Throughout the Western world, mental health advocacy gained considerable momentum in the second half of the twentieth century and remains to this day an important feature of mental health care and policy. Nevertheless, historical research on mental health advocacy and self-advocacy has not been systematic, even though the understanding of their history is not only of academic but also of social importance, as it can help address the challenges that mental health (self)advocacy faces today, including the persistence of stigma and marginalization, the insufficiency and inadequacy of services, and the violation of human rights.
This project made a step towards bridging this gap in research by focusing on the unexplored history of advocacy and self-advocacy for mental disorders and mental retardation in Greece, and situating this history within the context of social, cultural and mental healthcare developments in the post-war Western world. The research offered an overview of mental health lay and professional associations in the second half of the twentieth century, starting with the 1960s, when the first associations were founded, and up to the 1980s, when collective action around mental problems began to proliferate. The project concentrated on three of the earliest and more active parents’, patients’ and professionals’ organizations of the period: the PanHellenic Union of Parents and Guardians of Unadjusted Children (founded in 1960), the Movement for the Rights of the ‘Mentally Ill’ (1980) - an association that does not exist anymore – and the Society of Social Psychiatry and Mental Health (SSP&MH) (1981/1986).
The project had three overall objectives:
1) to find out when, how many, and what types of mental health organizations (MHOs) were founded in Greece, in the second half of the twentieth century
2) to contextualize Greek mental health advocacy within social and mental health activism in Greece and the Western world
3) to understand how MHOs today perceive and represent their past and the history of advocacy
The analysis reached the following main conclusions:
1) MHOs started to be founded in Greece mainly in the second part of the twentieth century, and increased in its last decades. MHOs were most commonly founded by parents and professionals, and aimed at the development of services and the information of the public. (Self)advocacy began to be referred to in the 1980s. At that time, after the fall of the dictatorship, activism increased and mental healthcare reforms were initiated. The first MHOs of users were founded in the early 1980s, initially the radical Motion for the Rights of the “Mentally Ill” and later other associations closer to the consumers’ version of the mental patient movement (MPM).
2) Today, associations see (self)advocacy as significant but difficult fields in mental healthcare. They believe that much has been achieved since the 1980s, but much needs to be done. Even associations that do not identify their work with (self)advocacy, claim that they endorse the goals of (self)advocacy through working on the autonomy of the users.
3) MHOs perceive and relate to their history in different ways. Some do not consider their history as relevant to this present and future, while others frequently showcase their history.
