ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the historic need of Japanese social movements of persons with psychosocial disabilities to extend their struggles to academia. Having set out this history, the Japan National Group of Mentally Disabled People’s (JNGMDP) protest against increased security measures and a Mental Health Act is analyzed. The JNGMDP engaged with the drafting process of the United Nations’ principles on mental health in 1985, promoting a social model of disability, which challenged the ruling medical and legal models of disability. We see how the JNGMDP successfully blocked the revision of the Mental Health Act, and the importance of recognizing persons with psychosocial disabilities own distinct aims and ideas. Finally, the case is made for a joint struggle between academics and activists to achieve these goals.
