Peter Campbell on the Survivor Movement

THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE SURVIVOR MOVEMENT
  Southwark Mind is currently organising a series of monthly training sessions for its members and anyone else who is interested in attending. The first session took place on January 17th, when well-respected veteran activist and founder-member of Survivors Speak Out and Survivors Poetry Peter Campbell gave a presentation to a dozen people about the history and philosophy of the mental health "survivor movement."

  Peter began by discussing the history of psychiatry, which the survivor movement has always had a relation to, albeit usually an oppositional one. In 1845, parliament passed an act saying that each county had to have its own 'lunatic asylum'. This was an early kind of 'mental health act.' 36 were then built in two years. As if in response to this, the word 'psychiatrist' was first used in 1846, alongside the more traditional labels 'alienist' and 'asylum attendant.' However, the Royal College of Psychiatrists was not formed until the 1950s.

  In 1890 a 'lunacy act' was passed. There were no 'cures' then, and all patients were certified. The 1930 'mental treatment act' introduced a small minority of voluntary patients but most were still certified. During these times, psychiatry relied on physical treatments like inducing diarrhoea - then considered to alleviate 'mental illness' - and giving people bromide with horrifying side effects.

  Gradually psychiatry needed to demonstrate physical treatments which appeared effective in order to compete with the growing industries of neurology and psychoanalysis. Inducing insulin comas became popular, although it has been suggested that the 'benefits' came more from the care and attention patients received accompanying this treatment than from the treatment itself. This was gradually superseded by ECT which was invented in 1938. Barbiturates became popular. Penicillin was also thought to be effective in treating 'mental illness' - probably because much distress was actually symptomatic of physical illness.

  In the 1950s the first tailor-made psychiatric drug was invented: the major tranquilliser Largactyl, followed quickly by the first anti-depressant, and then the 1959 Mental Health Act which introduced the concept of informed consent for the first time. The first benzodiazepine, Librium, was introduced in 1960, shortly followed by Lithium which treated
   'manic-depression', although Lithium would probably have hit the market earlier had it not been a natural substance and therefore not liable to be patented by a drugs company.

  Although user activity and campaigns had cropped up occasionally in the past, it was not until the 1970s that anything resembling today's organised survivor movement" began to take shape. The MPU (Mental Patients Union) is normally credited as being the first British 'user group', starting around 1972. It was associated with the hugely influential anti-psychiatrist R.D. Laing, and developed branches in hospitals as well as a safe-house. As the '70s wore on the MPU splintered, and offshoots such as COPE, EPOC and PROMPT became active. These groups were characterised by the fact that they were ideological and purist, rather than what might be termed 'pragmatic'. At the time these groups were active, there was also a trend for gestalt therapy, nude encounter groups and various other kinds of weird activity attracting those disillusioned with psychiatry, often centred around gurus.

  Around the time of the 1983 Mental Health Act, these groups were fizzling out and CAPO - the Campaign Against Psychiatric Oppression - grew to become Britain's major user group, with an active core of 7 or 8 members and a much larger mailing list. The group issued a seminal manifesto. It was fiercely separatist, at a time when the only other significant group was BNAP (the British Network of Alternatives to Psychiatry), linked to anti-psychiatrist David Cooper.

  One of the problems with these groups was that, at times, all they did was argue about philosophical and ideological issues. In the late 1980s Survivors Speak Out was born partly in reaction to this: they were the first part of the 'pragmatic' wing which now dominates the user movement. The emphasis came to be on dialogue, usually with people whose agendas are more powerful than those of users. A debate took place at this meeting and the feeling was that although the user movement has an agenda, it often seems unclear. While refusing dialogue is a good tactic at times, often it just means that users' views are not noticed.

  The rest is history and user groups of many kinds are now everywhere. This meeting raised a lot of interesting issues, gave context to the work of some of Southwark's user activists, and was generally food for thought.