MindFreedom International

[7] Coalescing around the ex-patient newsletter Dendron,[8] in late 1988 leaders from several of the main national and grassroots psychiatric survivor groups felt that an independent, human rights coalition focused on problems in the mental health system was needed.

[4] SCI's first public action was to stage a counter-conference and protest in May 1990 in New York City at the same time as (and directly outside of) the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting.

[4][5] The coalition regards the psychiatric practices of 'unscientific labeling, forced drugging, solitary confinement, restraints, involuntary commitment, electroshock' as human rights violations.

[4][10] In 2003, eight Mindfreedom members, led by then-executive director David Oaks, went on a hunger strike to publicize a series of "challenges" they had put forth to the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the US Surgeon General and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Members of the network are then expected to participate in organized, constructive, nonviolent actions—e.g., political action, publicity and media alerts, passive resistance, etc.—to stop or prevent the forced treatment.