David Oaks co-founded the organization MindFreedom International which includes psychiatric survivors and psychiatrists who reject the biomedical model that defines contemporary psychiatry. They believe that "mental illness is caused by severe emotional distress, often combined with lack of socialization", and they "decry the pervasive treatment with prescription drugs, sales of which have nearly doubled since 1998". Further, "they condemn the continued use of electro-convulsive therapy—or ECT, also known as electroshock—which they say violates patients' human rights."
