Mad in Slovenia

When Saša Kranjc was twenty-three years old, she spent three weeks in a psychiatric hospital where she was told she would have to appear in front of a court if she didn’t take the antipsychotics she was prescribed. »I went to the hospital at the suggestion of my loved ones, but I had no idea what I was really getting myself into,« Kranjc recalls. “I don’t want to end up with a court record at just 23 years old — what would that even mean for my future?” she remembers thinking.

She therefore gave consent to take the medication, but in 2013 this certainly did not constitute informed consent, as one would expect from an institution such as a psychiatric clinic. This means that she was not warned about the potential challenges she might face if she wished to stop taking antipsychotic medication. For a full 13 years — until recently — she strove to discontinue the antipsychotics because she wanted to live an independent life. During this process of discontinuation, however, she encountered many difficulties, which affected not only her, but also her family. “I think that every person who enters psychiatric treatment should be informed about what they are actually getting into and what problems they may face if they decide to gradually discontinue the substances that have been prescribed to them,” Kranjc says.

In 2024, she attended a conference in Slovenia where Robert Whitaker gave a lecture that inspired her through his work. She became involved with a group of Slovenian professionals, people with lived experience of mental health difficulties, and their family members, which was formed around that time and advocated for better-informed decision-making in the field of mental health. By December 2025, the group had grown to more than 70 members. They began collaborating with Karin Jervert (Mad in the World Liaison), and in the spring of 2025, the website madinslovenia.org was launched.

Despite all the challenges she went through, Kranjc completed her studies in psychology, became a Reality Therapist (William Glasser – Choice Theory), and her experience also inspired her to train in the Finnish Open Dialogue approach. Currently, through her company, she is working to ensure that this approach to addressing mental distress becomes available to the Slovenian population as soon as possible.

“With Mad in Slovenia”, Kranjc adds, “we don’t want to be against something. We’d rather be forsomething.” While the mainstream approach to mental distress is to get rid of symptoms that are believed to be entirely negative in nature, Kranjc notes, “they forget that these are sometimes very important messages from which we could learn.” Instead of viewing people in terms of their deficits, Mad in Slovenia allows members to open up about their experiences without being judged.

On the Mad in Slovenia website, you can find a wealth of useful information related to a healthy lifestyle, Mad in Slovenia movement events, interviews with interesting people from this field, summaries of professional articles, important publications, reflections, poems by people with experience of psychiatric treatment, and professional contributions.They also provide a “For Relatives” page with guidance for seeking to understand their loved ones’ struggles.

Mad in Slovenia’s website doesn’t allow comments because no one in the network is able to commit the time needed to moderate them, which means that most feedback about the network has come indirectly. “I’ve heard about people that are reading us,” says Kranjc.

Mad in Slovenia has also received positive feedback from those who joined later on. “What I liked about this group of people was that they didn’t belittle me, but saw me as a person with potential,” says Nika Goršič, a member of the network. “They saw me as someone who is not defined by the diagnosis given by psychiatry.”

Goršič says that from her point of view psychiatrists seemed to focus on reminding people of their limitations as someone with a diagnosis rather than helping them heal. In their view, Goršic says, “you’re kind of broken as a person because this happened to you.” But Mad in Slovenia is the opposite: a place where people are not only accepted for who they are but actually viewed as “people with potential.”

Recently, Mad in Slovenia also started something they call “Compass Club,” where members of the network come together and discuss what direction their lives are going in. As Kranjc and Goršič explain, this means asking questions like, “Where am I now? How do I like where I am now? And how can I change the things that I don’t like?” The goal of this is to create a supportive environment where people can gain perspective and start believing in their potential again.

In addition, the network Mad in Slovenia is still figuring out the best way to organize itself. It is also limited by the fact that, because everyone involved is a volunteer and has to fit their work around their existing jobs and responsibilities, the group can only meet once a month and can’t take on projects that require a lot of resources. One possible solution to this, Kranjc says, is becoming a formal institution, which would allow them to obtain official funding. “If we get that funding, we’ll be more active,” she explains.

Overall, Kranjc and Goršič both feel optimistic about the future of the network. “It’s a really good thing that it’s in Slovenia,” says Goršič. “We need more hope.”

“I really believe we could make a difference,” adds Kranjc.