RE: Oral History Project - Stories from Psychiatric Survivors

January 1, 2004

Thought this might be of interest to you:

~Dawn

As the director of the MindFreedom Oral History project, I am writing to

inform you that this successful project is winding down. During the course

of the project, several MindFreedom staff and volunteers and I interviewed

and collected stories from over 100 psychiatric survivors. We videotaped 25

of these interviews, which averaged about 45 minutes in length and allowed

participants to share their experiences with the " mental health " system,

society, and recovery.

We transcribed 36 of these amazing, inspiring testimonies and edited them

for publication on the web. You can now see these stories at

www.mindfreedom.org/histories.shtml. You can even search the stories by key

word! This website is an amazing document, and has already been an

important resource for psychiatric survivors, family members, and the

public.

I analyzed these stories for themes, recently publishing my master's thesis

found four major themes that ran through each of our histories: Trauma,

Social Control, Internalized Oppression, and Recovery. I encourage you to

read this thesis and give me feedback.

I want to especially thank Oaks for his vision and guidance, Coquille

Houshour for her amazing spirit and support on this project, and Leah

and andra Adame for their help with editing these stories.

Unfortunately, until we have enough volunteers or funding available to pay

for editors, we cannot at this time add any more stories. Thank you for all

who participated or contributed in some way to this important project!!!

Oryx Cohen

Director, MindFreedom Oral History Project

Co-Founder, Freedom Center (www.freedom-center.org)

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