Global Initiative on Psychiatry

Global Initiative on Psychiatry
Formation 1980
Headquarters

Lorentzweg 45 B 1221 EE Hilversum

Hilversum, the Netherlands
1986–present Chief Executive
 Robert van Voren, Ph.D.
Website www.gip-global.org

Global Initiative on Psychiatry (GIP) is an international foundation for mental health reform which took part in the campaign against the political abuse of psychiatry in the USSR.[1]

Headquartered in Hilversum, GIP has regional centers in Tbilisi, Sofia, and Vilnius, and a country office in Dushanbe.[2]

GIP is a main contributor to improving psychiatric care in countries of the former Soviet Union as well as Central and Eastern Europe.[2][3] It has expanded its focus and as of 2010 is including projects in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.[2]

GIP also focuses on the political abuse of psychiatry throughout the world[4][5] and human rights monitoring.[6]

History

20 December 1980 saw the formation in Paris of the International Association on the Political Use of Psychiatry (IAPUP) whose first secretary was Dr Gérard Bles of France.[7] The IAPUP was constituted as a confederation of national groups who took part in the campaign against the political abuse of psychiatry.[8] In 1986, Robert van Voren became General Secretary of the IAPUP.[8] After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the financing of the IAPUP headed by Robert van Voren ceased until it adopted program of broad compromises and, correspondingly, the opposite name of The International Association for the Abolition and Prevention of Political Psychiatry, or Geneva Initiative on Psychiatry.[9] In 2005, the organization was renamed Global Initiative on Psychiatry (GIP).[8][4]

Approach

The Global Initiative on Psychiatry uses a local approach to helping the mentally ill in underprivileged countries around the world. In Robert van Voren’s words, their idea is that “mental health services should be locally empowered, locally adapted, community based, user oriented, and focused on keeping people with mental illness in society, instead of taking them out.”[10]

Chief Executive

Chief Executive of the Global Initiative on Psychiatry is Robert van Voren, a Honorary Fellow of the British Royal College of Psychiatrists and Honorary Member of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association.[1] In 2005, he was knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands for his work as a human rights activist.[1] He is a professor of Soviet and post-Soviet Studies in the Ilia State University in Tbilisi (Georgia) and in the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas (Lithuania).[11][12]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Donskis, Leonidas (2009). A Litmus test case of modernity: examining modern sensibilities and the public domain in the Baltic States at the turn of the century. Peter Lang. p. 314. ISBN 3-0343-0335-1.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "What GIP does". Global Initiative on Psychiatry. Retrieved 19 December 2010.
  3. ↑ van Voren, Robert (2006). "Reforming forensic psychiatry and prison mental health in the former Soviet Union". The Psychiatrist 30 (4): 124–126. doi:10.1192/pb.30.4.124. Retrieved 19 December 2010.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Tobin, John (June 2013). "Editorial: political abuse of psychiatry in authoritarian systems". Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine (College of Psychiatrists of Ireland) 30 (2): 97–102. doi:10.1017/ipm.2013.23.
  5. ↑ van Voren, Robert (2010). "Political Abuse of Psychiatry—An Historical Overview" (PDF). Schizophrenia Bulletin 36 (1): 33–35. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbp119. PMC 2800147. PMID 19892821.
  6. ↑ van Voren, Robert (2009). On Dissidents and Madness: From the Soviet Union of Leonid Brezhnev to the “Soviet Union” of Vladimir Putin. Amsterdam—New York: Rodopi. pp. xii. ISBN 978-90-420-2585-1.
  7. ↑ Bloch, Sidney; Reddaway, Peter (1985). Soviet psychiatric abuse: the shadow over world psychiatry. Westview Press. p. 273. ISBN 0-8133-0209-9.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 van Voren, Robert (2010). Cold War in Psychiatry: Human Factors, Secret Actors. Amsterdam—New York: Rodopi. p. 111. ISBN 90-420-3048-8.
  9. ↑ Савенко, Юрий (2009). "20-летие НПА России". Nezavisimiy Psikhiatricheskiy Zhurnal (№ 1): 5–18. ISSN 1028-8554. Retrieved 20 July 2011.
  10. ↑ Levin, Aaron (1 February 2013). "Global Initiative on Psychiatry". Psychiatric News (American Psychiatric Association) 48 (3): 12. doi:10.1176/appi.pn.2013.2a17. Retrieved 2 March 2013.
  11. ↑ Voren, Robert van (2013). "Психиатрия как средство репрессий в советских и постсоветских странах [Psychiatry as a tool of coercion in post-Soviet countries]". Вестник Ассоциации психиатров Украины [The Herald of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association] (in Russian) (The Ukrainian Psychiatric Association) (5).
  12. ↑ Clark, Fiona (11 January 2014). "Is psychiatry being used for political repression in Russia?". The Lancet 383 (9912): 114–115. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62706-3. PMID 24422214.

External links