Support Coalition International, the organization which would grow into MindFreedom International, was the result of the inevitable banding together of multiple grassroots mental health advocacy organizations. In May of 1990, Dendron sponsored a counter-conference and protest of the American Psychiatric Assocation Annual Meeting, held in New York City. Formally titled the “North American Support-In to Celebrate the Human Spirit and Break the Silence About Psychiatric Oppression,” this was the first time that grassroots groups formed an ongoing coalition at the protest.  

The Support-In was organized by about thirty individuals across the US. While protests of the annual meeting were an established practice, the inclusion of a counter-conference was new. The stated goal of the Support-In was to break the silence surrounding forced institutionalization and drugging, electroshock, lobotomy, and unfounded genetic theories and to promote human rights and alternatives to forced psychiatric procedures. Events on the 1990 Support-In counter-conference schedule included “A Critique of the Myths of the Mental Health Establishment,” “Psychiatric Racism,” “Disability Rights," and “Gays’ and Lesbians’ Issues: Choices.” Similar, smaller Support-Ins were held concurrently in Alabama, Colorado, California, Oregon, Michigan, and Toronto, Canada.  

The Support-In was not limited to a one-time event; it continued a tradition of protesting the APA Annual Meeting and promoting alternatives in a counter-conference, including events featured here from 1992 in Washington, D.C. and 1997 in San Diego.  In organizing these protests and uniting grassroots organizations, psychiatric survivors made space for themselves where they had historically been excluded. These events raised awareness for the movement and facilitated community building. The 1990 Support-In led to the unification of many grassroots groups who then founded Support Coalition International. The creation of the coalition facilitated networking and organizing on local and global scales. In 2005, Support Coalition International became MindFreedom International. 

Creative expression was another way psychiatric survivors resisted control and advocated for choice. Psychiatric survivors claimed space for the subjectivity of their experiences and expressed Mad Pride through a wide variety of artistic mediums, including visual art, narrative, poetry, music, theater, and zines. A common thread that unites much of the art in these records is the use of humor and irony as a lens to critique psychiatry. In the face of suffering, psychiatric survivors created art that affirmed their humanity, recognized their shared experiences, and challenged psychiatric oppression. MindFreedom International championed creative expression as one of many alternative mental health care options. 

 MindFreedom International received and collected a wide variety of survivor art over time, with many pieces appearing in Dendron and MindFreedom Journal. Visual art, especially cartoons, was often reproduced by the organization for event posters, buttons, and t-shirts. In centering survivors’ experiences, this art drew attention to the crucial issues that were going unacknowledged in mental health treatment, from forced institutionalization and drugging to electroshock. Artists used a wide variety of approaches, from humor to outrage, to draw attention to human rights violations in mental health treatment and to advocate for reform. Advocacy through art allowed psychiatric survivors to share their experiences and create meaningful bonds with others. The existence of this art affirmed the message: you are not alone. These works of art also demonstrate the ways in which mental health advocacy intersects with social issues of race, gender, sexuality, and ability, as well as environmental advocacy.