Bhargavi Davar was a noted mental health activist in India. She managed trustee of The Bapu Trust, an organisation that was founded in 1999 dedicated to the research and activism of mental health issues. [1] [2] [3] She has written numerous articles in medical journals. [4]
MindFreedom International is an international coalition of over one hundred grassroots groups and thousands of individual members from fourteen nations. Based in the United States, it was founded in 1990 to advocate against forced medication, medical restraints, and involuntary electroconvulsive therapy. Its stated mission is to protect the rights of people who have been labeled with psychiatric disorders. Membership is open to anyone who supports human rights, including mental health professionals, advocates, activists, and family members. MindFreedom has been recognized by the United Nations Economic and Social Council as a human rights NGO with Consultative Roster Status.
Bruce E. Levine is an American clinical psychologist, often at odds with the mainstream of his profession, in private practice in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been in practice for more than three decades. Levine writes and speaks widely on how society, culture, politics and psychology intersect.
Marius Anton Joannes Romme is a Dutch psychiatrist. He is best known for his work on hearing voices and regarded as the founder and principal theorist for the Hearing Voices Movement.
Mohan Agashe is an Indian psychiatrist and actor. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1996 in theatre.
Robert Whitaker is an American journalist and author, writing primarily about medicine, science, and history. He is the author of five books, three of which cover the history or practice of modern psychiatry. He has won numerous awards for science writing, and in 1998 he was part of a team writing for the Boston Globe that was shortlisted for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for a series of articles questioning the ethics of psychiatric research in which unsuspecting patients were given drugs expected to heighten their psychosis. He is the founder and publisher of Mad in America, a webzine critical of the modern psychiatric establishment.
Chris Stevenson was an author and professor of mental health nursing at Dublin City University, where she was also head of the School of Nursing. She was appointed in 2005, having begun her career as a psychiatric nurse.
James Barry "Jim" Gottstein is a mostly retired Alaska based lawyer who practiced business law and public land law, and is well known as an attorney advocate for people diagnosed with serious mental illness. Gottstein has sought to check the growth in the administration of psychotropics, particularly to children.
Loren Richard Mosher was an American psychiatrist, clinical professor of psychiatry, expert on schizophrenia and the chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia in the National Institute of Mental Health (1968–1980). Mosher spent his professional career advocating for humane and effective treatment for people diagnosed as having schizophrenia and was instrumental in developing an innovative, residential, home-like, non-hospital, non-drug treatment model for newly identified acutely psychotic persons.
Judi Chamberlin was an American activist, leader, organizer, public speaker and educator in the psychiatric survivors movement. Her political activism followed her involuntary confinement in a psychiatric facility in the 1960s. She was the author of On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System, which is a foundational text in the Mad Pride movement.
The Critical Psychiatry Network (CPN) is a psychiatric organization based in the United Kingdom. It was created by a group of British psychiatrists who met in Bradford, England in January 1999 in response to proposals by the British government to amend the Mental Health Act 1983. They expressed concern about the implications of the proposed changes for human rights and the civil liberties of people with mental health illness. Most people associated with the group are practicing consultant psychiatrists in the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS), among them Dr Joanna Moncrieff. A number of non-consultant grade and trainee psychiatrists are also involved in the network.
Rufus May is a British clinical psychologist best known for using his own experiences of being a psychiatric patient to promote alternative recovery approaches for those experiencing psychotic symptoms. After formally qualifying as a clinical psychologist, he then disclosed that he had been previously detained in hospital with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Amita Dhanda is an Indian academician and activist. Earlier a Professor of Law, she is now designated as Professor Emerita at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad. She was appointed as a member of the strong 14- Member National Advisory Council for the implementation of the RTE act in 2010. She is also on the Academic Council of Tamil Nadu National Law School. She started her career as a researcher at the Indian Law Institute, Delhi and since then has gone on to become a full-time Professor at NALSAR. She has contributed to the research of Mental Health and disability studies in India and is the head of the Centre for Disability Studies in NALSAR. Amita Dhanda identifies as a feminist and has written several papers based in gender. She has authored three books and is also a guest writer for Kafila, along with few other online news magazines and national dailies. Her expertise also extends to Interpretation Of Statutes, which she holds repute for.
Alexandre Dorothée Marie Adriaan Charlotte Escher was a Dutch mental health advocate and researcher.
Peter Lehmann, D. Phil. h.c., is an author, social scientist, publisher, and an independent freelance activist in humanistic anti-psychiatry, living in Berlin, Germany.
David William Oaks is a civil rights activist and co-founder and former executive director of Eugene, Oregon-based MindFreedom International.
Reshma Valliappan, also known as Val Resh, is an artist-activist for a number of issues related to mental health, disability, sexuality and human rights. Being compared to John Forbes Nash Jr. as A beautiful mind, yet again she is an artist with a beat of her own. She is a face that is difficult to ignore, with numerous piercings, tattoos and her distinct personality she was spotted as one of the faces for a feminist human rights organization CREA's photo book publication by artist and photographer Rebecca Swan.
Dorothea Buck was a German writer and sculptor, diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 19. She was a victim of the Nazi dictatorship which forced her to be sterilized; she subsequently became an advocate for psychiatric reform.
Aggrey Washington Burke FRCPsych is a British retired psychiatrist and academic, born in Jamaica, who spent the majority of his medical career at St George's Hospital in London, UK, specialising in transcultural psychiatry and writing literature on changing attitudes towards black people and mental health. He has carried out extensive research on racism and mental illness and is the first black consultant psychiatrist appointed by Britain's National Health Service (NHS).
Mental healthcare in India is a right secured to every person in the country by law. Indian mental health legislation, as per a 2017 study, meets 68% (119/175) of the World Health Organization (WHO) standards laid down in the WHO Checklist of Mental Health Legislation. However, human resources and expertise in the field of mental health in India is significantly low when compared to the population of the country. The allocation of the national healthcare budget to mental health is also low, standing at 0.16%. India's mental health policy was released in 2014.
Jayasree Kalathil is an Indian writer, translator, mental health researcher and activist. She is known for her work in the area of mental health activism as well as for her translations of Malayalam works, The Diary of a Malayali Madman and Moustache, the former winning Crossword Book Award and the latter, the JCB Prize for Literature, both in 2020. Her latest work, Valli, A Novel was among the works shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature in 2022.