The concept of empowerment in mental health grew out of the ex-patients / psychiatric survivor / consumer dissatisfaction with services and systems which had abused, marginalized, and warehoused people while calling it "helping them". While originally focused on individual / human rights, empowerment has become a critical element of a person's process of recovery from mental illness.

Empowerment is an issue of basic human rights. It is an issue of social justice, dignity,autonomy, responsibility, and self-determination. Empowerment refers to the process that people go through to gain or regain the power and control over their own lives that is necessary for dignity and self-determination. It requires that people have access to the means and opportunity to assume responsibility for their own lives and well-being.

Empowerment moves us away from the traditional helping model. It will cause us to confront the paradox that even those people who are currently most incompetent, in need and 'apparently' unable to function, require more rather than less control over their own lives.

Empowerment and Consumer Movement Articles    

     Empowerment Issues in Services to Individuals with Disabilities

     History of the Consumer Movement

     On Our Own Terms

     Recovering Consumers and a Broken Mental Health System

     Rise of Consumerism

     The Other Consumer Movement

     A working definition of empowerment

     clubhouse as an empowering setting

     The patient as policy factor

     Mental Health Service users' social and individual empowerment

     Whose right

For more information on empowerment in mental health go to the Presentation Materials page.

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