Mental health consumers

A mental health consumer (or mental health patient) is a person who is obtaining treatment or support for a mental disorder, also known as psychiatric or mental illness. The term was coined by people who use mental health services in an attempt to empower those with mental health issues, usually considered a marginalized segment of society. The term suggests that there is a reciprocal contract between those who provide a service and those who use a service and that individuals have a choice in their treatment and that without them there could not exist mental health providers.

In the 1970s the term "patient" was most commonly used. Mental Health activists of the civil rights times recognized, as did many other groups seeking self-definition, that such labels are metaphors that reflect how identities are perceived and constructed (McDonald 206). In particular, in the mental health field they shape the nature of the relationship between the giver and receiver of psychiatric services, be it one with an emphasis on reciprocity or hierarchy (McLaughlin 2007). Users of psychiatric services repulsed the efforts of experts to define them and sought to develop ways to define themselves (Morrison 2000). In Australia, informal support groups of people who had recovered from episodes of mental ill health were formed during the first wave of moving patients out of psychiatriic hospitals into the community in the 1960s. In the USA and other countries, radical movements to change service delivery and legislation began to be driven by consumers during the 1980s. Activists, such as Judi Chamberlain, pressed for alternatives to psychiatrist dominated and controlled systems of mental health provision. Chamberlain's On Our Own: Patient Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System (Chamberlain 1978) helped guide others intent on a more collaborative form of mental health healing.

In the 1990s many consumer groups were formed, such as Self Help Clearing House and the National Empowerment Center. They continued to press for more peer involvement in alternatives treatments, pointing out that peers support and comfort, in contrast to therapists who attempt to change the behavior and thinking patterns of consumers (Bluebird).

Today, the word mental health consumer has expanded in the popular usage of consumers themselves to include anyone who has received mental health services in the past, anyone who has a behavioral health diagnosis, or simply anyone who has experienced a mental or behavioral disorder. Other terms sometimes used by members of this community for empowerment through positive self-identification include "peers," "people with mental health disabilities," "psychiatric survivors," "users," and "ex-patients." (See the Psychiatric survivors movement for more information). The term "service users," is commonly used in the U.K. In the U.S. "consumer" is most frequently used by ex-patients and users of psychiatric and alternative services.

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