by Al Galves, PhD

The recent concern about the overprescribing of psychiatric medication expressed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has illuminated the anti-psychiatry movement in an unprecedented way.  The MAHA summit at which the concerns were expressed has been reported widely in the media and was followed by Daniel Bergner’s New York Times Magazine article entitled “The Strange Alliance Trying to Remake American Psychiatry”.  That article triggered numerous responses from psychiatrists and critics and, according to Ellen Barry of the Times, was much talked about at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.

This is a welcome development.  There has been a robust anti-psychiatry movement at work for the last 50 years.  It is comprised of psychiatric survivors, dissident psychiatrists and psychologists, journalists, writers and lawyers.  It includes MindFreedom International, Mad in America, the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry and many ad hoc groups which are critical of mainstream psychiatry.  The movement has been operating under the radar.  Few people know about.  It has not been well-covered by the media.