The Patient As A Policy Factor: A Historical Case Study Of The Consumer/Survivor Movement In Mental Health

This paper analyzes the history of the modern consumer/survivor movement and its impact on the policy-making climate in the mental health field. The growing attentiveness to consumers' perspectives is presented largely as a consequence, not a cause, of radical restructurings of the mental health system. Consumers' perspectives have entered policy discourse in the wake of policy failures and have flourished in a climate of perpetual crisis and tight budgets. Precisely because it has been such a contested arena for so long, the mental health field has produced some innovative responses to demands for patient empowerment.