Janet Foner – Long Bio

Janet Foner has been the International Liberation Reference Person for Mental Health Liberation for the global Re-evaluation Counseling community since 1992. As such, she writes policy, develops leaders, and leads mental health liberation workshops in many parts of the United States and in other countries. She is also co-founder, former co-director from 1990 – 2000, and current board member of Mindfreedom International, a social change organization led by psychiatric survivors. A psychiatric survivor and a former advocate for psychiatric survivors based in Pennsylvania, she was hospitalized in her early twenties and was placed on antipsychotic drugs. She has not taken psychiatric drugs or been a client in the mental health system since 1968. She received a B.F.A in Painting and Design in 1968 from Carnegie-Mellon University and a Master’s degree in Community Psychology from Penn State University in 1986. From 1987 – 1989 she directed LEAD (Leadership Education and Advocacy Development), which founded and coordinated the Pennsylvania Mental Health Consumers Association. She also coordinated that organization’s statewide conference for many years. She has served on many mental health boards in Pennsylvania and has been active in the national psychiatric survivors movement. Janet has been married to Mayer Foner for 45 years, and is the mother of two adult sons. Her avocation is designing and making quilts.