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<font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><big><big><u><b>The
Boston Declaration on Psychiatric Oppression</b></u><b><br>
</b></big></big><br>
The Fourth Annual North American Conference on Human Rights and
Psychiatric Oppression meeting in Boston Massachusetts, May 28-31,
1976, adopts the following positions:<br>
<br>
<b>We oppose INVOLUNTARY PSYCHIATRIC INTERVENTION</b>, including,
but not limited to involuntary civil commitment, forced
psychiatric procedures, and " voluntary" procedures without
informed consent;<br>
because it is immoral and unconstitutional;<br>
because it is a denial of freedom, due process of law, and the
right to be let alone;<br>
because it is a denial of the individual's right to control his
or her own soul, mind and body.<br>
<b><br>
We oppose FORCED PSYCHIATRIC PROCEDURES</b>, such as drugging,
shock, psycho-surgery, restraints, seclusion, and aversive
behavior modification<br>
because they humiliate, debilitate, immobilize, and injure;<br>
because they are at best quackery (attempts to " cure"
non-existent diseases) and at worst torture (brutal, painful
techniques to control human thought, feeling and conduct.)<br>
<br>
<b>We oppose the PSYCHIATRIC SYSTEM</b><br>
because it is inherently tyrannical;<br>
because it is an extra-legal, parallel police force which
suppresses cultural and political dissidence;<br>
because it punishes individuals who have had or claim to have
had spiritual experiences, and invalidates those experiences by
defining them as "symptoms" of " mental illness" ;<br>
because it uses the trappings of medicine and science to mask
the social control function it serves;<br>
because it feeds on the poor and powerless: the elderly, women,
children, sexual minorities, Third World people;<br>
because it creates a stigmatized class of society which is
easily oppressed and controlled;<br>
because it invalidates the real needs of poor people by offering
social welfare under the guise of psychiatric "care and treatment"
;<br>
because its growing influence in education, the prisons, the
military, government, industry, and medicine threatens to turn
society into a psychiatric state, made up of two classes, those
who give " therapy" and those who receive it;<br>
because it is similar in important ways to the Inquisition,
chattel slavery, and Nazi and Soviet concentration camps; <b>that
it</b> <b> cannot be reformed but must be abolished.</b><b><br>
</b><b> </b><br>
<b>We oppose the CONCEPT OF "MENTAL ILLNESS" </b><br>
because it justifies involuntary psychiatric intervention,
especially the imprisonment of individuals who have not been
convicted of any crime.<br>
<br>
<b>We oppose the use of PSYCHIATRIC TERMS</b><br>
because they are fundamentally stigmatizing, demeaning,
unscientific and superstitious, and propose that plain English in
their place: for example:<br>
<br>
Plain English Psychiatric Term<br>
<br>
Psychiatric Inmate Mental patient,
mentally disabled, mentally handicapped person<br>
Psychiatric Institution Mental hospital<br>
Psychiatric System Mental health system<br>
Psychiatric Procedure Treatment<br>
Characteristic, Trait Symptom<br>
Conduct Behavior<br>
Drug Medication<br>
Drugging Pharmacotherapy<br>
Electroshock </font><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Electroconvulsive therapy<br>
<br>
<b>WE BELIEVE:</b><br>
that people have the right to suicide.<br>
that alleged dangerousness, whether to oneself or others, should
not be considered grounds for denying that person personal
liberty; that only proven criminal acts should be the basis for
such denial;<br>
that person charged with crimes should be tried in the criminal
justice system with due process of law and that psychiatric
professionals should not be given expert witness status.<br>
that attention should be focused not on the potential
dangerousness of the psychiatric defendant, but on the actual
criminality of those who use involuntary psychiatric
interventions.<br>
that there should be no involuntary psychiatric interventions in
prisons; that the prison system should be reformed and humanized.<br>
that as long as one person's liberty is restricted no one is
free.<br>
that a voluntary network of care and support should be developed
to serve the needs of people without limiting their rights or
lessening their dignity or self-respect.<br>
that the psychiatric system is by definition a pacification
program controlled by psychiatrists and designed to help,
persuade, coerce people into adjusting to established social
norms. Throughout society, more and more people are abandoning
these norms. More and more people are demanding self-determination
and community control. More and more people are realizing that
economic and political power is concentrated in the hands of a
few, who are determined to keep it - by any means necessary
including involuntary psychiatric intervention. But we are
asserting that as an instrument of social control, involuntary
psychiatric intervention is a procedure whose time has gone. <b>We
are demanding an end to involuntary psychiatric intervention and
we are demanding individual liberty and social justice. We
intend to make these words real and will not rest until we do.</b></font>
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