Are Users and Survivors of Psychiatry Only Allowed to Speak about their Personal Narratives?

Abstract

In modern psychiatry, professionals claim to speak to patients as equals, to take them seriously as a person. In this article, the author shares his personal experience, in which he—like other former psychiatric inmates—is reduced to the role of a former patient who is expected only to speak about his personal patient narrative. This happens despite the fact that he received international awards in acknowledgement of exceptional scientific and humanitarian contributions about how to minimize risks of withdrawal from psychiatric drugs, build alternatives beyond psychiatry and develop possibilities for self-help for individuals experiencing madness and strategies toward implementing humane and ethical treatment. Can psychiatry solve its intrinsic ethical problems when professionals do not leave behind their roles as “experts” (and users and survivors of psychiatry their roles as “patients”) and their associations continue to refuse even discussion about psychiatric human rights violations?