Promoting the critical mental health movement
The critical mental health movement is comprised of various perspectives developing a critique of the current psychiatric system. These range from reform to revolution. Although there may be debate about how much can be achieved within psychiatry, the movement is held together by recognition of the need for fundamental change.
The root problem is the belief that mental illness is a brain disorder. The Critical Psychiatry Network argues that psychiatry can be practised without the justification of postulating brain pathology as the basis for mental illness. This position should not be misunderstood as implying that mind and brain are separate. Perhaps a way to express what is being said is that mental disorders must show through the brain but not always in the brain.
The conference will provide a forum for debate both within critical psychiatry and between critical and mainstream psychiatry. The views of critical psychiatry are not marginal to the present situation in modern mental health services.
