Consumer Self-Help Movement

The Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania (MHASP) was founded as an advocacy organization in 1951. This was at the height of an era when the warehousing of people with mental illnesses in large institutions was becoming a national scandal, and MHASP was created as part of an effort to correct that situation. Its earliest advocacy was based on the clear need to improve the lives of thousands of people who then resided in state hospitals in southeastern Pennsylvania.

By the late 1950s, with the advent of psychotropic medications that helped control the symptoms of mental illness, it became possible for people with severe mental illnesses to think about living successfully in the community.

This led to a move to close large public psychiatric hospitals, known as deinstitutionalization, and the growth of a movement led by former mental patients to take more control over their treatment and their lives.

MHASP's advocacy kept pace with these changes in the mental health field, and by the early 1980s it had embraced the cause of people with mental illnesses who use mental health services, known as consumers, who wanted more independence, better opportunities and a voice in issues that affected them.

This movement, which actually has its roots in the work of 19th century reformers who wanted to change laws and public policies concerning the "insane", is known today as the consumer movement.

Today, MHASP remains committed to changing a mental health field that all too often released people from institutions, only to drop them into communities without any support services.