
Authors: Martyn Wilson, Jodie Brown
Year: 2002
Event: 2002 TheMHS Conference
Subject: book of proceedings Consumer Participation & Recovery, Promotion Of Mental Health, consumer movement, consumers, resistance, learning, strategies, social movements, social action, mental health services
Type of resource: Conference Presentations and Papers
Abstract: Psychiatry has a long history of isolation, control and containment. Over the last few decades these barriers have been falling. The Consumer Movement (Mental Health) (CM) is a part of this on-going change, yet there has been resistance. This resistance can take the form of undermining the places and spaces where consumers can start to work more effectively as agents of change. This paper explores the Consumer Movement within an historical context before investigating the CM as a social movement in terms of the resistance experienced from mental health services. This will include a discussion about resistance by the CM against modern psychiatric dogma and practice. We will offer some possible avenues for exploration on how the CM might make itself a learning movement with an aim towards more strategic resistance. We conclude by suggesting the main form of resistance by consumers can come as a result of effective, analytical learning informing strategic social action.
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