A few days ago I had the opportunity to participate in the 1st Latin American Meeting on Mental Health and Social Movements, held in Santiago, Chile. It was a very enriching experience where we shared our work using communication to help change behaviors and reduce the stigma surrounding mental health, while also listening to the experiences of individuals and organizations from countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Bolivia, and others.
The meeting was organized by the Postgraduate Department of the University of Chile and the Center for Mad Studies (Centro de Estudios Locos), a collective dedicated to critical research on mental health from an alternative perspective to the pharmacological model, with support from the University of Santiago of Chile.
The program included very interesting panel discussions addressing a wide range of topics related to the state of mental health in Latin America, including the right to madness, sociocultural movements challenging traditional perspectives, the defense of human rights, mental health and gender, debates on the medicalization of childhood, and mental health legislation throughout the region.
We began the first day with a very meaningful keynote panel, where all four speakers shared their personal experiences with mental health, all of them survivors of psychiatric hospitalization. Offering a critical perspective on medicalization, they shared extremely painful experiences and denounced violations of their human rights during their hospitalization. This opened an important debate on the need to close psychiatric hospitals, a discussion that continued the following day during the panel on mental health laws in Latin America. Participants agreed on the need to continue moving toward a community-based model of care, similar to the one currently being implemented in Peru, replacing long-term institutionalization, which promotes isolation and increases the risk of human rights violations.
During the discussion, participants also mentioned how "psychiatric prisoners" often experience situations that are, in many ways, worse than those faced by people in conventional prisons because their voices and wishes are frequently ignored or dismissed. They cannot decide whether they want to remain in their rooms, take a shower, or make other everyday choices, and are subjected to forms of torture—which is the appropriate term—such as electroconvulsive therapy or spending days in isolation rooms. One of the panelists, Alejandra Álvarez from Bolivia, reported that one of her colleagues was forced to undergo electroconvulsive therapy and died during the procedure, an extremely tragic and unacceptable event. These are torturous practices that must not continue in our country and that unfortunately are still carried out in several hospitals across Peru.
Another important topic discussed was that the closure of psychiatric hospitals must be accompanied by an appropriate strategy to support the many people who currently live there in complete abandonment. Many have spent decades institutionalized and have lost much of their personal identity. It is essential to continue initiatives such as protected homes, which provide comprehensive care for individuals without family support who require rehabilitation and social reintegration, as well as a supportive social network that helps them rebuild their lives.
Regarding our participation, we took part in the panel "The Right to Madness as Cultural Change: Alternatives Against Cuerdismo", where we shared our experience developing communication and citizen participation strategies aimed at reducing the stigma surrounding mental health through an alternative approach that moves away from pathologizing people and instead emphasizes the human side of mental health. We shared the panel with speakers from Uruguay and Chile, who also presented outstanding initiatives such as Radio Vilardevoz.
Our participation in this important meeting left us with a renewed commitment to continue fighting the stigma surrounding mental health and to keep promoting change in Peru and throughout the region, so that more people feel free to speak openly about their minds and emotions. Thank you for reading! Together, we continue working toward a Peru and a world that are #StigmaFree.
#EveryoneForMentalHealth
You can find more information about the 1st Latin American Meeting on Mental Health and Social Movements by visiting our Instagram Highlights (find us at @DementesPeru) and/or by clicking here.
