Annie Robinson's article "College Mental Health: A Different Diagnosis" is in Wiretap Magazine, a leading online youth activist website: School health providers are supposed to act in the best interests of the student. But who it is that gets to define these "best interests" is a subject for debate among students and counseling staff.

Icarus co-coordinator Annie Robinson just had an essay published in the activist youth web magazine WireTap: Landing With Icarus: Navigating Madness On Campus:

I remember vividly the day I met my first psychiatrist.... She was going to help me find a way to deal with the raging voices that had been telling me to seek control of my life by abusing my body, to quell the debilitating sadness and lethargy that kept me sunken in my bed nearly every day. The fact that my best friend was dying of bone cancer came up, but had little to do with her treatment plan. Eventually she came up the answer: Seroquel. Over the following eight years I was subjected to an onslaught of chemical cocktails corresponding to a long list of diagnoses cast upon me...

River swimming, cross country touring, backyard (vegan) barbecuing,
bicycle rambling, gardening/ harvesting/ gleaning -- summer is here. Late summer, to be precise, which is the fifth season in chinese medicine, with a tempo and mood all its own. The Icarus Project has been spreading and connecting, swarming and flowing in multiple omni-directions over the past four months, gathering and connecting a community of radical-minded visionaries to change the world and nurture mental wellness. Here's a recap and some website art as we enter the last few weeks of glorious summer and welcome the coming fall...

In June and July, Leah Harris and Daniel Hazen of the U.S. Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry organized a "Human Rights for ALL" tour,  co-sponsored by many organizations include The Icarus Project, MindFreedom, CAFETY, and the Freedom Center. The tour was designed to raise awareness about human rights and particularly the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Read Leah's report here...

Mental Health Clients and Psychiatric Survivors to Lead Protest of
American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting

Protesters Say, “Our Creative Support Will Overcome Psychiatric Corruption!”

This Sunday: Festival of Resistance at APA Convention in SF MindFreedom International & California Network of Mental Health Clients 17 May 2009, 1 PM. Moscone Center, San Francisco
 

Spring is here! Blossoms on trees, warmer days, melting snow and the re-emergence of green. For more than 6 years the wild, unruly growth that is The Icarus Project has been sending roots deep into the soil and spreading tendrils of radical mental health and mutual support throughout society. With the new season Icarus is doing some spring cleaning as we consolidate the work of the past 6 months and gear up for the energizing times ahead, so here is our Spring 2009 update!

Icarus just brought another co-coordinator into the Intergalactic collective, this time to work on the Education and Outreach group out of the New York office. Annie has been a key organizer with Gallatin Campus Icarus at NYU. Read more about Annie, check out the Gallatin image gallery, and you can also listen to a great interview with her here.