Peter Lehmann (born 1950 in Calw, Black Forest, West Germany), D. Phil. h.c., is an author, social scientist, publisher, and an independent freelance activist in humanistic anti-psychiatry, living in Berlin, Germany.[1]
In 1986, he founded Peter Lehmann Publishing in Berlin and published his first book, Der chemische Knebel (The Chemical Gag) (Berlin: Antipsychiatrieverlag 1986) in German through his own Antipsychiatric Publishing House. In 2003, he founded a branch in the United Kingdom and in 2004 in the United States of America.[2]
In 1980, Peter Lehmann was co-founder of a support group of (ex-) users and survivors of psychiatry and advised about psychiatric drugs and withdrawal until 1989. In 1987, he was co-founder of PSYCHEX (Switzerland), an alliance of lawyers, doctors and survivors of psychiatry to support people who are incarcerated in psychiatric institutions); since then, board member. In 1989, he was co-founder of the Organization for the Protection from Psychiatric Violence (running the Runaway House Berlin, which opened its house for people seeking shelter from psychiatric violence in 1996).[1]
In 1991, he was co-founder of the European Network of (ex-) Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (ENUSP) and was the organization’s Chair from 1997 to 1999[3] and was a board member until 2010. In 1997, he was co-founder of the World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP)
Since 2000, Peter Lehmann has been co-editor of the Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy (United Kingdom). Since 2002, he has been a member of MindFreedom International and was its designated representative to the United Nations. In 2007, he was a member of the Organizational Committee of the Conference "Coercive Treatment in Psychiatry", run by the World Psychiatric Association in Dresden.[4] He is blogger at Mad in America,[5] associate of the International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal[6] and member of the Specialist Committee for Psychiatric Drugs of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für soziale Psychiatrie e.V. (German Society for Social Psychiatry).