Tom Behrendt Papers

Scope of collection

Comprised mainly of publications, correspondence, ephemera, and to some extent legal and government documents, the Tom Behrendt Papers focus on issues relating to the psychiatric survivors movement, particularly deinstitutionalization, housing, involuntary commitment and treatment, Psychopharmaceuticals, and the controversial Electro-convulsive treatment (ECT), commonly called electro-shock or shock therapy. It also addresses the split between the more radical, anti-psychiatry faction and mainstream activists, specifically disagreements over the nature of mental illness (reaction to societal pressure versus chemical imbalance), proper treatment (the peer support and self-help movements versus the medical model and traditional psychiatry), as well as protection and advocacy laws.

Publications, including titles such as Dendron News, Madness Network News (published by Project Release), the Radical Therapist (also known as RT, the Rough Times, and State and Mind), Peer Advocate, and Phoenix Rising, make up a large portion of the collection, spanning from the 1970s to the early 2000s. The collection also contains newsletters, articles, correspondence, and ephemera from several advocacy groups. These include the Alliance for the Liberation of Mental Patients (ALMP); Psychiatric Survivors of Western Massachusetts, which published Peer Advocate; the National Association of Psychiatric Survivors, formerly the National Alliance of Mental Patients; Project Release, which published Madness Network News and organized demonstrations against the International Conference on Electroconvulsive Therapy; National Association of Psychiatric Survivors (NAPS), formerly the National Alliance of Mental Patients (NAMP); Committee for Truth in Psychiatry (CTIP);Support Coalition International, later MindFreedom, which published Dendron; the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI); and the Mental Health Law Project. Also included are conference materials spanning several years from NARPA as well as the International Conference on Human Rights and Against Psychiatric Oppression.

The Tom Behrendt Papers also contain materials related to the Advisory Board to the New York City Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Alcoholism Services. This includes documents, correspondence, and reports from the Inter-Agency Task Force on deinstitutionalization. There are also legal resources from the New York Civil Liberties Union, government initiatives pertaining to Mental Health issues, and correspondence with the White House. In addition, Behrendt kept records of court cases, briefings, and other legal documents from his work with Project Release and the Mental Hygiene Legal Services, as well as a collection of peer-reviewed articles from the American Bar Association, the American Psychological Association, and other journals.

A notable component of the collection are transcripts from the Association for the Preservation of Anti-Psychiatric Artifacts (APAPA), which document broadcastings of the Madness Network on WBAI radio, as well as interviews with prominent figures in the Psychiatric Survivors movement, such as Judi Chamberlin, Marilyn Rice, Leonard Roy Frank, Rae Unzicker, and Howard “Howie the Harp” Geld. The collection also holds a unique compilation of poetry, short stories, and other literature about mental illness.

Inventory