Oregon is home to a small non-profit called MindFreedom. It’s run out of Eugene and describes itself as coalition of grassroots groups dedicated to human rights and alternatives for people with mental illness.

Or, as they make the distinction, “people labeled with psychiatric disabilities.”

The mission may sound basic, but the stance MindFreedom takes on several different issues puts it at odds with many other mental health groups and the mainstream of mental health care professionals.

In this last story in the “On Our Minds” series on mental health, OPB’s Scott Silver has this report on the history and current influence of MindFreedom.

MindFreedom is part of a larger patients’ rights movement that has been around since the 1970’s.  The movement is also called “the consumer movement” – as in consumers of mental health services. Still others identify as “psychiatric survivors.”

MindFreedom group photo, David Oaks is at far left.

David Oaks is the co-founder and director of MindFreedom.  He became involved with the patients’ rights movement, 30 years ago.  And he’s experienced mental health issues himself, starting in the 1970’s when he was a sophomore at Harvard.

David Oaks: "I began to enter into states where I wouldn’t sleep.  I would think the CIA was after me.  I’d think the neighbors were with the CIA.  I would think the CIA was making my teeth grow, that the TV was talking to me, that the radio was the voice of God."

He was diagnosed as bi-polar and schizophrenic, and before he graduated he would be put into mental institutions a total of 5 times.

David Oaks: "As soon as I got locked up, they wanted me to take a psych drug. And they kept pushing this liquid form on me. And I said, 'you know what?  I’ll take it.'   I took the cup and I poured it on the floor.  And immediately, a bunch of mental health technicians showed up, brought me into the solitary confinement, shoved me on the mattress, pulled down my pants, and injected me.  I was humiliated, overwhelmed.  It felt like a chemical rape.  So they left me alone in solitary, and I was really mad.  I remember the mesh screen over the wall and I pounded it and I said 'this is a really poor way to treat people, I want to do something to change this when I get out'.”

It's experiences like those that MindFreedom is dedicated to preventing.

David Oaks and MindFreedom oppose all forms of involuntary care, including forced druggings and involuntary commitment.

Like the name implies, they see it as a matter of personal freedom.

Others see it differently.

For many mental health professionals and families, “involuntary care” is a way helping people with mental health issues when they appear to be acting irrationally—or having psychotic episodes.

That’s how Mina Stone sees it. She’s a 50 year old paralegal, with 2 kids -- and a brother who suffers from mental illness.  It was about 18 years ago, when she first suspected he was mentally ill.

Mina Stone: "He could not slepp.  He would be up most the night.  He was severely agitated.  He’d take walks, constant walks.  He – I think was hearing voices.  He never was violent towards me, but there were incidents where he was violent and full of rage."

Mina took her brother to be evaluated at Dammasch State Hospital in Wilsonville.  But the staff who saw him did not agree with her concerns and would not hold him against his will for further observation.

Mina Stone: "They did not believe he was bi-polar, they did not believe he needed to be diagnosed or admitted to the hospital. We argued our case that he does need help, he does need to be admitted, he is a danger to others.  But it was of no use."

Her brother left Oregon and went to stay with their mother and step-father in Colorado.  About a year later, her brother killed their step-father.

Mina Stone: "It was horrific.  My step father was sitting in his chair in my mother’s home and my brother shot him close range with a shotgun.  And then he went back and told my mother not to come out of the room.  So my mother called the police and my brother surrendered."

In prison, Mina's brother was diagnosed as 'bi-polar with psychotic tendencies.'  He also confessed to the murder of a teenage girl, and later stabbed his cell mate in the eye with a pencil.

He's now in the San Carlos Correctional Facility in Colorado, a prison for mentally ill and developmentally disabled prisoners.

Mina says what she was trying to do when she took him to Dammasch was to prevent what eventually happened. In her mind, she was protecting him when she tried to have him committed.

Mina Stone: "The alternative was that he would commit a crime and that he would end up in the prison system. Then he doesn’t have any rights."

David Oaks: “Our system of law is supposed to be based on the idea that you would rather have nine people go free than have that 10th innocent person be locked up."

Again, David Oaks with MindFreedom.

David Oaks: "When you go and lock up ten people because they didn’t take their drugs because maybe, maybe one of them will be violent, you’re horribly violating all those other peoples’ lives and their human rights.”

David Oaks and the patients’ rights movement will likely be glad to hear about the research of Dr. Joseph Bloom, a professor emeritus at OHSU. He studies civil commitment in Oregon and says it’s been on the decline since the 1980’s.

Joseph Bloom: "We’ve had a big increase in the population during that time, but a dramatic decrease in the number of people committed."

Bloom actually supports civil commitment and laments the decline— from about 45 commitments for every hundred thousand  people in 1983, compared with just 22 commitments per hundred thousand 20 years later.

For now, MindFreedom’s David Oaks is working on other issues.  In Oregon, he’s trying to establish an “office of mental health consumer affairs,” to advocate for patients.

David Oaks: "So looking into the future, the very very first step is to at least have a few staff that is helping the voice of the consumer survivors be out there. Be a candle in the cave at this point.  This voice should be the center piece of policy.  It shouldn’t be missing from the table."

David Oaks says he’s already come close to creating that office -- a proposal made it all the way to the Oregon Legislature last year, though it didn’t pass.  But a related bill -- about the make up of mental health advisory groups -- did make it through.

It says at least 20 percent of the members of those panels must be mental health consumers themselves.

Online:

MindFreedom International

We're getting help reporting the "On Our Minds" series from our Public Insight Network.  People in the Public Insight Network are helping us cover the news by sharing their knowledge and experience.   If you'd like to contribute your knowledge, go to our web site - opb.org/publicinsight .