency food support, as well as daily meals
" emergency supplies for helping people stay warm in winter
" free showers, clothing and laundry facilities
" a warm place to sit, and people to talk to
" internet access, as well as computer assistance and training, provided by members
" volunteer support
" transportation assistance
" art supply subsidies
" outings to local cinema, along with many other activities.
"
PARC workers are strong advocates of affordable housing and vehement supporters of antipoverty initiatives. One of the organization's current housing projects is Edmond Place, a resident-controlled house named after Edmond Wai Hong Yu (see Chapter 11) and funded by the city, provincial and federal governments; it includes 29 "self-contained units" including 24 bachelor apartments for psychiatric survivors. (7)

24-hour walk-in crisis centres
Right now, there is no free-standing, independent 24/7 walk-in crisis centre in Toronto, despite the obvious need. Although not a walk-in clinic, the Gerstein Crisis Centre is the only independent crisis centre in Toronto providing non-medical help. It has 10-beds and provides short-term emotional and social support for people going through a personal. crisis. It's important to note that Gerstein does not administer psychiatric drugs or promote the medical model of "mental illness." Its board of directors consists of survivors and community volunteers.

People should not have to go to hospital emergency wards or clinics for non-medical crises, but they frequently do. If we'freserious about keeping people out of psychiatric wards and the "mental health system", we must establish a large number and variety of community-based, accessible, non-medical crisis centres - totally separate from hospitals, emergency departments and medical clinics - that unconditionally welcome people in emotional trouble, and accept their personal crises as real and understandable, rather than medicalizing them as "symptoms of mental illness." Since these centres would be open 24/7, people in crisis could walk in at any time of the night or day and find sympathetic workers to talk with.

Among the real-life crises that psychiatry pathologizes, but which could be dealt with sensibly, sensitively and effectively at such centres, are eviction (or the threat of eviction); grief resulting from the death of a partner or other loved one; intense fear or panic; depression, thoughts of suicide or suicide attempts; loneliness/social isolation; and the effects of psychiatric drugs or from drug withdrawal (see "Withdrawal Centres," below).

Besides always being open, these crisis centres must be completely accessible, centrally located, physically comfortable, and non-threatening. They should be mainly staffed with psychiatric survivors trained in crisis or trauma counselling and street nurses; medical doctors (GPs or family doctors) can serve as professional back-up, to be contacted in medical emergencies or for consultation. People of different ethnicities, including aboriginal people, should be employed at each centre - and women and men, and younger and older people, should work there - so that those who come in for help can find staff they can relate to. For the same reason, there should be workers who speak the main languages of those who live in the community.

These centres' main objectives should be:

" to provide crisis counselling and emotional/social support;
" to provide relevant and practical health information as needed;
to refer people to safe and supportive alternatives and resources in their own communities; workers and volunteers should be aware of community-based alternatives in the area, including safe houses, food banks, community health centres, withdrawal centres, drop-ins, community centres, affordable housing and shopping co-ops, advocacy and support groups, organizations that help people find employment, and legal aid clinics. Referring any person to a psychiatrist or psychiatric facility would be strictly prohibited.

Healing Houses

A "healing house" for survivors of electroshock "treatment" was one of several recommendations in the report Electroshock Is Not A Healing Option, which came out of two days of public hearings held in Toronto in June 2005 (see The Electrohock Report, http://coalitionagainstpsychiatricassault.wordpress.com). The need is particularly urgent for women shock survivors, who are disproportionately targeted for this "safe and effective treatment." We need healing centres to help traumatized women, and women in crisis, work through and heal the deep emotional wounds they have suffered and continue to suffer from electroshock. Although rape crisis centres exist in Canada and the United States, there are no feminist, free-standing healing centres to help these women, despite the following facts:

" A disproportionately large number of women undergo electroshock, which causes severe trauma and brain damage, including memory loss.
" Women shock survivors suffer more brain damage than men do; two to three times more women than men suffer from permanent, shock-induced memory loss (including major gaps in the memory of personal life experiences) and other instances of cognitive impairment, such as severe difficulty in concentrating, reading or learning, as well as the loss of special skills. Elderly women are particularly vulnerable in all these areas.
" Conventional psychotherapy, self-help support groups, and community rehabilitation programs do not address the special problems experienced by women shock survivors, which may include panic attacks or flashbacks that recur for months or years. (8)

The above information is not intended to minimize the plight of men shock survivors, who should also have healing houses to go to. However, women traumatized by electroshock (besides being more numerous and therefore, as a group, more urgently in need of such houses) may also have experienced abuse at the hands of men, and need their own centres where they need not be re-traumatized by the presence of men, so I believe that we need houses for women first.

Like crisis centres, these healing houses should be centrally located and physically accessible, and should exist in communities throughout Canada and the United States. They should be administered and staffed mainly by women shock survivors trained in trauma and crisis counseling, and feminist nurses. Each house should develop and enforce its own mandate or principles; staff and volunteers should validate women's experiences, particularly the traumas and the disabilities caused by electroshock and other psychiatric abuses, and support women in their struggle for healing, emotional and social support, and self-empowerment. Non-psychiatric alternatives could include holistic therapy, massage, diet, exercise, meditation, yoga, tutoring, special skill classes, and job/career counselling. Women's organizations, including feminist health and advocacy centres (e.g., rape crisis centres, Sistering, the Elizabeth Fry Society) should be approached for volunteers and provide seed funding.

Withdrawal centres

Safe houses/centres whose main purpose is to help people withdraw safely, and with appropriate support, from psychiatric drugs are desperately needed; there is no such house in Canada. These houses should be strategically located, easily accessible, and equipped with a sufficient number of beds. Coming off these powerful and addictive psychiatric drugs suddenly, and on one's own, is too dangerous. Many survivors end up back in hospital after coming off antidepressants like Prozac and Paxil; neuroleptics like Zyprexa (olanzapine) and Risperdal (risperidone); and/or addictive "minor tranquilizers" like Xanax, Valium and Ativan. As psychiatric critics like Dr. Peter Breggin and Dr. Joseph Glenmullen have warned, suddenly withdrawing from any of these drugs is likely to trigger a "rebound effect," making people feel and act like they're going mad again. Do yourself or your friends a big favour by following, or encouraging them to follow, these three basic steps:

1. NEVER stop any psychiatric drug suddenly.
2. ALWAYS come off the drug(s) very gradually.
3. ALWAYS come off the psychiatric drug(s) with the best support you can get; ideally, do so under the guidance and supervision of knowledgeable and supportive friends or health professionals.
After deciding to withdraw, you should tell a few close friends and/or relatives of your decision; make sure they support you and are available to be called or stay with you if necessary. If you are lucky, you will be able to find a health professional who is aware of this need and will make sure you get the emotional and social support, as well as the medical information, that you need to withdraw safely and gradually. Withdrawal will be hard - especially if you have been on the drug(s) for many months or years. It will involve a lot of frustration and probably several setbacks; and may take months, or even years. But it's well worth the struggle and time. It's your right to be drug-free, and to feel healthy, whole and human again. (9)

Berlin's Runaway House

The Runaway House in Berlin (Weglaufhaus Villa Stöckle), founded after ten years of organizing, and lobbying government officials, has been running since 1996. Located in a residential area outside the city core, this valuable and empowering alternative provides a community refuge for psychiatric survivors and those wishing to avoid hospitalization. Residents must come on their own; medical referrals are not accepted.

Residents and workers share an antipsychiatry philosophy, and the house does not employ any psychiatrists or other doctors. The staff-resident ratio is less than 1 to 1, with ten to twelve part time workers, including a few students, and a maximum of thirteen residents. Approximately half the workers are psychiatric survivors. The age range of the residents is eighteen to sixty-five; most are in their early thirties. They can stay a maximum of three months (longer depending on the welfare authorities) but most leave after six to eight weeks. About 30 percent come directly from hospitals, more than 20 percent are homeless. The workers are selected mainly for such personal qualities as openness, flexibility, understanding, empathy, and non-judgemental attitudes, rather than for professional qualifications. The staff is non-hierarchical. There is an equal number of men and women among them, and they mainly act as "facilitators" - not counselors or therapists. Most of the time, there are always two workers in the house. They provide emotional and social support to help residents withdraw from psychiatric drugs, but no resident is pressured to withdraw. Any resident who decides to come off any drug is urged to withdraw very gradually, and is free to consult with an outside therapist or doctor for help with withdrawal if desired.
There is little, if any, formal structure in what goes on at the house. There is no therapy program; daily issues and problems are dealt with as they arise. There is no specific measure of success, but it has been noted that the longer residents stay at the house, the more likely they are to return to or find their own apartments, or to shared or supportive housing. Although some do return to hospital, the house's success rate in terms of helping people avoid further psychiatrization has been phenomenal. (10)

Soteria

"Soteria" is the name of the Greek goddess of safety and deliverance. It is also the name of a bold social experiment: a community residence for people labelled "schizophrenic." As such, it provides an important and much-needed alternative to psychiatric hospitals and treatment, especially the neuroeptics. Thanks to the leadership and wisdom of the late dissident and courageous psychiatrist Loren Mosher and his dedicated co-workers, houses called Soteria and Emanon were established in the Bay Area of California. The houses provided a non-medical, non-coercive, flexible, supportive, and humane living environment, mainly for young people diagnosed with "schizophrenia" or "acute schizophrenia."

Were it not for Soteria, the residents would almost certainly have been hospitalized, forcibly drugged with neuroleptics and otherwise abused or tortured in psychiatric or general hospitals. Independent studies clearly showed that after one and two years, Soteria residents were healthier and more stable ("more together") than a control group of hospitalized "schizophrenic patients," as measured by various psychological and social interaction tests. Furthermore, 75 percent had completely and successfully withdrawn from neuroleptic ("antipsychotic") drugs; they were proven not to need these neurotoxins.

The fact that human interaction alone proved significantly more effective than psychiatric drugs and hospitalization is hardly surprising. However, because this major finding challenged the biomedical model of the psychiatric establishment and the propaganda of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), all funding had been cut off by 1983, forcing Soteria to close.

"Soteria [and Emanon] worked … because of … the intangible and immeasurable qualities of the dedicated people who chose to work there. Soteria and Emanon staff saw the residents they were there to help as valuable, if flawed and unhappy, individuals whom they expected to improve. Probably the single most important part of why residents at Soteria became less damaged was the direct result of the relationships established among the participants - staff, clients, volunteers, students, anyone who spent a significant amount of time there…. Soteria was a homelike, nonmedical and unmedicated, normalizing place with a quiet, safe, supportive, protective, and predictable social environment.… Five charcteristics of Soteria and Emanon set them apart from the hospitals. The houses:
- avoided codified rules, regulations, and policies
- kept basic administration time to a minimum to allow a great deal of undifferentiated time
- limited intrusion by outsiders
- worked out social order on an emergent face-to-face basis
- followed a nonmedical model that did not require symptom suppression

to prevent psychiatric treatment and hospitalization.
- followed a non-medical model that did not require symptom suppression.(11)

Other organizations

All this leads me to the radical proposal of abolishing all psychiatric facilities, and replacing them with decent, affordable housing, walk-in crisis centres drug withdrawal centres, safe houses, peer support grups and other non-medical, community-based alternatives.

In 2009, Ontario's mental health budget was an astronomical 34 billion dollars. What a waste of money, and, more importantly, what a tragic waste of people's health and lives! For a fraction of that cost, besides saving millions of medicare dollars, we could build thousands of affordable, low-cost houses, crisis/healing and drug withdrawal centres; completely eliminate homelessness in Canada; and, above all, save thousands of lives each year.

Imagine a world without psychiatry:
A world where there are no phony, fraudulent psychiatric labels that stigmatize, marginalize, demonize, and dehumanize people.

A world where there are no "mental health centres," youth "assessment and detention centres," maximum-security forensic units, and "seclusion" rooms that institutionalize and traumatize vulnerable human beings.

A world where children, teenagers, adults and elderly people going through their own crises or living hells are not locked up, forcibly drugged, electroshocked, lobotomized, physically restrained, or threatened with psychiatric hospitalization (involuntary committal) and forced drugging.

A world where a young person's existential identity crisis, spiritual crisis, or severe emotional stress is not psychiatrically labeled "bi-polar," "ADHD," or "schizophrenia."

A world where, instead, people in crisis are able to ask for and receive emotional, social, and economic support in their own communities or neighbourhoods, without feeling ashamed or apologetic, and without being criminalized or stigmatized.

A world where people who act or sound weird or non-conformist are not patronized, ostracized or discriminated against, but treated as human beings, with dignity and respect.

A world where the human rights of every person are universally respected, affirmed, and protected.

So, what might it be like to live in a psychiatry-free world?

With the "mental health" system gone, a costly and useless layer of bureaucracy would be eliminated.

With the deletion of "mental health" laws and regulations, there would be no more authorization for incarcerating ("committing") innocent citizens in psychiatric facilities (e.g., locked wards, "seclusion" facilities) where they are routinely degraded, humiliated, forcibly treated, and denied many human rights.

With no CTOs (community treatment orders) or IOCs (involuntary outpatient committals), vulnerable people could no longer be subjected to indefinite psychiatric parole, ordered to be drugged, shocked and targeted for surveillance in their homes and communities, or threatened with re-incarceration for disobeying psychiatrists' orders.

The abolition of maximum-security "forensic" units would mean that offenders could no longer be locked up in extremely restrictive, brutal, and dehumanizing psychoprisons that, far from protecting or helping either society or the inmates, have just the opposite effect.

We would finally see the end of "consent and capacity boards" and "mental health review boards": psychiatrically biased "tribunals" that are actually nothing but kangaroo courts where psychiatrists' "clinical judgement" invariably trumps inmates' appeal for freedom, choice, personal autonomy, and other human rights.

Labels such as "schizophrenia," "psychopathic personality," "sociopathy," "bipolar affective disorder," "borderline personality disorder" and "ADHD" could no longer be used to diagnose people. The utterance of such pejorative, stigmatizing terms in public would be judged and punished as a hate crime.

No psychiatrist would have the power to diagnose, lock up, forcibly drug, electroshock and/or lobotomize people in crisis, or to judge people as "incompetent" or "incapable."

No psychiatrist would have "expert witness" status in any legal proceedings.

All psychiatric facilities could be converted into affordable housing, including co-ops and safe houses, as well as drug withdrawal centres and crisis centres.

Alternatives

Non-medical, non-coercive, community-based alternatives to the psychiatric system
Most of the existing ones are controlled by psychiatric survivors; others by a partnership between survivors and supportive health workers. Here I exclude "club houses" and similar supportive houses managed by and funded by government agencies and branches of the Canadian Mental Health Association. I exclude them because they're based on and promote the fraudulent medical model of "mental illness" and treatment, especially "medication."
The community resources that empower and respect vulnerable people provide help and relief for people trying to overcome personal crises or recover from psychiatry's "safe and effective" treatments - doctor-inflicted traumas, brain damage and other disabilities. Sadly, there are too few to allow many people to avoid psychiatric hospitalization and treatment; too few to assist us in reclaiming our lives so we can feel whole and human again.

Support groups

Many of these groups exist in Canada, the United States and Europe, but we need many more in all communities. A genuine support group is controlled by psychiatric survivors (not professional staff such as that of the Canadian Mental Health Association, which operates "clubhouses" that promote psychiatry's medical model). Groups must offer real emotional and social support to people going through crisis or trauma. They must encourage self-empowerment and provide peer support to combat survivors' feelings of alienation, isolation, discrimination, and stigmatization.

On Our Own was the first grassroots self-help group in Ontario totally controlled by psychiatric survivors. It began in August 1977, in Toronto, under the name Ontario Mental Patients Association (OMPA), partly inspired by the Mental Patients Association in Vancouver, the first survivor-controlled self-help group in Canada founded in 1970. In 1980 OMPA changed its name to On Our Own, the title of Judi Chamberlin's movement classic.

Until the Ministry of Health forced its closure in 1996, based on allegations of financial and board problems, On Our Own helped to empower hundreds of people who had been dehumanized, traumatized, patronized, and stigmatized in Ontario's "mental health" system. (5) it provided members with:

" a drop-in where people were always welcome, and where they could feel safe
" a sense of belonging through the encouragement of participatory democracy in small groups and general meetings where every member had the right to speak and vote on policy and other issues
" a newsletter where they could share information and ideas
" computer training
" the opportunity to learn or relearn practical business, computer and social skills, become more self-confident and reclaim their self-respect and dignity while working in The Mad Market (the first used goods store in Canada established and managed by psychiatric survivors)

Sound Times Support Services
Sound Times is a Toronto-based group, one of the largest support groups in Ontario with over 400 members, has grown steadily since it was incorporated as a non-profit organization in August 1992. It's located near the corner of Parliament Street and Dundas Street East in downtown Toronto. Like On Our Own, Sound Times is totally controlled by psychiatric survivors. It helps members find affordable housing and apply for and receive financial aid (e.g., welfare, ODSP); provides free food and clothing, computer training, peer support, legal advice and advocacy. One of its recent outreach projects is providing educational material and legal support in a class action lawsuit re the neuroleptic Zyprexa. (6)

PARC: The Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre
This drop-in/social agency was founded in1980 by a handful of psychiatric survivors and community worker activists who wanted to create community support for the many survivors living in the Parkdale neighbourhood in the west end of Toronto; most are former inmates of CAMH, some are homeless or seriously underhoused. PARC employs a mix of community workers and survivors; its constitution mandates that a minimum of 50% of the board of directors be survivors. PARC offers:

" emergency housing/shelter referral and assistance
" emergency food support, as well as daily meals
" emergency supplies for helping people stay warm in winter
" free showers, clothing and laundry facilities
" a warm place to sit, and people to talk to
" internet access, as well as computer assistance and training, provided by members
" volunteer support
" transportation assistance
" art supply subsidies
" outings to local cinema, along with many other activities.
"
PARC workers are strong advocates of affordable housing and vehement supporters of antipoverty initiatives. One of the organization's current housing projects is Edmond Place, a resident-controlled house named after Edmond Wai Hong Yu (see Chapter 11) and funded by the city, provincial and federal governments; it includes 29 "self-contained units" including 24 bachelor apartments for psychiatric survivors. (7)

24-hour walk-in crisis centres

Right now, there is no free-standing, independent 24-hr walk-in crisis centre in Toronto, despite the obvious need. Although not a walk-in clinic, the Gerstein Crisis Centre is the only independent crisis centre in Toronto providing non-medical help. It has 10-beds and provides short-term emotional and social support for people going through a personal crisis. It's important to note that Gerstein does not administer psychiatric drugs or promote the medical model of "mental illness." Its board of directors consists of survivors and community volunteers.

People should not have to go to hospital emergency wards or clinics for non-medical crises, but they frequently do. What's needed is a large number and variety of community-based, accessible, non-medical crisis centres - totally separate from hospitals, emergency departments and medical clinics - that unconditionally welcome people in emotional trouble, and accept their personal crises as real and understandable, rather than medicalizing them as "symptoms of mental illness." Since these centres would be open 24/7, people in crisis could walk in at any time of the night or day and find sympathetic workers to talk with.

Among the real-life crises that psychiatry pathologizes, but which could be dealt with sensibly and effectively at such centres, are eviction (or the threat of eviction); grief resulting from the death of a partner or loved one; intense fear or panic; depression, with or without thoughts of suicide or suicide attempts; loneliness/social isolation; and the effects of psychiatric drugs or from drug withdrawal (see "Withdrawal Centres," below).

Besides always being open, these crisis centres must be completely accessible, centrally located, physically comfortable, and non-threatening. They should be mainly staffed with psychiatric survivors trained in crisis or trauma counselling and street nurses; medical doctors (GPs or family doctors) can serve as professional back-up, to be contacted in medical emergencies or for consultation. People of different ethnicities, aboriginal people, new immigrants and refugees, should be employed at each centre - women and men and younger and older people should work there, so that those who come in for help can find staff they can relate to. For the same reason, there should be workers who speak the main languages of those who live in the community.

These centres' main objectives should be:

" to provide crisis counselling and emotional/social support;
" to provide relevant and practical health information as needed;
to refer people to safe and supportive alternatives and resources in their own communities; staff and volunteers should be aware of community-based alternatives in the area, including safe houses, food banks, community health centres, withdrawal centres, drop-ins, community centres, affordable housing and shopping co-ops, advocacy and support groups, organizations that help people find employment, and legal aid clinics. Referring any person to a psychiatric facility would be strictly prohibited.

Healing Houses

A "healing house" for survivors of electroshock "treatment" was one of several recommendations in the report Electroshock Is Not an Option, which came out of two days of public hearings held in Toronto in June 2005 (The Electrohock Report, http://coalitionagainstpsychiatricassault.wordpress.com). The need is particularly urgent for women shock survivors, who are disproportionately targeted for this/or "safe and effective treatment." We need healing centres to help traumatized women, and women in crisis, work through and heal the deep emotional wounds they have suffered and continue to suffer from electroshock. Although rape crisis centres exist in Canada and the United States, there are no feminist, free-standing healing centres to help these women, despite the following facts:

" A disproportionately large number of women undergo electroshock, which causes severe trauma and brain damage, including memory loss.
" Women shock survivors suffer more brain damage than men do; two to three times more women than men suffer from permanent, shock-induced memory loss (including major gaps in the memory of personal life experiences) and other instances of cognitive impairment, such as severe difficulty in concentrating, reading or learning, as well as the loss of special skills. Elderly women are particularly vulnerable in all these areas.
" Conventional psychotherapy, self-help support groups, and community rehabilitation programs do not address the special problems experienced by women shock survivors, which may include panic attacks or flashbacks that recur for months or years. (8)

The above information is not intended to minimize the plight of male shock survivors, who should also have healing houses to go to. However, women traumatized by electroshock (besides being more numerous and therefore, as a group, more urgently in need of such houses) may also have experienced abuse at the hands of men, and need their own centres where they need not be re-traumatized by the presence of men, so I believe that we need houses for women first.

Like crisis centres, these healing houses should be centrally located and physically accessible, and should exist in communities throughout Canada and the United States. They should be administered and staffed mainly by women shock survivors trained in trauma and crisis counseling, and feminist nurses. Each house should develop and enforce its own mandate or principles; staff and volunteers should validate women's experiences and the disabilities caused by electroshock and other psychiatric abuses, and support women in their struggle for healing, emotional and social support, and self-empowerment. Non-psychiatric alternatives could include holistic therapy, massage, diet, exercise, meditation, yoga, tutoring, special skill classes, and job/career counselling. Women's organizations, including feminist health and advocacy centres (e.g., rape crisis centres and the Elizabeth Fry Society) should be approached to provide seed and continuing funding.

Withdrawal centres

Safe houses/centres whose main purpose is to help people withdraw safely, and with appropriate support, from psychiatric drugs are desperately needed; there is no such house in Canada. These houses should be strategically located, easily accessible, and equipped with a sufficient number of beds. Coming off these powerful and addictive psychiatric drugs suddenly, and on one's own, is too dangerous. Many survivors end up back in hospital after coming off antidepressants like Prozac and Paxil; neuroleptics like Zyprexa (olanzapine) and Risperdal (risperidone); and/or addictive "minor tranquilizers" like Xanax, Valium and Ativan. As critics like Dr. Peter Breggin and Dr. Joseph Glenmullen have warned, suddenly withdrawing from any of these drugs is likely to trigger a "rebound effect," making people feel and act like they're going mad again. Do yourself or your friends a big favour by following, or encouraging them to follow, these three steps:

4. NEVER stop any psychiatric drug suddenly.
5. ALWAYS come off the drug(s) very gradually.
6. ALWAYS come off the psychiatric drug(s) with the best support you can get; ideally, do so under the guidance and supervision of knowledgeable and supportive friends or health professionals.
After deciding to withdraw, you should tell a few close friends and/or relatives of your decision; make sure they support you and are available to be called or stay with you if necessary. If you are lucky, you will be able to find a health professional who is aware of this need and will make sure you get the emotional and social support, as well as the medical information, that you need to withdraw safely and gradually. Withdrawal will be hard - especially if you have been on the drug(s) for many months or years. It will involve a lot of frustration and probably several setbacks; and may take months, or even years. But it's well worth the struggle and time. It's your right to be drug-free, and to feel healthy, whole and human again. (9)

Berlin's Runaway House

"Soteria" is the name of the Greek goddess of safety and deliverance. It is also the name of a bold social experiment: a community residence for people labelled "schizophrenic." As such, it provides an important and much-needed alternative to psychiatric hospitals. Thanks to the leadership and wisdom of the late dissident and courageous psychiatrist Loren Mosher and his dedicated co-workers, houses called Soteria and Emanon were established in the Bay Area of California. The houses provided a non-medical, non-coercive, flexible, supportive, and humane living environment, mainly for young people diagnosed with "schizophrenia" or "acute schizophrenia."

Were it not for Soteria, the residents would almost certainly have been hospitalized, forcibly drugged with neuroleptics and otherwise abused or tortured in psychiatric or general hospitals. Independent studies clearly showed that after one and two years, Soteria residents were healthier and more stable ("more together") than a control group of hospitalized "schizophrenic patients," as measured by various psychological and social interaction tests. Furthermore, 75 percent had completely and successfully withdrawn from neuroleptic ("antipsychotic") drugs; they were proven not to need these neurotoxins.

The fact that human interaction alone proved significantly more effective than psychiatric drugs and hospitalization is hardly surprising. However, because this major finding challenged the biomedical model of the psychiatric establishment and the propaganda of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), all funding had been cut off by 1983, forcing Soteria to close.

"Soteria [and Emanon] worked … because of … the intangible and immeasurable qualities of the dedicated people who chose to work there. Soteria and Emanon staff saw the residents they were there to help as valuable, if flawed and unhappy, individuals whom they expected to improve. Probably the single most important part of why residents at Soteria became less damaged was the direct result of the relationships established among the participants - staff, clients, volunteers, students, anyone who spent a significant amount of time there…. Soteria was a homelike, nonmedical and unmedicated, normalizing place with a quiet, safe, supportive, protective, and predictable social environment.… Five charcteristics of Soteria and Emanon set them apart from the hospitals. The houses
- avoided codified rules, regulations, and policies
- kept basic administration time to a minimum to allow a great deal of undifferentiated time
- limited intrusion by outsiders
- worked out social order on an emergent face-to-face basis
- followed a nonmedical model that did not require symptom suppression.

Finland's Open Dialogue

No neurleptics od other drugs for first few weeks of 'psychosis' - "A Finnish alternative to the tradditional mental health system for people diagnosed with "psychoses" such as "schizophrenia." This approach aimns to support the individual's; network of family and friends, as well as respect the decision-making of the individual." Study on Five year Outcomes from Open dialoguies in Finland for "Schizophrenia", researchers Jaakp Seikkula of University of Jvvaskyla and others, published in Psychotherapy Re3search, March 2006, 16(2), 214-228.
"This is pdf study showing good results;;;;;;;;;;;; from the famus Open dialgie" mental health systemin rural Finland in which help for people diagnosed wth schizophrenia and other 'psychoses' received help that tenmded;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; to minimize psychiatric drugs. J0urnalist Robert Whtaker visited te Open Dialogue community and describes the experience in his book Anatomy of an Epidemi ("(pp.336-344)
oiginal 5-year study by J. Seikkula et al: "ive-yer experience with first-e;pisode non-affective psychosis in open-dialogue approach," Psychotherapy Re3search, March 2006, 16(2), 214-228. - after 5 years, 79% asymptomatic (no "schizophrenia) 73-% working or studying in school., 7% unemployed, 20% on disabilitu - (Whitaker, p.340)- professionals listened to patients, treated tham as vaulable people, emphasized their past successes and future hopes or pososibiloities , staff mainly trained in family therapy,

to prevent psychiatric treatment and hospitalization.
- followed a non-medical model that did not require symptom suppression.(11)

Other organizations

It's important to recognize many other survivor-controlled advocacy and educational organizations such as the Empowerment Council in Toronto, and the National Empowerment Center and the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA) in the United States. For many years, they have provided empowering and relevant legal advice, advocacy, court support, and grassroots education on mental health laws, as well as basic information on civil and human rights, to many self-help groups; survivors locked up, forcibly drugged and electroshocked in psychoprisons; and other brothers and sisters struggling to survive in the community. As long as psychiatry's traumatizing and damaging procedures and dehumanizing psychoprisons continue to exist, these non-medical alternatives and many other human rights/advocacy organizations are needed. (12)

MORE ALTERNATIVES NOW
All this leads me to the radical proposal of abolishing all psychiatric facilities, and replacing them with decent, affordable housing, independent crisis centres, healing houses, withdrawal centres and other non-medical, community-based alternatives that treat people as human worthy of respect and dignity.

In 2009, Ontario's mental health budget was an astronomical 34 billion dollars, funding mainly mental health centres and other psychoprisons hwere peope are warehoused, forcibly drugged, electroshocked, and degraded, humiliated tortured. What a total waste of money, and, more importantly, what a tragic waste of people's health and lives! For a fraction of that cost, besides saving millions of medicare dollars each year, we could build thousands of affordable, low-cost houses, crisis/healing and drug withdrawal centres; completely eliminate homelessness in Canada; and, above all, save thousands of lives each year.

Political Action: A Note on Antipsychiatry
MindFreedom International

In Canada, as in most other countries, strong, and coordinated public education about the psychiatric system and alternatives. Political action are urgently needed. One organization I'm a member of advocates major educational and political initiatives. It's called Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA). This is its major statement or mandate:
Formed in 2003, CAPA is a coalition of people committed to dismantling the psychiatric system and building a better world. Radical and visionary, we are comprised of activists, psychiatric survivors, dramatists, academics, and professionals. We see problems in living which are currently pathologized as largely created by sexism, capitalism, racism, ableism, heterosexism and other systemic oppressions. We see the very concept of mental illness as flawed. We object to incarceration, electroshock, and the vast array of brain-damaging drugs. We oppose the violation of human rights which is endemic to psychiatry. We see a connection between globalization, intolerance, and the mass marketing of the mental health industry. The world which we strive to co-create is one where people are not pathologized, where care is neither commodified nor professionalized, where choice and integrity are respected, and where we are all joined in caring and creative communities.
A world without psychiatry? Obviously, we are not there yet. However, I am hopeful that when psychiatric survivors, antipsychiatry activists, antipoverty and housing advocates, social justice and human rights activists, and other allies and supporters come together, we could become an unstoppable global movement for freedom from psychiatric oppression and for human rights, that day will come. And that's a vision worth fighting for.

Notes
1. U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr, excerpt from his stirring "I have a dream" speech in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963; also worth listening to King's speech on "creative maladjustment" on September 1, 1967: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDbm6Cv6tSA&feature=related

2. See Judi Chamberlin's outstanding book On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System (Hawthorn, 1978; Mind, 1988); see esp, Ch.4 "Alternatives and False Alternatives," and Ch.6, "Inside the Mental Patients' Association."

3. Personal communication from Professor David Hulchanski (November 22, 2010). For waiting list and other affordable housing information, see http://www.housingconnections.ca; also see, http://www.housingconnections.ca/pdf/QuarterlyReports/2010/Quarterly%20Activity%20Report%20-%203rd%20Quarter%202010.pdf. My sincere thanks to Professor David Hulchanski for providing this housing information.

4. For personal stories of homelessness and its devastating effects on survivors and grassroots activism in Toronto, see C. Crowe (2007), Dying for a Home:Homeless Activists Speak Out. Cathy Crowe is a street nurse in Toronto and co-founder with Beric German of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, see its "1% Solution," http://tdrc.net/1-solution; re homelessness in Canada, see also, Sheila Baxter (1991). Under the Viaduct: Homeless in Beautiful B.C.; for well-researched critiques of the housing crisis and city solutions, see David Hulchanski and Michael Shapcott, eds (2004). Finding Room: Policy Options for a Canadian Rental Housing Strategy; also M. Connelly (2003) Shelter From the Storm [film/video], Canada:Brink Inc.;
re many successful antipoverty and housing actions and victories, see OCAP, see www.ocap.ca.

5. My article, "On Our Own: A Self-Help Model" provides a short historical account of the early years of On Our Own; see Phoenix Rising, vol.3 no.4 (Spring )1983, it's available online as a pdf document www.psychiatricsurvivorarchives.com.

6. Sound Times Support Services - see http://www.soundtimes.com/contact.html, see also: http://www.soundtimes.com/services.html; re Zyprexa class action, see http://www.soundtimes.com/zyprexaclassaction/

7. For more information about Edmond Place and PARC, see http://edmondplace.ca/about/. Edmond Place is named after Edmond Wai Hong Yu, a homeless psychiatric survivor shot and killed by Toronto Police on February 20, 1997; for more information, see Ch.11,"Deaths/Inquests/Coverups." Memorials for Edmond Yu and other homeless psychiatric survivors have been held annually in Toronto during the last 15 years.

8. B. Burstow (2006). Electroshock as a Form of Violence Against Women. Violence Against Women, vol.12, no.4, 372-392; see also , Understanding and Ending ECT: A Feminist Perspective.
Canada Woman Studies. Vol.25, nos.1,2, 115-122. As a trauma specialist, Dr. Burstow discusses psychological trauma as a common effect of electroshock.

9. Re safe withdrawal information, see Peter Breggin and David Cohen, Your Drug May Be Your Problem, 1999, ch.10; Joseph Glenmullen, Prozac Backlash, 2001, ch.2; and Peter Lehmann (ed). Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, 1998 - it includes many personal stories of struggle and success by psychiatric survivors.
10.http://www.weglaufhaus.de/literatur/ma/runaway_house.html; Iris Holling, "The Berlin Runaway House -Three Years of Antipsychiatry Practice," Changes: An International Journal of Psychology and Psychotherapy, vol.17, no.4 (Winter), 278-298; Petra Hartmann & Stefaen Braunling, "Finding Strength Together - The Berlin Runaway House," in P. Stastny & P.Lehmann (eds). Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry, 2007, pp.188-199.

11. See Loren R. Mosher, Voyce Hendrix, and Deborah C. Fort. Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance, Xlibris Corporation, 2004, pp.267-268; also Loren Mosher. "Non-hospital, non-intervention with first episode psychosis," in J. Read, L.R. Mosher, & R.P. Bentall. Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia. Brunner-Routledge, 2004, pp.349-364. Re the close partnership of psychiatry and the drug companies, also see, Dr. Loren Mosher's letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association, December 4, 1998 [online].

12. For a list of psychiatric survivor-led organizations that are sponsors or affiliates of MindFreedom International, a coalition of 100 human rights organizations in 14 countries that advocate resistance against all forced psychiatric procedures and for human rights for all survivors and other people incarcerated in psychiatric facilities, see http://www.mindfreedom.org/as/mfi-sponsor-affiliate-public-list.