MPA History Project
In 2010 a series of wide ranging interviews were conducted with people connected with the early Mental Patients Association (MPA). We plan to have the complete interviews available in the archives by the end of 2026.
Toronto Activists Project
In the spring of 2009, historian Megan Davies partnered with secondary student and videographer Willie Willis to interview a number of Toronto activists. Their oral histories set out the serious obstacles former patients faced as they moved from institution to community
Phoenix Rising, 1980-1990
This brave Canadian magazine was born in a two-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto, fueled by the determination of psychiatric survivors and activists Carla McKague and Don Weitz. Over it’s decade of existence, the resolutely political publication focused a critical eye on a shifting spectrum of mad issues.
In A Nutshell Collection, 1971-1981
Vancouver’s MPA (Mental Patients Association) was founded in 1971 as a grassroots response to deinstitutionalization and tragic gaps in community mental health. The group put former patients and lay allies in charge of its many successful social, housing, and employment projects, and in the process challenged the power of psychiatry.
McCann Photographs
In 1975 Vancouver photographer Gord McCann shot a series of evocative black and white images MPA members at the organization’s iconic Drop-In. Discovered in the bedroom closet of an MPA Founder in 1912, they will soon be part of our online archive.
Eve Hamilton Photographs
Eve Hamilton was born in 1949 and has spent her working life helping people. Starting as a secretary at Vancouver’s MPA (Mental Patients Association) in the spring of 1973, Eve realized that she loved working directly with people and had a talent for it.
Patty Gozzola Photographs
Patty Gozzola was born Patty Abbot in Fort McLeod, Alberta in 1947 and raised in Lethbridge. Married at 17, she became Patty Servant – as she was known during her years at MPA – and had her first son at 18 and a second two years later.
Movie Monday
Every Monday our Victoria BC psychiatric hospital’s 100 seat auditorium became a movie theatre to show an eclectic selection of films, carefully curated and often including guests and interactive discussions.
Hugh Parfitt Papers
Born in England in 1935, Hugh Parfitt trained in medicine at the St. Thomas’s Hospital Medical School at the University of London.
Lanny Beckman Papers
Born in 1942 and raised in Vancouver, Lanny Beckman was a bright student who went on to study psychology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in the early 1960s.
David Reville Ephemera
David Reville was born in Brantford, Ontario, in 1943. He studied history at the University of Toronto and went on to law school. In 1965, he was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder and spent two years in and out of mental hospitals.