Two What we talk about when we talk about disability: making sense of debates in the European user/survivor movement
Three Inconvenient complications: on the heterogeneities of madness and their relationship to disability
Thirteen UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: out of the frying pan into the fire? Mental health service users and survivors aligning with the disability movement
Fifteen Disabilities, colonisation and globalisation: how the very possibility of a disability identity was compromised for the ‘insane’ in India
Sixteen Neurodiversity: bridging the gap between the disabled people’s movement and the mental health system survivors’ movement?
This chapter is a transcript of an interview with Tina Minkowitz, who represented the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry in the drafting and negotiation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The chapter explains why members of the mental health user/survivor movement claimed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a necessary vehicle for advocating for their human rights. The terms ‘psychosocial (or psychiatric) disability’ and the reason for its adoption in the US context, is discussed. The chapter responds in detail to the concern that abolishing specific mental health legislation might lead to the criminalisation and/or neglect of people with mental health problems, arguing that criminal behaviour needs to be dealt with under criminal law and advocates for the transformation of the criminal justice system.
Keywords: disability, human rights, legislation, criminalisation, neglect, psychosocial disability, psychiatric disability, survivors
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