ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how our psychiatric histories can be enriched by engaging with the sources of mental health activism and the survivor movement. Beginning with a brief history of activism among patients and service users, it goes on to discuss the practical challenges associated with finding and working with a body of source material which is often ephemeral, uncatalogued, or hidden in private collections. While often difficult to access, activist materials can not only provide us with information on the history of the survivor movement, but open critical new perspectives on the wider history of psychiatry, and on the lives of service users past and present. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the historiographical and theoretical challenges which have been posed by mental health campaigners and survivor historians, to suggest how engaging with activist sources might change the ways we write the history of psychiatry.
