Steiner, a white author and founder of radical psychiatry, asserts that "psychiatry is a political activity" because the influence psychiatrists have over the lives in which they intervene. Steiner holds that psychiatry and psychiatrists cannot be neutral objective forces because of the position of power they hold over their patients and that it is these false claims of neutrality that lead to marginalized people avoiding psychiatric services. Steiner then states that a radical psychiatrist should advocate for the side of those whom they are helping and not look for the wrongness in the person and will take the ways someone is being oppressed into account when assessing their mental health. 

"Principles of Radical Psychiatry" by Claude Steiner

1) "Vacaville - America's Headquarters for Medical Genocide"
2) January 24, 1976 Letter to the Editor
3) May 1, 1976 Letter to the Editor

Examples of how the BPP made Ideological Connections between Prisons and Mental Institutions

1. "Principles of Radical Psychiatry" by Claude Steiner
2. Connections between Prison and Mental Institutions

University of Wisconsin - Madison

In this chapter Schalk addresses the Panthers' fight against psychiatric abuse and how this work overlapped and intersected with their work against the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex, and other forms of state violence. Schalk argues the BPP protested psychiatric abuse through:
(1) Collaborating with existing networks of activist groups
(2) Publishing of pieces in the Black Panther
(3) participation in public interest lawsuits to sue Oakland area nursing homes.

BPP Critiques of Mental and Carceral Institutions

Schalk, Sami. Black Disability Politics, New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478027003

Black Disability Politics

Schalk uses the term psychiatric abuse as an umbrella term for the violence practices within the psychiatric industrial complex. This includes but is not limited to forced pharmaceutical treatment, psychosurgery, use of electroshock therapy, prolonged restraint or confinement, coercion, unpaid labor, and denial of access to food or human contact. Psychiatric abuse is more likely to be targeted at marginalized peoples especially those with diagnosed or assumed mental disabilities.

Schalk's Definition of Psychiatric Abuse

Schalk uses Margaret Price's defintion of mental disability. Price defines mental disability as a category of disability that includes intellectual, cognitive and psychiatric disabilities, mental illness, m/Madness, and a/Autism, along with brain injury or psychiatric survivorship. This term was created to enable coalition.

Schalk's Definition of Mental Disability

How the Fight Against Psychiatric Abuse fit into Larger BPP Ideology

- Articles Putting Pressure on Vacaville
- David Hilliard Autobiography
- "Tearing Out Our Thoughts: Psychosurgery and the Black Community"
- California State Senate Hearings
- Stories Run Concurrently with 504 Sit-In

Black Panther Party Fight Against Return of Psychosurgery

- Centering of Disabled People of Color
- Critical Stance Towards Medical Professionals
- Not Distancing Blackness from Disability
- Critique of the Black Panther's Coverage

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