Exhibit Addresses Human Rights Abuses in Mental Healthcare

Citizens Commission on Human Rights presented its globally traveling exhibit on the history to the present day of harmful and racist practices in the field of mental health and called for ending coercive mental health treatment, in keeping with international human rights standards.

Threading the history of centuries of harmful and coercive practices in the field of mental health to the present day was the focus of the globally traveling exhibit displayed by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)at the recent Congressional Black Caucus Foundation 55th Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, DC. CCHR advocates for laws to reform mental health practices to end involuntary commitment to psychiatric facilities and forced mental health treatment.

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The physical and psychological harm caused by coerced mental health treatment was the reason behind the 2023 call by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for nations to end all forced mental health treatment.WHO has written that coercive mental health practices are used "despite the lack of evidence that they offer any benefits, and the significant evidence that they lead to physical and psychological harm and even death.

The exhibit brings to light the long history of psychiatric practices and human rights violations.Some of those practices are still found in the mental health system today, including forcibly admitting people – even children – to psychiatric facilities, forcing them to take psychiatric drugs against their will, and subjecting them to seclusion and restraints, which have caused injury and death.Mental health patients can even be subjected to involuntary electroconvulsive therapy (ECT, or electroshock).

Facts presented in the CCHR exhibit also detailed the prime role of psychiatrists in promoting eugenics and in instigating and perpetuating the systemic racism still ingrained in today's mental health system.In 2021, both the American Psychiatric and the American Psychological Associations confessed long histories of racial abuse and admitted that systemic racism is still embedded in their practices.

The exhibit was viewed by elected officials, civic leaders and other convention visitors from around the nation, with many people reaching out to CCHR for help in protecting mental health human rights in their states.Some had their own distressful stories of family members or friends who were harmed in the mental health system.

"Damaging procedures that are passed off as mental health treatment must stop," said Anne Goedeke, president of the CCHR National Affairs Office. "CCHR is dedicated to ending abusive psychiatric practices and restoring human rights to mental healthcare."

CCHR is an international mental health industry watchdog co-founded by the Church of Scientology and the late psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry Thomas Szasz, M.D., recognized by many academics as modern psychiatry's most authoritative critic, to eradicate abuse and restore human rights and dignity to the field of mental health.

More information can be found at www.cchr.org

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