Critical Psychiatry Network

The Critical Psychiatry Network grew out of 'Bradford Group' of psychiatrists who first first met in Bradford, UK in January 1999. The group provides a network to develop a critique of the contemporary psychiatric system and have been influential in the anti-psychiatry movement. In contrast to the anti-psychiatry of the 60's and 70's, the idea of critical psychiatry is to remain sufficiently opposed to a reductionist, positivist model of mental illness whilst maintaining a philosophical position, or lack thereof, which doesn't threaten psychiatry too much.

Duncan Double has recently edited a book entited Critical Psychiatry: The Limits of Madness in which the case is laid out against the dominance of biopsychiatry. Double was famously removed from his consultancy post for 6 months for opposing the biomedical model. The critical psychiatry movement has strong links with the so called 'post psychiatry' of Bracken and Thomas which takes a more firm philosophical stance in post-modern critiques of the positivist medical model.