July 19, 2004

Psychiatrist Loren Mosher who in America founded a pioneering home-based, non-drug treatment project for people in psychosis died on July 10, aged 70.

Throughout his career Dr Mosher was a vocal and loyal supporter of the mental health service user movement in America. One campaigner called him the "Schindler" of psychiatry. To supporters he was North America's equivalent of Scottish radical psychiatrist Dr Ronald Laing.

In 1988 Dr Mosher memorably resigned from the American Psychiatric Association (APA), accusing it of "being in bed" with pharmaceutical firms. He likened the APA to the American Psychopharmacological Association.

Dr Mosher, who had liver disease, died in the Anthroposophic Clinic in Berlin, Germany.

Dr Mosher, who lived in San Diego, California, was clinical director of mental health services for San Diego from 1996 to 1998 and a clinical professor of psychiatry at the school of medicine, University of California.

From 1968-80 Dr Mosher was the first chief of the National Institute for Mental Health's centre for studies of schizophrenia. He founded and served as first editor-in-chief of the Schizophrenia Bulletin.

From 1970 to 1992 he was a collaborating investigator, then research director, of the Soteria Project - Community Alternatives for the Treatment of Schizophrenia. He was instrumental in developing and researching the non-drug, home-based facility for people in psychosis.

During a visit this year to the UK, Dr Mosher had said the idea for the Soteria project was inspired in the sixties when he visited London's Kingsley Hall, set up by Dr Laing.

The Soteria project was admired by many professionals around the world who aspired to create mental health services based on a social, as opposed to a medical, model of mental health

In addition to more than 100 articles and reviews Dr Mosher also edited books on the psychotherapy of schizophrenia.

David Oaks, director of US-based service user campaigning group MindFreedom, said: "Loren Mosher was like a Schindler of psychiatry, as in the film Schindler's List. One of our Schindlers has died.

"Loren Mosher was a psychiatrist who fought his own profession's oppression and who was a tremendous ally to survivors of psychiatric human rights violations.

"I'm lucky that Loren was also a personal friend of mine, and on the board of MindFreedom. He did so many things to support me, our group, so many groups, and our entire social change movement.

"Loren was also superb at encouraging other mental health professionals to have the simple courage and decency to speak out, such as in his work with the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology.

"May Loren's life encourage many more Schindlers in the psychiatric profession to have the wisdom and bravery and love and decency to speak out about the nightmarishly horrible abuse that is inherent in the psychiatric system, to confront it, to even laugh in its face, and to build loving alternatives to it."

Terence McLaughlin, editor of Asylum magazine, said: "Loren was one of that generation of radical psychiatrists along with Basaglia and Laing whose influence today is as alive as it was in the sixties."

Dr Mosher's marriage to Irene Carleton Mosher ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 16 years, Judy Schreiber,; three children from the first marriag, two brothers and a granddaughter.

See:
Biography of Dr Loren Mosher
Info on the Soteria project
Dr Mosher's letter of resignation to the American Psychiatric Association

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