A traveling exhibit opened in Austin, Texas, exposing historical and ongoing human rights abuses in psychiatry. Organized by the non-profit Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), the exhibit features graphic panels and video excerpts from the documentary Psychiatry: An Industry of Death. Visitors found the data informative and eye-opening.
The panels trace the history of false scientific claims that humans are animals who can be treated as such, leading to brutal treatments like lobotomies and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The exhibit then moves to the current era of mass drugging with psychotropic drugs. "Knowing history is supposed to be the best protection against history repeating itself," said Lee Spiller, Director of the Texas chapter of CCHR. "Ironically, and in spite of global efforts to reduce force and coercion in psychiatric treatment, psychiatry seems bent on repeating such history."
Nelson Linder, President of the Austin NAACP, stressed the importance of human rights: "There has never been a more important time to promote human rights. Working together, we can and should protect the rights of those accused of being mentally ill." He added, "There is absolutely no reason that someone should lose basic human rights because of a label."
Spiller highlighted a long-standing collaboration with the NAACP, recalling a protest less than 30 years ago against a psychiatrist who claimed foster children—disproportionately Black and Brown—were heavily drugged due to bad gene pools. "Psychiatry should have dispensed with these ideas centuries ago," Spiller said. Linder affirmed, "We will continue to speak. We must continue to have these conversations because the rights of people to live in peace and dignity depend on it."
Other speakers addressed parental rights in school mental health and the importance of rights education. One attendee described how CCHR's information helped his family after a loved one was placed under emergency psychiatric detention. "The information we received from CCHR helped us to get through this and come out the other side," he said. "I'm not happy about it, but the information from CCHR, and their calming influence made it bearable."
The CCHR exhibit travels through major cities in the Western United States, warning that psychiatric treatments can kill. There are 14 identical traveling exhibits in countries worldwide. For more information, visit the CCHR website, or watch documentaries on the work of CCHR volunteers and the film Psychiatry: An Industry of Death on the Scientology Network.
