Service users and their organizations have had a profound impact on psychiatric care by advocating for the inclusion of their narratives on mental distress and its treatment. A new article by Veikko Pelto-Piri and Jenny Wetterling, published in Narrating the Heritage of Psychiatry, explores the history of this advocacy, focusing on how user organizations have shaped psychiatric services through their activism.
Focusing on Sweden, the authors trace the contributions and activism of service users from the early days of mental health reform to the present. They detail how service users have fought to become active partners in the co-creation and co-production of psychiatric services, offering an alternative historic account of psychiatry.
Despite these advancements, significant challenges remain. The authors highlight the ongoing lack of support for the most severely affected users and the persistence of coercive practices within psychiatric services. They argue that these issues must be addressed at the policy level rather than solely within the healthcare system itself. They write:
“Still there are problems, like the ones presented above: most importantly, the lack of support for the most severely mentally distressed users and the use of coercion in psychiatric services. These problems need to be addressed at the policy level rather than within the psychiatric health care system. Who, if not the user organisations, have the best conditions for representing the most vulnerable users and drawing the public’s attention to coercive practices? To do so, there is a lot to learn from history, where user organisations have approached their aims like activists and resembled trade union representatives. To be able to address these problems, it is important not to be fully co-opted into the psychiatric services or into projects funded by government agencies. More than ever, free user organisations are needed that can give a voice to those who are unable to argue for their rights themselves. Then, maybe, we can move towards social inclusion – a society where we are “Leaving No One Behind.”
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My brain is being serviced by a service user organization associated with my psychiatric care in Sweden. Good job the state is running my brain. It’s always ran our brain programs. Good employee, good citizen, good customer. We like having these things. In the morning I get up and put on my health and safety regulations. So please stand clear of the doors. Glass windows – our last dew drops. My world is the frantic geometry of traffic jams, logic: I know that much. Finding nectar in the grave yard, my white skull houses black butterflies. I like them. According to the logic of dental diseases I read. Newspapers, new health and safety regulations.
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