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TCI ASIA Pacific: Engaging the Global Mental Health Movement in Dialogue





Blog contributed by: Bhargavi Davar, PhD  
Convenor TCI Asia Pacific
Published on Mad in America



Read how Bhargavi elaborates on the assertion of full human rights for persons with psychosocial disabilities by bringing a "CRPD-inspired discourse to counter the globalizing of psychiatry, which has involved the Global North exporting its medical model to the Global South."

She says that "the “North driving the South” phenomenon has evoked a strong counter response from TCI Asia Pacific and allied organizations (from Africa and Latin America); especially when we know by now that the western model of psychiatry, based on colonial practices of isolation, seclusion, and coercion — invisibilising persons with psychosocial disabilities as if they do not exist, and offering little more than medication — is a failure. ‘Filling the treatment gap’ leads to exclusion, not inclusion." 

She points to the "Bali Declaration" that was issued by TCI Asia Pacific in August, 2018, affirming that  all actions impacting lives of persons with psychosocial disabilities must pay heed to CRPD commitment and must reframe mental health in the direction of removal of all barriers and full inclusion.


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