The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) has launched a traveling exhibit documenting human rights abuses in psychiatry, with particular focus on what it describes as an epidemic of psychotropic drug prescriptions to children. The exhibit, which features graphic panels and video excerpts, presents a historical overview of psychiatric practices it characterizes as abusive, from early theories treating humans as animals to modern pharmaceutical interventions.
One of the most impactful sections addresses the drugging of school children, with panels indicating over 20 million children are on mind-altering drugs. According to the exhibit, this has resulted in increased violence and suicides among young people taking psychotropic medications. The display directly traces the drastic rise in school shootings to psychiatric drug use by perpetrators, a connection explored in CCHR's documentary Prescription for Violence, which was available free to exhibit visitors.
During the exhibit opening, guest speaker Diane Lewis, a 40-year veteran special education teacher with Los Angeles Unified School District, expressed concern about children entering school with psychiatric labels. "I could not teach them when they are on the drugs," Lewis stated, adding that current school programs often medicate children rather than addressing underlying problems and trauma. "Children deserve better," she concluded.
The exhibit presents psychiatry as an industry offering zero cures despite billions spent annually on treatments. According to CCHR materials, psychiatric interventions leave behind what they describe as a plague visible in every U.S. city: drug addiction, homelessness, incarceration in mental institutions, and grief. The organization warns parents and community members that psychiatric treatments can be deadly.
Fourteen identical traveling exhibits operate worldwide, with the Western U.S. tour issuing warnings about psychiatric practices. CCHR encourages the public to learn more through resources available on their website and documentaries about their global volunteer work. The organization also promotes viewing their film Psychiatry: An Industry of Death on the Scientology Network.
CCHR was co-founded in 1969 by psychiatry professor Dr. Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology. The commission includes physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, lawyers, legislators, government officials, educators, and civil rights representatives. The organization states it is inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's commitment to abolishing physically damaging practices in mental health.
The exhibit's implications extend to education systems, healthcare policy, and parental decision-making regarding children's mental health treatment. By presenting psychiatric history as a progression of abuses culminating in widespread child medication, CCHR challenges conventional mental health approaches and raises questions about pharmaceutical interventions' long-term effects on young populations. The organization's documentation of historical practices like lobotomies and electroconvulsive treatment provides context for its critique of contemporary psychiatric methods.
