A BRIEF HISTORY

“The
world was sick, and the ills from which it was suffering were
mainly due to the perversion of man, his inability to live at
peace with himself.”

George Brock
Chisholm

It was the first
Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) who
suggested that the World Federation of Mental Health (WFMH) be
created. George Brock Chisholm, a Canadian psychiatrist,
envisaged the WFMH as an international, nongovernmental body to
provide a link to ‘grassroots’ mental health organizations and
United Nations agencies. A radical thinker, Chisholm’s view that
“health is a state of complete physical, mental and social
wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”
provided early direction for both the WHO and the WFMH.

Chisholm’s close friend,
John Rawlings Rees, a British military psychiatrist and a
founder of the renowned Tavistock Clinic, accepted the
challenge. Resigning from the clinic to organize the 3rd
International Congress of Mental Hygiene, in 1946, Rees traveled
to New York to meet with the congress parent sponsors, the
International Committee for Mental Hygiene (ICMH).

The original purpose of the
ICMH was mental hospital reform. Clifford Beers, a former
psychiatric patient, who had suffered dehumanizing treatment and
abuse within mental institutions, founded the National Committee
for Mental Hygiene in 1910 and the ICMH in 1919. In the
aftermath of WWII, the new ICMH board recognized the need for
advocacy in mental health, beyond that of raising standards of
care for the mentally ill.

In 1947, the ICMH agreed to
change their name to the WFMH and accept as a new purpose “to
promote among all peoples and nations the highest possible level
of mental health in its broadest biological, medical,
educational, and social aspects“. The lead architects
of this vision were Rees and Chisholm, together with eminent
psychiatrists George Stevenson, Clarence Hincks, Arthur Ruggles
and Harry Stack Sullivan, and noted anthropologist Margaret
Mead.

In preparation for the
congress and to reach out to the societies who would later
become WFMH members, Rees hosted a meeting of 26 academics
representing a wide range of disciplines and nationalities. Dr.
Margaret Mead described the meeting thusly: “Never
before has so informal, so simple and so fruitful an
organizational scheme been tried with individuals working to
communicate with the others instead of covering themselves for
the folks back home”. These discussions were later
published as “Mental Health and World Citizenship’ and provided
the core principles of the WFMH.

The Resolution to found WFMH
began with a meeting in the British Ministry of Health building
during the London Congress on the night of 18 August and
completed on the night of 19 August 1948. Dr. Jack Rees
announced the resolution at a plenary session of the Congress
the following day and was ratified by the official Congress
delegates on 21 August.

The Federation began with
members, ‘not of individuals or countries, but of societies’
from 46 countries. Today, with members and contacts in over 150
countries, the founding principles of the WFMH still hold true
and are reflected in current WFHM activities including World
Mental Health Day, the Biannual World Congresses, WFMH
Collaborating Centers and ongoing initiatives to improve
awareness and remove prejudice about mental disorders.

The purposes for which the
Federation was formed, as stated at the end of the 1948
Congress, were “To promote among all
peoples and nations the highest possible level of mental health
in its broadest biological, medical, educational, and social
aspects.”