On Antipsychiatry: Roy Bard Mental Health Campaigner

In July 2017 Asylum Magazine for democratic psychiatry had it’s 30th anniversary and hosted a conference in Manchester.  Over a day a number of presentations and discussions took place examining various aspects of psychiatry, mental health and madness.  Roy Bard, a mental health campaigner, gave a rousing presentation during this which you can see here.

Mental Health Resistance Network

Roy is a part of the Mental Health Resistance Network which was started by a group of service users who decided to speak out against the Conservative party reforms which were negatively affecting the quality of people’s lives.  The reforms to benefits have been wide and sweeping, affecting those on Disability Living Allowance and other support.
The Mental Health Resistance Network is a community of people who live with mental distress that is actively defending the dehumanizing benefits reforms which have impacted on those who rely on these sparse premiums in order to have a basic standard of life.
The United Nations has declared the benefits reforms as “gross and systematic abuses of human rights”, and across the country charities and services have been giving evidence in Geneva representing the plight of people under the changes.

Roy Bard carries on fighting for disabled people’s rights and take part in direct action. Bard said i connection with this “We’re looking at the moment to mount another legal challenge on the PIP cuts. But these legal challenges are slow and, from our first experience, they don’t necessarily bring relief.”

mentalhealthresistance.org

www.facebook.com/MHResist

The following presentation he gave at the Asylum Magazine ((asylummagazine.org) conference took place on 28th June 2017 in the University of Manchester.  Included on this page are a few short videos of other videos he has made: