A horde of protesters marched on the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) annual conference Saturday in New York City, demanding the APA drop what they described as “its support of coercive psychiatric treatments and electroshock” and align itself to international human rights standards that argue against forced treatment.
The protest was organized by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), an international mental health industry watchdog, which advocates for state and federal laws eliminating coercive practices and banning electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).
CCHR said the demonstration included an airplane banner calling for the banning of ECT and Jumbotron truck, which broadcast CCHR’s documentary, Therapy or Torture: The Truth About Electroshock.
The group invited New Yorkers to CCHR’s “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” exhibit, which had its grand opening on Sunday, May 5, at 3 p.m., at 37 Union Square between 16th and 17th streets and runs daily through May 9 from 11 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
CCHR said the exhibit, which has toured the world, exposes the history of psychiatry and the grievous harm it has caused patients.
“It is long past time for the APA to denounce coercive practices that traumatize patients and, in the case of ECT, cause brain damage, memory loss and even death in the name of mental health treatment,” said Anne Goedeke, president of the CCHR National Affairs Office in Washington. “Psychiatrists should not be exposing their patients to these unconscionable risks.”
CCHR was founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and the late Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry, State University of New York Upstate Medical University to investigate and expose human rights abuse in the mental health field.
In 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called for an end to all forced mental health treatment, saying coercive practices “violate the right to be protected from torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.”
WHO/OHCHR also advised that, “International human rights standards clarify that ECT without consent violates the right to physical and mental integrity and may constitute torture and ill-treatment.”
Among psychiatric organizations, the World Psychiatric Association has stated its concern about “the extent to which coercive interventions violate” human rights, and the European Congress of Psychiatry has also held special sessions aimed at reducing the use of coercive measures.
Since 2020, CCHR said it has “put the APA on notice of the growing global concern about forced psychiatric institutionalization and treatment, which is rampant in the US.”
