{"id":496785,"date":"2026-01-06T15:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T15:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/496785\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T15:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T15:40:09","slug":"cchr-harvard-journal-finds-psychiatrys-model-undermines-human-rights-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/496785\/","title":{"rendered":"CCHR: Harvard Journal Finds Psychiatry\u2019s Model Undermines Human Rights | National"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Jan. 6, 2026 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) \u2014 The mental health industry watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR)<\/a> welcomed a major review that Harvard University\u2019s Health and Human Rights journal published, which reviewed four decades of global mental health policy, concluding that the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry\u2019s dominance of biomedical approaches has obstructed human rights progress. The report, Examining Institutional Corruption in Mental Health: A Key to Transformative Human Rights Approaches, finds that global mental health governance has been driven by a failed model that conflicts with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which calls for human-rights-based approaches (HRBAs) to health.[1]<\/p>\n

The editors and contributing authors documented how mental health systems have expanded coverage \u201cwithout adequate attention to the content and quality of care,\u201d while accelerating privatization and pharmaceutical dependence. They warn that multinational drug corporations have extracted enormous profits in ways that \u201cundermine the health and well-being of patients and the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Case studies from multiple regions show how financial incentives and the global export of Western biomedical narratives, including the discredited \u201cchemical imbalance\u201d theory, driving antidepressant sales, have entrenched coercive practices and dangerous drug use.[2] One paper concludes that \u201cinstitutional corruption, rooted in guild interests,\u201d led U.S. psychiatry to misrepresent its evidence base, influencing the World Health Organization that endorsed frameworks and spreading a paradigm built on inaccurate claims of safety and effectiveness. This model, the author reports, has contributed to worsening public mental health outcomes worldwide.<\/p>\n

In the United States, suicide rates rose by 30% between 1999 and 2016 across all demographic groups. A 2022 Harvard School of Public Health study further found that U.S. psychiatric hospitals continue to subject incarcerated individuals to forced electroshock, chemical restraints, and prolonged mechanical restraints\u2014practices that violate the United Nations Convention against Torture.[3]<\/p>\n

Research recently published in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology reinforces these findings. A scoping review of forced psychiatric drugging found that individuals consistently experienced non-consensual treatment as violent, dehumanizing, and traumatizing. Participants described feeling legally entrapped and silenced, using terms such as \u201cassault,\u201d \u201ctorture,\u201d and \u201cviolation\u201d to convey the physical and psychological harm endured.[4]<\/p>\n

Internationally, momentum is shifting away from coercion. On December 5, 2025, the European Parliamentary Assembly rejected the proposed Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention, which would have expanded forced psychiatric detention and treatment. The protocol faced strong opposition from civil society groups, including CCHR, former human rights commissioners, and United Nations bodies, including the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.[5]<\/p>\n

The contrast with the United States is stark. More than 80% of U.S. psychiatric facilities treating children and adolescents still employ seclusion or restraints, while new federal and state initiatives seek to expand involuntary commitment and forced treatment\u2014reviving practices long associated with discrimination, segregation, and grave human rights abuses.[6]<\/p>\n

The Harvard-reviewed papers argue that abandoning coercion and adopting human-rights-based, non-medicalized approaches is essential to ending systemic harm. As the authors conclude, confronting institutional corruption in mental health is not optional\u2014it is an urgent global human rights imperative.<\/p>\n

Some of the papers examined by the researchers included:<\/p>\n