Mad in America

I am a lifelong antipsychiatry and social justice activist. In 1977, with survivors Harvey (‘Alf’) Jackson and Bob Carson, I co-founded On Our Own, Ontario’s first self-help organization of psychiatric survivors. Three years later, with lawyer and electroshock survivor Carla McKague, I co-founded the antipsychiatry magazine Phoenix Rising: The Voice of the Psychiatrized (1980-1990).

My new book, edited by Irit Shimrat, is Resistance Matters: The Radical Vision of an Antipsychiatry Activist. Here is my contact information.

“Don Weitz is a legendary figure among psychiatric survivors and dissident professionals. For several decades, he has been a leading fighter in Canada battling against psychiatric oppression and against many other societal injustices. His Resistance Matters vividly captures his activist life and the lives of his fellow warriors. Resistance Matters provides a road map for liberation, and it will energize and inspire the next generation of activists pained by dehumanization, authoritarianism, and oppression.”
—Bruce E. Levine, author of Resisting Illegitimate Authority

(Note: You can use the Reader below to read Resistance Matters, or you can view the pdf here.)

Recent domestic and international research suggests that full recovery from schizophrenia and other related psychotic disorders is not only possible, but may actually be the most common outcome given the right conditions, a finding that flies directly in the face of the mainstream understanding of these confusing disorders.

In Rethinking Madness, Dr. Paris Williams takes the reader step by step on a highly engaging journey of discovery, exploring how the mainstream understanding of schizophrenia has become so profoundly misguided, while crafting a much more accurate and hopeful vision of madness. As this vision unfolds, we discover a deeper sense of appreciation for the profound wisdom and resilience that lies within all of our beings, even those we may think of as being deeply disturbed, while also coming to the unsettling realization of just how thin the boundary is between so called madness and so called sanity.

(Note: Use the Reader below to read Rethinking Madness, or download the pdf here.)