The World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP)
The World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP) is an international organisation representing people with lived experience of psychiatry, often called users, survivors, and ex-patients.
The history of WNUSP:
Origins - 1980s: Grew out of the psychiatric survivor and ex-patient movements in North America and Europe in the 1970s-80s, which organized around peer support, opposition to forced treatment, and demands for rights.
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Founding - 1991: Formally founded in Mexico during the World Federation for Mental Health congress. The founding was led by activists from different regions wanting a global voice independent from psychiatry-led organizations.
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Structure: Registered as an NGO. It is organized as a network of national and regional groups, not individual membership. Key early leaders included Judi Chamberlin (USA), Karl Jensen ( Denmark), Moosa Salie (South Africa), Tina Minkwowtz and others from the survivor movement.
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Consultative status: Gained ECOSOC consultative status at the United Nations and became active in WHO and UN disability rights discussions.
WNUSP advocates from a human rights framework. The organisation’s core positions include:
Full legal capacity for all persons with psychosocial disabilities
Abolition of forced psychiatric hospitalization, forced medication, and involuntary ECT
Peer-led alternatives to traditional psychiatric services
Full inclusion of users/survivors in policy-making: "Nothing about us without us"
WNUSP has had its greatest impact at the international human rights level, rather than on specific national mental health laws:
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) - 2006: WNUSP was a key civil society participant in drafting. It pushed for Article 12 (equal recognition before the law) and Article 14 (liberty and security of person) to be interpreted as prohibiting disability-based detention, including psychiatric detention. The CRPD Committee's General Comment No.1 on Article 12 largely reflects WNUSP's position.
Influence on WHO approach: Contributed to WHO's shift toward rights-based language in documents like the WHO QualityRights initiative, which promotes ending coercion in mental health services.
National law reform advocacy: The network has provided testimony and advocacy that has influenced debate in countries reviewing mental health acts, including:
Campaigns against new involuntary treatment law
Support for supported decision-making models as an alternative to guardianship/substitute decision-making
In some countries like India, Costa Rica, and Peru during CRPD implementation, its arguments were cited by reformers pushing for legal capacity reform
Counter-impact / Criticism: Psychiatric associations and some family groups have argued that absolute prohibition of involuntary treatment creates risks for people in acute crisis. Many national legislations have retained involuntary treatment provisions but added stronger procedural safeguards and supported decision-making elements, representing a compromise position between WNUSP's abolitionist view and traditional psychiatry.
WNUSP has transformed the international mental health framework from a medical-welfare model to a human-rights and legal-capacity model at the UN level, which is now the reference point for all modern mental health law reform debates.
Compiled by Dr. Iga Daniel Mwesigwa, PhD, Ag. Co-Chair WNUSP
