Some of the biggest changes in mental health care in the United States are the result of a movement of mental health consumers who have worked for over four decades to improve care.

Like other social movements in the 1960s and 1970s, the consumer rights movement has pushed major changes in culture and society. The movement impacted everything from how we understand mental illness to the treatment options for those who have serious and persistent mental illness and the policies that dictate funding for mental illness.

Scholars have traced the beginnings of the consumer rights movement as far back as 1845 with the establishment of the Alleged Lunatic's Friend Society in England. In America, Clifford Beers is considered the forefather of the movement.

A young businessman and former psychiatric patient, Beers wrote "A Mind That Found Itself," an autobiographic account of his "mental civil war." He established the National Committee for Mental Hygiene (now Mental Health_America) in 1909 with the goal of addressing the horrendous conditions in "insane asylums."

Over the course of the century, his dream has flourished and has grown to include more than 300 MHA affiliates across the country.

In the 1950s, states began closing state-run institutions that housed many individuals with mental health conditions in order to reduce government spending. It wasn't until the early 1970s that the consumer rights movement started calling for systemwide change in mental health services.

Call for alternatives
Around the country, ex-patients of these facilities began to share their feelings of anger about the abusive treatment and the need for independent living in the community. They protested against forced treatment and inhumane treatments like the use of seclusion and restraints and called for inclusion in every aspect of the mental health system, including consumer-run alternatives to psychiatric treatment.

In 1972, a group of consumers began publishing Madness Network News, the flagship publication of the movement. In 1973, consumers began gathering for the Conference on Human Rights and Psychiatric Oppression.

In 1978, the Carter administration invited a small number of consumers to participate in discussions about mental health policy. By 1984, the National Institute of Mental Health offered the Alternatives Conference, a convention centered on consumers' ideas and thoughts about their care: peer support as an alternative to traditional psychiatric care.

Gayle Bluebird, an activist in the peer support movement for over 40 years, defines peer support as a way to share similar experiences and can be a model for each other a willingness to learn and grow.

Locally, Mental Health America of Colorado's WE CAN! (Wellness Education and Coalition Advocacy Network) program is leading the effort to create a peer-support network in the state of Colorado. Bluebird will be the keynote speaker at the Innovations in Mental Health conference on Aug. 6 in Denver.

Sara Struckman is the grants and publications coordinator for Mental Health America of Colorado in Denver. For more information about the Innovations in Mental Health conference, call 720-208-2220.