The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is currently collecting testimonies from victims and survivors of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment — including those who experienced harm within the psychiatric system. You can find the call for input here.
I am sharing my own statement below, and I want to encourage anyone who has been harmed within the medical model to consider adding their voice.
Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Thematic Report on Survivor Experiences and Perspectives
Submitted by: Ingrid E. Johnson, Founder of RECASAS gGmbH
Date: September 16, 2025
Introduction
My name is Ingrid E. Johnson. I am a German-American survivor who experienced harm through psychiatric interventions framed within the medical model. I am also the founder of RECASAS gGmbH, a Berlin-based nonprofit initiative that fosters resilience, empowerment, and self-determination through creative writing, reading, and arts groups, particularly for people who have gone through difficult life experiences.
I am submitting this statement because I believe it is important to recognize how practices carried out in the name of “treatment” can, in reality, amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. I also wish to share alternatives I have witnessed and helped build that restore dignity and foster healing.
Harm Experienced within the Medical Model and Beyond
My life was shaped by many difficult experiences: I lost my father when I was 13, I was raped as a teenager, and later the first man who said he loved me beat me. In my early 30s, I moved from Berlin to New York City. I carried unresolved grief and trauma, and the enormous pressure of starting a new life abroad while working day and night to pursue my dream.
It was under this weight that I began to struggle. What I needed was recognition of the violence and losses I had endured, and compassionate support as I adjusted to overwhelming new circumstances. Instead, I was drawn into the medical model of psychiatry. I was diagnosed, placed on lithium, and told this condition would be lifelong.
This approach caused harm because it:
- Ignored the real causes of my distress — grief, trauma, violence, and the challenges of migration.
- Silenced my voice by reducing me to a diagnosis instead of listening to my story.
- Imposed medication that harmed my body, personality, and sense of self.
- In the first 14 months after receiving the diagnosis and starting lithium, I gained 70 kilos. When I raised concerns, all doctors told me was that weight gain can happen with lithium. They showed no concern that this would cause other serious harm to my body. Instead, they continued to fully stand behind their therapy approach.
- Left me isolated rather than supported in community.
The medical model not only failed to address my trauma, it added new layers of harm. Much later in my life, I was also locked up against my will, even though I was no harm to myself or others. Such involuntary detention is a violation of human rights, and laws in places like New York should not give psychiatrists this kind of unchecked power.
Alternatives: My Work with RECASAS
Out of these experiences, I later founded RECASAS. At RECASAS we work outside the medical model. Our approach is based on creativity, community, and peer support.
- We retell our stories — people explore their past through writing, poetry, and storytelling. Once I have found more Gesellschafterinnen* and we can begin fundraising for our own space, we will add theatre, music, cooking, and other forms of storytelling to our program. We also envision a café where people know they will be welcomed with kindness and understanding every day.
- We emphasize choice — no one is forced to speak or share; everyone chooses their level of participation.
- We build dignity — participants are not reduced to symptoms or diagnoses but seen as people who can make their own choices, take action, and influence their own lives — not as passive patients who only receive treatment.
- We create community — through reading, writing, art, theater, music, and film, people strengthen each other.
I have witnessed again and again that people heal more fully when their voices are respected and when imagination, creativity, and human connection are placed at the center.
Analysis
The contrast between the medical model and rights-based, survivor-led approaches is clear:
- The medical model emphasizes control, diagnosis, and often coercion. It prioritizes professional authority over lived experience. It is also built to create “customers for life,” turning suffering into a profit-oriented solution.
- A rights-based, survivor-centred model emphasizes dignity, agency, and choice. It recognizes trauma as rooted in lived experiences and structural conditions, not as isolated “symptoms.” It will not only reduce pain and overcrowded psychiatric hospitals, it will also cost governments significantly less money in the long run.
Where the medical model caused me harm, community-based peer support has allowed me and others to recover dignity and power.
Recommendations
- Recognize psychiatric coercion as potential ill-treatment: States should acknowledge that forced medication, involuntary hospitalization, and pathologization can constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.
- Guarantee free and informed consent: Survivors must have the right to refuse or withdraw from treatment without fear of punishment or abandonment.
- Support survivor-led initiatives: Peer-support and community-based models, such as RECASAS, must receive recognition and resources as legitimate pathways to healing.
- Ensure accountability: There must be real ways for people to speak up about the harm done to them — and to receive justice, accountability, or compensation.
- Promote dignity-based rehabilitation: Rehabilitation should include creative, social, and community supports, not only medical or clinical interventions.
Conclusion
My own journey has taught me that being labeled and coerced within the medical model can cause lasting harm. But I have also learned that healing is possible through creativity, peer support, and dignity-based approaches.
I urge the OHCHR to listen closely to survivors of psychiatric harm and to support frameworks that honour human rights, self-determination, and the power of community.
Thank you for collecting and amplifying survivors’ stories. I would be more than happy to answer any questions or provide additional details if needed.
Contact:
Ingrid E. Johnson
Founder, RECASAS gGmbH
