Who

Our Inspirations

Organization

Mad in America

Hearing Voices Network

TCI Asia Pacific

Rising Flame

Access Mantra

Ambedkar University’s School of Human Studies
Intentional Peer Support

Intentional Peer Support

Mad in America

Mad in America is a U.S based organization whose mission is to serve as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care. They believe that the current drug-based paradigm of care has failed our society, and that it needs to be replaced by a model that emphasizes our common humanity, and promotes robust, long-term recovery and wellness.

Hearing Voices Network

Hearing Voices Networks, closely related to the Hearing Voices Movement, are peer-focused national organisations for people who hear voices, and offer support to family members, activists and mental health practitioners. For HVN, the word recovery means ‘living the life you choose, not the life others choose for you’.

TCI Asia Pacific

Guided by the UNCRPD, Transforming Communities for Inclusion – Asia Pacific is an independent, regional Disabled People’s Organization (DPO) focusing on the monitoring and implementation of all human rights for persons with mental health problems and psychosocial disabilities.

Rising Flame

Rising Flame, Mumbai is a not-for-profit initiative working for the rights of persons with disabilities, particularly women and youth with disabilities. Their mission is social integration; to build a world where everyone lives with dignity, respect and lives a life free from discrimination, violence, and abuse.

Access Mantra

Access Mantra is an organization that strives to create an environment full of innovative possibilities and solutions, advocating for equality, opportunities and access services for the Deaf community in compliance with the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPWD) Act, 2016.

Ambedkar University’s School of Human Studies

School of Human Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi, is an exploratory, interdisciplinary space of thinking and reflecting on the myriad meanings of being human. Its academic programmes focus on the promise and potential of the human along with the actual historical exclusions and marginalizations.

Intentional Peer Support

Intentional Peer Support is a way of thinking about and inviting transformative relationships. Practitioners learn to use relationships to see things from new angles, develop greater awareness of personal and relational patterns, and support and challenge each other in trying new things.

Experts

Emmy van Deurzen

Dr. John Read

Dr. Lucy Johnstone

Dr. Peter Stastny

Dr. Rufus Mayis

Dr. Joanna Moncrieff

Dr Thomas Szasz

Dr. Honey Oberoi

Shampa Sengupta

Gabor Gombos

Mary Boyle

Emmy van Deurzen

Intentional Peer Support is a way of thinking about and inviting transformative relationships. Practitioners learn to use relationships to see things from new angles, develop greater awareness of personal and relational patterns, and support and challenge each other in trying new things.

Dr. John Read

Dr. John Readis Professor of clinical psychology at the University of East London. He has over 130 research papers to his credit, focusing primarily on the relationship between adverse life events and psychosis. He also researches the negative effects of bio-genetic causal explanations on prejudice, the opinions and experiences of recipients of antipsychotic and antidepressant medication, and the role of the pharmaceutical industry in mental health research and practice.

Dr. Lucy Johnstone

Dr. Lucy Johnstone is a UK clinical psychologist, trainer, speaker and writer, and a long-standing critic of biomedical model psychiatry. She has worked in adult mental health settings for many years, alternating with academic posts.

Dr. Peter Stastny

Dr. Peter Stastny is a New York based psychiatrist, documentary film-maker and a founder of the International Network toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR). He works on the development of alternative services that obviate traditional psychiatric intervention and offer autonomous paths towards recovery and full integration.

Dr. Rufus Mayis

Dr. Rufus Mayis a British clinical psychologist best known for using his own experiences of being a psychiatric patient to promote alternative recovery approaches for those experiencing psychotic symptoms. His work was featured in the English Channel 4 documentary ‘The Doctor Who Hears Voices’.

Dr. Joanna Moncrieff

Dr. Joanna Moncrieff  is a practising psychiatrist and has been working in the field of misuse and misrepresentation of drug use. A part-time author and academic, Moncrieff has formulated a drug-model which addresses the nature of the drugs themselves and highlights the myths revolving around mental illness. She is the co-founder of the Critical Psychiatry Network and questions the dominance of the pharmaceutical industry in treating mental health disorders.

Dr Thomas Szasz

Dr Thomas Szasz A American-Hungarian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Dr Szasz was a critic of the scientific foundations of psychiatry. He maintained that consent between two adults plays a major role in psychotherapy and treatment of mental illnesses. The author of The Myth of Mental Illness (1961) and The Manufacture of Madness (1970), Szasz believed that mental illness was a metaphor for human problems that came about from ‘living’. 

Dr. Honey Oberoi

Dr. Honey Oberoi is a professor of psychology at Dr. B.R Ambedkar University Delhi that aims to establish an empathetic and reflexive form of learning. Recipient of the Nehru Memorial Fellowship for Doctoral Work 1998-2000, Dr. Oberoi has been working towards looking at cognitive as well as emotional processes in the field of higher education. She has been studying dreams, the unconscious mind and spirituality while writing on the practice of psychotherapy, visions of engaged spirituality, history of psychology and insanity and psychoanalytic pedagogy.

Shampa Sengupta

Shampa Sengupta has been a disability and gender rights activist for over 25 years and has been extensively working in the field of mental health rights and women empowerment. The founder of Sruti Disability Rights Center, she also serves as a joint secretary of the largest Disability network called the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled. A person with mental illness, she is also a care-giver.  

Gabor Gombos

Gabor Gombos is a world renowned disability rights activist whose radical advocacy of the rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities was featured in the book Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders who are Changing our World by Kerry Kennedy. He trains consumers, survivors, and former users of psychiatric cases to be democratic agents for change and educates doctors on patient-centred care.

Mary Boyle

Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion was a pathbreaking book written by Mary Boyle, a clinical psychologist, Profesor Emeritus at the University of East London and Fellow of the British Psychological Society. The book questioned many of the commonly held assumptions about Schizophrenia and is counted as one of the most significant contributions to the conversations that are critical of many mainstream paradigms on mental health issues and the idea of “madness”.

Authors, Books, Ideas

Mary Boyle

Models of Madness

Soteria House Model

Works by
R.D Laing

Works of
Carl Jung

Mary Boyle

Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion was a pathbreaking book written by Mary Boyle, a clinical psychologist, Profesor Emeritus at the University of East London and Fellow of the British Psychological Society. The book questioned many of the commonly held assumptions about Schizophrenia and is counted as one of the most significant contributions to the conversations that are critical of many mainstream paradigms on mental health issues and the idea of “madness”.

Models of Madness

Models of Madness promotes a humane and effective response to treating severely distressed people. Essential reading for psychiatrists and clinical psychologists and of great interest to all those who work in the mental health service, the book argues that hallucinations and delusions are understandable reactions to life events and circumstances rather than symptoms of a supposed genetic predisposition or biological disturbance.

Soteria House Model

Soteria House Model was a pathbreaking initiative founded by American psychiatrist Dr Loren Mosher in the 1970s where the ‘Soteria House’ was a no-restraint facility for young psychotic patients. It followed a patient-centered approach that involved finding meaning in the subjective experience of psychoses, retaining the patient’s personal power, social network and responsibilities. Minimal or no use of antipsychotic medication was used. 

Works by
R.D Laing

RD Laing was a British psychiatrist who extensively studied existential philosophy and wrote his views on the causes of psychopathology. He wrote extensively about his position – feelings and emotions, he felt, were valid descriptions of lived experiences rather than symptoms of mental disorders. 

Works of
Carl Jung

Works of Carl Jung A Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist, Jung founded analytic psychology which consists of concepts such as collective unconscious, extraverted and introverted personality, and archetypes. exploring the “shadow self” as well as the religious nature of human psychology including psychological complexes. Jung’s work was influenced by Eastern philosophy, about which he wrote extensively. 

People

Olga Runciman

Jayashree Kalathil

Will Hall

Nidhi Goyal

Janet Price

Olga Runciman

Olga Runciman is the co-founder of the Danish Hearing Network and is an international trainer, speaker, campaigner, writer and artist. She trained as a psychiatric nurse, and post a breakdown, entered the psychiatric system herself. However, she crafted her own recovery, and has now gone on to become an important voice in the post-psychiatric movement

Jayashree Kalathil

Jayashree Kalathil has been working in the field of mental health services in India and the UK. A PhD holder, Jayasree holds strong views about religious healing and recovery. She worked at the Anveshi Research Center for Women’s Studies and was the founding editor of the first and only mental health advocacy newsletter: Aaina of the Bapu Trust. Author of The Sack-cloth Man, Jayasree has been an active member of the women empowerment movement in India.

Will Hall

 Will Hall is a counselor, teacher and a writer. A Schizophrenia survivor, he has been promoting the recovery approach and has been internationally recognised for creating a social response and treatment for psychosis. The co-founder of Freedom Center (2004-2009) and Icarus Project, Hall has been largely involved in organising the Psychiatric Survivors Movement. Host at the FM radio show: “Madness Radio”, he is also the co-founder of Portland Hearing Voices and consults a number of Psychiatric Service organisations. 

Nidhi Goyal

Nidhi Goyal is a well-known Indian Gender Rights, Disability activist and a stand-up comedian. The founder and director of the NGO Rise Flame in Mumbai, Nidhi works in the field of sexuality, rights for women with disabilities, gender and health. She was awarded the Neelam Kanga Award by National Association for the Blind, India in 2016 and was given the Superwoman of the Year award by ABP News in 2018. Goyal has been appointed to the UN Women Executive Director’s advisory group and uses comedy as a strategic tool for activism to bring out conversations around sex, relationships and love within the disabled ommunity.

Janet Price

Janet Price is an advocate for queer crip politics and is a feminist disabled campaigner. A board member of the DaDaFest, she is closely engaged with issues regarding sexuality, social justice and disability. Janet aims to advance agencies for marginalised people and DaDaFest continues to expand its network to disabled groups internationally and offer them opportunities to develop artistic skills and talents while also challenging perspectives of non-disabled people on disability.