Hey check out this article I just wrote and please tell me what you think!

Mad Love, Sascha

More and more, the acceptance of the idea that our dissatisfaction and disease is a result of “brain chemistry” is desensitizing us to the notion that our feelings and experiences might have their roots in social and political problems. 0 0 0 Fundamentally, if we are going to shift the current mental health paradigm we are going to need a movement that both has the political savvy to understand how to fight the system, and the tools to be able to take care of each other as the world gets even crazier.

Longtime Icarus member and organizer Leah Harris, who is also the co-coordinator of the US Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry, writes

Please find below a link to the report put together by several psychiatric survivor, human rights, and disability rights organizations. It includes what we feel are the human rights issues most central to mad folks and people of "diverse-abilities" - including the right to make our own decisions, not to be institutionalized or medicated against our will, and to have access to the freedom and dignity that are the inherent rights of all people.

download draft UPR report

Icaristas from near and far will be gathering at the US Social Forum in Detroit this summer, June 22-26. Join in the planning  discussion on the forums! Also check out and join the monthly community call.

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