Freeing Your Mind

By Keith Goetzman Utne Magazine
Published on May 1, 2006

Rights advocacy groups have helped minorities beat back
discrimination, women gain the right to vote, and the handicapped
win access to public spaces. Now a group called MindFreedom
International is working to preserve perhaps one of the most
fundamental human rights: the right to think for oneself.

A coalition of more than 100 groups in 14 countries, MindFreedom
was formed in 1988 to speak out against human rights violations in
the mental health system, such as restraints, involuntary
electroshock therapy, and forced medication. Many of its founders
and members call themselves survivors of the system, and their
experiences show that, for some, ‘treatment’ isn’t a road to
recovery but a highway to hell. At one rally in Washington, D.C., a
supporter toted a banner that read, ‘Bet your ass we’re
paranoid.’

Now, as scientists refine ways to alter the human brain — and,
concomitantly, thoughts and behavior — MindFreedom is poised to
enter a new skirmish in the struggle to uphold personal
freedom.

Lately, the group has been campaigning against drug implants
that are surgically inserted under the skin to release
antipsychotic medicine slowly, over weeks or months. It’s still
good old drug therapy, not an electronic implant, but the method
takes control away from the patient and gives it to the doctors. In
this way, MindFreedom contends, it’s another step toward curtailing
the rights of some of society’s most marginal members, the mentally
ill. And as far as MindFreedom director David Oaks is concerned, it
will also result in more invasive and heavy-handed methods such as
electronic implants controlled by doctors.

‘We’re opposed to all these techniques because they’re
inherently intrusive and irreversible, and they give doctors a lot
of control,’ says Oaks. ‘It’s like throwing gas on a fire.’

Apart from the rights implications of the new brain science,
Oaks contends that many of the most touted treatment methods are
based on what is still a crude understanding of the brain.

‘The most complex thing on earth is the human mind, and we’re
using monkey wrenches and throwing switches to see what happens,’
he says. ‘All of these newer techniques, which are really
extensions of the old psychosurgery, are based on an inaccurate
view of the mind, a mechanistic, reductionist paradigm. They reduce
the brain to a machine — and that ain’t how it works.’

Oaks, who was diagnosed as psychotic and forced to take
medication in the 1970s, contends that a more holistic model
encompassing mind, body, spirit, and environment can lead to better
treatment results and even full recovery for psychiatric patients.
‘Major change is often what’s needed, and you can’t buy and sell
that stuff,’ he says.

In the United States, discussion of the ethical aspects of brain
science has largely been relegated to groups like MindFreedom and
the occasional academic or professional conference. But Europe is
having a broader dialogue. Last year 126 citizens from nine
countries were tapped to participate in a series of conversations,
dubbed ‘Meeting of the Minds,’ that studied the issue with the help
of researchers, ethicists, stakeholders, and policy makers. It was
considered to be the largest public consultation on science, and
the first such Europe-wide effort.

The panel, which was coordinated by the Belgium-based King
Baudouin Foundation, presented its recommendations to the European
parliament in January. Many of them focused on the potential
misuses of brain science innovations and encouraged safeguards
against rights abuses.

Oaks hopes the United States has a similarly wide-ranging public
discussion, and that it includes those who have been harmed by the
mental health system. ‘That’s whose voice is often not at the
table, and we need to get it out there,’ he says.

UTNE
UTNE
In-depth coverage of eye-opening issues that affect your life.