In this blog I would like to introduce you to MindFreedom Ireland’s involvement in community development networks on the island of Ireland that promote mental and emotional wellbeing and socially reintegrate those who are marginalised with the aid of the psychiatric system. While it is important to increase the sustainability of our network by building a common language for collaboration, we cannot deny the urgency of the issues that many are facing who are under psychiatric control. I believe that we will make more progress if we reorganize ourselves by establishing focus groups that target opportunities that we meet on our way.
On May 31 2023, one hundred members of the Community Development Mental Health Network (CDMHN), signed the Ballymun Declaration during a symposium held in Dublin City University. The network includes people with lived experience of psychiatric treatment, family, friends and professionals in community development. I represented MindFreedom Ireland, a movement of survivors of psychiatric maltreatment for mutual support and an aim for the abolition of the power of psychiatry within the present so called “mental health” system. MindFreedom Ireland also explores and promotes healing alternatives to the biomedical model. Through our engagement with the CDMHN We hope to increase our collaboration with likeminded organisations and individuals in the development of humane and sustainable supports for those in distress and least understood. Together we commit, amongst others, to identifying and utilising avenues and forums to demand the adoption and implementation of emancipatory, community development and human-rights based approaches to increasing mental wellbeing in our communities.
A great opportunity in the short-term would be the representation of psychiatric survivors at the Social Inclusion Forum. The Social Inclusion Forum is part of the Government’s structures for continuation of improvement of the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion. It is an annual occasion for the wider public, and, in particular, for people experiencing poverty and marginalisation, to be represented.
On May 8 this year I attended this forum for the second time. I was appalled by the fact that again we, people with lived experience of psychiatric malpractices, were not represented. I made the same observation ten years ago when I attended it for the first time. It is upsetting to know that when you are chemically and physically incarcerated by the medical establishment you are ignored for representation at the annual Social Inclusion Forum organised by the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN). You may be a member of the Roma – or the Traveling Community, experience marginalisation and being discriminated against, but you are definitely worse off when on top of that you try to survive psychiatric persecution. It is an understatement to proclaim that those vulnerable, least understood and systemically marginalised are people suffering from psychiatric abuse. The powers of the psychiatric industry to socially exclude individuals with personal problems are made possible by the worst discriminatory set of laws of our nation, the Mental Health Act.
MindFreedom Ireland endorses the cross-border initiative of the CDMHN with our Northern counterparts of the Community Development & Health Network (CDHN). The CDHN is an infrastructure organisation working with local communities and across sectors to act on the social determinants of health, improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities. The initiative is called Voice, Equality, Experience, and Power (VEEP). Through this project we work towards the establishment of all-Ireland standards of community development which also looks after the needs of people who are socially excluded by the medical system.
These are people, my peers, who are least understood, and this makes them prone to not fit in the general expectations alive in our society today. They have abilities that are not recognised and therefore become marginalised, and consequently they may experience poverty. I happen to be in the fortunate position that in the psychiatric unit I asserted my will in the darkest moment of my life with the help of Gideon, my spirit guide. In those dark hours I realised that everyone is born to be happy and all our gifts enable us to do so if only others would listen carefully enough to us when speaking our truth. Essential to an all-inclusive community development approach would therefore be a group, which enables us to listen better to each other and to make the least understood being listened to as well. This is impossible in ordinary committees where the biggest talkers have the power, and the listeners help or just leave when they have enough of it.
I have developed a group format that enables me and my peers to listen more attentively. Ideally, we meet face-to-face, but it is hard to come by survivors of psychiatry who still have the will to fight for their rights. That is why I amalgamated this self-help group for survivors online with MindFreedom Ireland.
Meetings face-to-face take about 90 to 120 minutes. First, we spend rounds of deep listening to each other without interruption. Whoever holds the candle may speak to his/her heart’s content while ultimately 9 people are listening attentively in an urge to comprehend his/her perspective as well. During the second part, after everyone is thoroughly listened to, we commit to constructive discussion. In part three we decide on our plan of action. Structured deep listening helps us to easily reach a consensus in making decisions while our increased mutual trust and mutual understanding are the ingredients for perfect cooperation. Deep listening in this way strengthens our faith, namely that life still has something on hold for us. It increases our hope as it makes us realise that we are not alone. On top of that it fires on our fury against the injustice perpetrated and this awakens our will to act on behalf of those who are worse off. This really means to care without conditions, charity, because some of us are in a detrimental state themselves. Charity has this remarkable positive effect of increased self-esteem. You feel good about yourself whatever others might say about you. Participants increase in their ability to stand-up for themselves or for their peers. These are the healing properties of my group format in action which is based on the virtues of faith, hope and charity. In fact, this is my most successful group so far.
So far, we have made great progress with the Community Development Mental Health Network (CDMHN) and in our collaboration with our Northern Ireland counterparts from Community Development & Health Network (CDHN), in our all-Ireland initiative called Voice, Equality, Experience, and Power (VEEP). We are laying the foundation for sustainable cooperation in community development focussed on the social reintegration of people with lived experience of psychiatric treatment. I feel, however, that we must stay alert for opportunities that we meet on our way and that benefit our network at the same time. Such an opportunity would be the representation of psychiatric survivors at the Social Inclusion Forum. It enables representatives of the CDMHN to demand the adoption and implementation of emancipatory, community development and human-rights based approaches to increasing mental wellbeing in our communities. We may do this in a non-medical language that we currently work on in VEEP.
In aid of a constructive practical dialogue, I suggest we stay alert for the urgent matters that survivors face on a day-to-day basis. We surely will make this happen if we organise ourselves in focus groups, like my own self-help groups, each tasked with a specific avenue of interest or issue that we wish to solve and spearhead. To start in May 2026 with our representation at the annual Social Inclusion Forum would be a great opportunity to increase our influence and teach the delegates a lesson.
MindFreedom Ireland
F.A.O. Jeroen Holtkamp
Gilbertstown
Castlepollard
Co. Westmeath
N91H2F8
Phone: 00353 (0) 877503243
[email protected]