MindFreedom: Occupy American Psychiatric Association, Philadelphia, May 5, 2012

[Altostrata]

http://www.mindfreedom.org/release/occupy-apa-news Protest DSM-5, demand humane alternatives.

 

Protesters, Rejecting Mental Illness Labels, Vow to “Occupy” the American Psychiatric Association Convention

 

PHILADELPHIA (3/6/12) – On Saturday, May 5, 2012, as thousands of psychiatrists congregate in Philadelphia for the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Annual Meeting, individuals with psychiatric labels and other supporters will converge in a global campaign to oppose the APA’s proposed new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), scheduled for publication in May 2013.

 

Occupy the APA will include distinguished speakers from 10 a.m. to noon at Friends Center (1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia). A march at 1 p.m. from Friends Center will lead to the Pennsylvania Convention Center (12th and Arch Streets), where the group will protest beginning at 1:30 while the APA meets inside.

 

“This peaceful protest exposes the fact that the DSM-5 pushes the mental health industry to medicalize problems that aren’t medical, inevitably leading to over-prescription of psychiatric drugs – including for people experiencing natural human emotions, such as grief and shyness,” said David Oaks, founder and director of MindFreedom International (MFI), which has worked for 26 years as an independent voice of survivors of psychiatric human rights violations. “We call for better ways to help individuals in extreme emotional distress.”

 

Other speakers criticizing the revised manual, considered the psychiatric industry’s bible, include Brent Robbins, Ph.D., (photo on right) Secretary of the Society for Humanistic Psychology, which has gathered more than 8,000 signatures from mental health professionals calling for “developing an alternative approach” to the DSM.

 

Jim Gottstein of PsychRightsJim Gottstein, Esq., (photo right) founder and president of the Alaska-based Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights), will cross the country to speak. “The public mental health system is creating a huge class of chronic mental patients through forcing them to take ineffective yet extremely harmful drugs. As the APA gets ready to do even more harm with its proposed expansion of what constitutes mental illness, I want to be there in person to participate in the protest.”

 

Paula Joan Caplan, PhDOccupy the APA will begin at 10 a.m. at Friends Center (1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia), where the speakers will also include:

• Dr. Paula Caplan, (photo on right) a psychologist, playwright and activist from California;
• Dr. Al Galves, director of the International Society for Ethical Psychology & Psychiatry (ISEPP);
• Joseph Rogers, chief advocacy officer of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania (MHASP); and
• Dr. Stefan P. Kruszewski, a whistleblower who was fired by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare after he reported the abuse and deaths of Pennsylvania children as a result of systemic physical and psychiatric malfeasance. His subsequent federal lawsuit was successfully settled in 2007.

“We will promote humane alternatives to the traditional mental health system, such as peer support, which evidence proves is effective in helping individuals recover from severe emotional distress,” Oaks said. “Our protest is about choice, and everyone is welcome.”

 

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Contact: David Oaks, MFI, boycott@mindfreedom.org, 541-345-9106

 

Also see http://rittenhoused.com/2012/03/08/protests-against-psychiatrists-called-occupy-the-apa-due-in-philadelphia-next-spring/ Organized by MindFreedom International.

 

The American Psychiatric Association is issuing a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in May 2013. So demonstrators calling themselves Occupy the APA will be holding speeches and events when the psychiatric association meets at the Pennsylvania Convention Center May 5 through 9 for its annual gathering.

 

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“The DSM-5 pushes the mental health industry to medicalize problems that aren’t medical, inevitably leading to over-prescription of psychiatric drugs – including for people experiencing natural human emotions such as grief and shyness,” said David Oaks, founder and director of MindFreedom International, the organizing force behind the protest.

[Altostrata]

Bumping -- it looks like this will be a substantial protest!

[Altostrata]

http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2012/05/03/weekend-screw-normal/

 

This Weekend, Philadelphians Can Say “Screw You” to Normal

Reasons to protest a new book.

By Liz Spikol 5/03/2012 phillymag.com

 

This weekend, there’s going to be an Occupy day of protest and rallies in Philadelphia—but not by Occupy Philly. On Saturday, activists will come from all over the country for Occupy the APA, a peaceful day of action to protest the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), which is being rolled out at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) at the Convention Center. Unlike other protests that sometimes divide the mental health advocacy community, this protest will include people from diverse constituencies—from psychiatrists and those who take medications to psychiatric “survivors” who believe psychiatry is dangerously abusive.

 

The DSM, as it’s familiarly known, is often called the bible of mental illness because it’s how, for all intents and purposes, a person’s constellation of symptoms is solidified into a firm diagnosis, a billable diagnosis code, and an acceptable FDA-approved category for certain pharmaceuticals. The DSM has always been controversial; it classified homosexuality as a mental disease until 1974. And many psychiatrists confess to frustration when they’re forced to pick a diagnosis for patients whose mix of complaints is too vague to identify....