(December 2013)

HS: Can you tell us about when you first came across the social model of disability? What impact did it have on you, as a psychiatric system survivor?

DW: Very briefly, it begins with what I now call my four years of madness in the late 1990s. It was not until after this time that I found out about and began to get involved in (mental health) consumer advocacy, activism and politics. I also started my PhD on suicide around this time. All this led to my first contact with the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP), and organisations like MindFreedom in the US, which opened my eyes to the global movement for radical change in how we think about and respond to madness (madness is my preferred alternative – not everyone's choice – to the harmful pseudoscience label of ‘mental illness’). We had nothing like these organisations in Australia. The ‘consumer’ organisations that we had here at that time were pretty locked into the medical model of madness and focused on service delivery, not human rights. Which remains the situation today, sadly. I know because I made the mistake of chairing one of these organisations for a while. WNUSP also introduced me to the work being done at that time on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which further opened my eyes to what was needed and what was possible. It's been a breathtaking, exhilarating and incredibly rewarding journey for me, but also a demanding, frustrating and infuriating journey at times, which has contributed to the illness and disability (aka burn-out) that has led to my premature and unofficial ‘retirement’ from activism. Perhaps the most inspirational part of this wild journey has been to meet and work with some extraordinary people with disabilities who have taught me so much about what it is to be human – and even more about what human rights really means. I’d like to especially honour Lesley Hall who was not only a great leader of the disability movement here in Australia (and globally) but also great fun to be with – her sudden passing away just a few months ago was a great shock and a great loss. Vale, Lesley.