From “Patient” to “Activist”: Treatment Experiences, Changing Perceptions, and Resistance of Mental Health Survivors

ABSTRACT The mental health survivors movement, composed of former and current mental health service consumers- turned activists is one of the most promising innovative and subversive phenomenon in the field of mental health (source, year). Although scholarly writing on this movement is slowly cumulating, much more empirical and theoretical work is needed to further our understanding of, and ability to learn from, this pioneering movement. Acknowledging mental health survivors as a population under continuous repression, and recognizing the various benefits of activism and of attempts at resistance, the current study endeavors to promote understanding of the process involved in mental health survivors’ transition from service consumers to activists. To approach this aim, the Present study explored the personal journey of ten Israeli mental health survivors-turned-activists. The findings describe difficult and crushing encounters with the mental health system. Participants describe a process of continuous experiences of dehumanization and humiliation leading survivors to the understanding that the system will not meet their needs and wants, but rather that they must develop their own voice, conceptions, and ways of coping. This understanding stands as a basis for a new look at one’s need and wants, which is manifested as developing more efficient and autonomous ways of coping, including through as social activism. The findings and discussion stress the challenges facing the professional community to confront the harsh and disturbing testimonies provided by mental health Survivors, and call upon professionals, both practitioners and researchers, to search for ways to cooperate with these novel attempts at change.