Our vision
A future of interconnected individuals and communities flourishing beyond the medicalized, professionalized offerings of the mental health industry.
Our mission
Inner Compass Initiative (ICI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization uniting people with firsthand experience of psychiatric diagnoses and drugs to chart a new path forward beyond the current limits of today’s mental health industry. Rooted in layperson expertise and mutual aid—the voluntary exchange of support and resources–we are working to change the way the world understands and addresses the challenges that come with being human in the modern age.
Why we're needed
With the proliferation of diagnoses and the accompanying widespread prescribing of psychiatric drugs, the mental health industry has become part of everyday life across the world. In the US, for example, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported for 2023 that nearly one in four American adults—and 28.5 percent of adult women—sought the help of psychiatric services (1). Similarly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2021 figures, one in three children aged 12 to 17—that’s 8.2 million kids—received some kind of psychiatric intervention (2).
At the same time—and across the world—people are stepping back to reflect on the limits and limitations of the psychiatric paradigm. They are wondering about off-ramps from the medication highway, or about how to find new sources of relief and self-understanding. As more people begin to rethink the utility of the mental health industry’s medicalized frameworks and professionalized, pharmaceuticalized offerings, there is an increasingly urgent need for reliable information, resources, and support to inform their choices that lie ahead.
We built Inner Compass Initiative to serve as a beacon for the millions of people around the world who are asking these questions and seeking new frameworks and resources– and at a deeper level, who are sensing that the mental health industry might not have their answers.
What we offer
The mission and vision of Inner Compass Initiative is built on three primary pillars:
- Helping people make informed choices: Inner Compass Online Knowledge Base
Our website provides in-depth information about the mental health industry and all that goes with it, from deconstructing diagnosis, to learning how drug research is conducted, to comprehensive and candid information about psychiatric drugs, to a step-by-step, self-directed guide for tapering off them—and much, much more.
- Helping people help each other: Inner Compass Exchange
Our online community embodies mutual aid for the digital age: a private social network that's the beating heart of ICI, acting as a living testing ground for evolving models of shared learning, support, and growth. Through the Exchange, people from all over the world facing similar challenges come to receive and offer insights and support to one another.
- Helping people reclaim their own stories: Inner Compass Stories Library
By gathering and publishing our community members’ personal stories of struggle, inspiration, and hope–which draws on ICI’s existing community database of 6,000 user profiles–the Stories Library serves three critical roles:
- Helping our community see the value and meaning in the challenges they’ve been through
- Empowering and supporting people to tell those stories, and,
- Amplifying these stories in the broader culture to catalyze “aha moments” for those who’ve begun to question their or their loved one’s relationships to psychiatric diagnoses and drugs.
We ground our programs in the crowdsourced, layperson wisdom of the thousands of people around the world who, like us, have “depsychiatrized” themselves–in other words, people who’ve decided to leave behind psychiatric diagnoses and drugs, are at various stages of doing so, and are supporting one another free from profit motive.
Until recently, our rich anecdotal evidence base of stories, insights, and expertise was largely ignored or otherwise dismissed by the mental health industry– but researchers and clinicians are beginning to catch up with what laypeople have long known and been doing to help one another safely taper off psychiatric drugs and build lives beyond the mental health industry. For example, recently published neuropsychiatric research validates the hyperbolic tapering approach that Inner Compass Initiative has been freely providing our community since we launched in 2018; this layperson tapering philosophy has also been incorporated by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK. And we’ve recently partnered with a team of medical anthropologists at McGill University to conduct a qualitative analysis of our community database that will pull out valuable information about how our community members are navigating their experiences taking and coming off psychiatric drugs.
We hear regularly from current and former patients, their family members, and mental health professionals and doctors who have turned to our information, tools, and community and found clarity, support, and confidence there–along with a renewed sense of hope.
Our guiding principles
- We focus on building, not battling.
We believe it makes no sense to tear down or expend energy on conflict; instead, we believe in building and working towards the future we want to see. Our offerings have been designed to exist adjacent to– not in opposition to– those of the mental health industry.
- We believe that true choice is only possible when it is fully informed.
We are not “pro” or “anti” psychiatry or psychiatric drugs; instead, we focus on ensuring people have access to comprehensive, unbiased information that enables them to see the offerings of the mental health industry clearly and make decisions for themselves.
- We believe that the decision to take, reduce, or come off psychiatric drugs is a profoundly personal one that must be guided by the unique circumstances of each individual.
What people choose to do with the information and resources we provide them is always up to them; we never tell people what to do. After getting meaningfully informed, people should decide for themselves what the right next steps are when considering whether and how to engage with (or leave behind) the mental health industry based on their own unique, individual needs.
- We believe that all people have an inherent power and ability to help themselves and one another independent from professionals and paid services.
Mutual aid is a transformative, empowering force that is often disregarded or disqualified in our modern age of professionalized help. We focus on providing people with the resources, support, and spaces they need online and in person to help themselves and each other in the context of their day-to-day lives: friendships, family systems, neighborhoods, and local communities.
- We believe that expertise doesn’t always come from formal education, training, or licensure.
It is often through experiencing something firsthand that you gain expertise in it. As such, the information we provide on taking and coming off psychiatric drugs is built upon the accumulated wisdom of laypeople.
- We believe in the human body’s ability to heal from injury and trauma, and in the innate capacity each of us has to grow, change, and transform over the course of our lives.
So many of us have been through– or are in the midst of– unspeakable pain and hardship. While we make space for all the darkness, we orient our message towards the power we each have to make meaning for ourselves of what we’re going through, to (re)connect with ourselves and the world around us, to endure, and to evolve over the course of our lives.
Who we are and how we’re funded
Inner Compass Initiative (ICI) is a U.S.-based, tax-deductible 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We are supported entirely by private individuals and families who believe in our cause, including current support from the Healthy Choice Fund, and past support from the Michael Fund. We are actively seeking to grow our base of support so that we can sustain ourselves into the future and reach more people in need. (If you would like to support us with a one-time or recurring donation, you can do so here.)
We are not a “mental health” organization; we are a public education and community-building organization. We come to this work through our own personal encounters with and experiences in the mental health system, whether as patients, family members and friends of patients, independent researchers, or critically-minded practitioners. Our core team is comprised of a full-time Executive Director and a small number of part-time paid and volunteer staff.
Though we have sometimes received comments and feedback from medical, pharmacological, and clinical practitioners of different kinds as we’ve created this website, and some of our team members, contributors, and volunteers may work as practitioners, all of the final editorial decisions related to the content on this website have been made by laypeople and are provided for general educational purposes only. None of the information and resources at Inner Compass Initiative or Inner Compass Initiative constitutes or should be seen as medical, mental health, counseling, clinical or professional advice of any kind.
View our Team, Contributors and Volunteers.
Support us to make change happen
The significance and scale of the issues we’ve touched on here cannot be overstated—they are issues that affect millions of people directly and many millions more indirectly. And so, while we may at this point be a small organization, our plans are big and our appetite for making them a reality bigger still. If anything here resonates with you—from concerns about rising levels of psychiatric drug use to our vision for something different—then support us, and we’ll make a new path forward together.
Sources
1. SAMHSA, 2023. 2023 NSDUH Detailed Tables: Section 6PE. [online] Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt47100/NSDUHDetailedTabs2023/NSDUHDetailedTabs2023/2023-nsduh-detailed-tables-sect6pe.htm [Accessed January 17, 2025].
2. CDC, 2023. Summary of Notifiable Diseases—United States, 2022. [PDF] Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/su/pdfs/su7201-H.pdf [Accessed January 17, 2025].
About Us
Our vision
A future of interconnected individuals and communities flourishing beyond the medicalized, professionalized offerings of the mental health industry.
Our mission
Inner Compass Initiative (ICI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization uniting people with firsthand experience of psychiatric diagnoses and drugs to chart a new path forward beyond the current limits of today’s mental health industry. Rooted in layperson expertise and mutual aid—the voluntary exchange of support and resources–we are working to change the way the world understands and addresses the challenges that come with being human in the modern age.
Why we're needed
With the proliferation of diagnoses and the accompanying widespread prescribing of psychiatric drugs, the mental health industry has become part of everyday life across the world. In the US, for example, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported for 2023 that nearly one in four American adults—and 28.5 percent of adult women—sought the help of psychiatric services (1). Similarly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2021 figures, one in three children aged 12 to 17—that’s 8.2 million kids—received some kind of psychiatric intervention (2).
At the same time—and across the world—people are stepping back to reflect on the limits and limitations of the psychiatric paradigm. They are wondering about off-ramps from the medication highway, or about how to find new sources of relief and self-understanding. As more people begin to rethink the utility of the mental health industry’s medicalized frameworks and professionalized, pharmaceuticalized offerings, there is an increasingly urgent need for reliable information, resources, and support to inform their choices that lie ahead.
We built Inner Compass Initiative to serve as a beacon for the millions of people around the world who are asking these questions and seeking new frameworks and resources– and at a deeper level, who are sensing that the mental health industry might not have their answers.
What we offer
The mission and vision of Inner Compass Initiative is built on three primary pillars:
Our website provides in-depth information about the mental health industry and all that goes with it, from deconstructing diagnosis, to learning how drug research is conducted, to comprehensive and candid information about psychiatric drugs, to a step-by-step, self-directed guide for tapering off them—and much, much more.
Our online community embodies mutual aid for the digital age: a private social network that's the beating heart of ICI, acting as a living testing ground for evolving models of shared learning, support, and growth. Through the Exchange, people from all over the world facing similar challenges come to receive and offer insights and support to one another.
By gathering and publishing our community members’ personal stories of struggle, inspiration, and hope–which draws on ICI’s existing community database of 6,000 user profiles–the Stories Library serves three critical roles:
We ground our programs in the crowdsourced, layperson wisdom of the thousands of people around the world who, like us, have “depsychiatrized” themselves–in other words, people who’ve decided to leave behind psychiatric diagnoses and drugs, are at various stages of doing so, and are supporting one another free from profit motive.
Until recently, our rich anecdotal evidence base of stories, insights, and expertise was largely ignored or otherwise dismissed by the mental health industry– but researchers and clinicians are beginning to catch up with what laypeople have long known and been doing to help one another safely taper off psychiatric drugs and build lives beyond the mental health industry. For example, recently published neuropsychiatric research validates the hyperbolic tapering approach that Inner Compass Initiative has been freely providing our community since we launched in 2018; this layperson tapering philosophy has also been incorporated by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK. And we’ve recently partnered with a team of medical anthropologists at McGill University to conduct a qualitative analysis of our community database that will pull out valuable information about how our community members are navigating their experiences taking and coming off psychiatric drugs.
We hear regularly from current and former patients, their family members, and mental health professionals and doctors who have turned to our information, tools, and community and found clarity, support, and confidence there–along with a renewed sense of hope.
Our guiding principles
We believe it makes no sense to tear down or expend energy on conflict; instead, we believe in building and working towards the future we want to see. Our offerings have been designed to exist adjacent to– not in opposition to– those of the mental health industry.
We are not “pro” or “anti” psychiatry or psychiatric drugs; instead, we focus on ensuring people have access to comprehensive, unbiased information that enables them to see the offerings of the mental health industry clearly and make decisions for themselves.
What people choose to do with the information and resources we provide them is always up to them; we never tell people what to do. After getting meaningfully informed, people should decide for themselves what the right next steps are when considering whether and how to engage with (or leave behind) the mental health industry based on their own unique, individual needs.
Mutual aid is a transformative, empowering force that is often disregarded or disqualified in our modern age of professionalized help. We focus on providing people with the resources, support, and spaces they need online and in person to help themselves and each other in the context of their day-to-day lives: friendships, family systems, neighborhoods, and local communities.
It is often through experiencing something firsthand that you gain expertise in it. As such, the information we provide on taking and coming off psychiatric drugs is built upon the accumulated wisdom of laypeople.
So many of us have been through– or are in the midst of– unspeakable pain and hardship. While we make space for all the darkness, we orient our message towards the power we each have to make meaning for ourselves of what we’re going through, to (re)connect with ourselves and the world around us, to endure, and to evolve over the course of our lives.
Who we are and how we’re funded
Inner Compass Initiative (ICI) is a U.S.-based, tax-deductible 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We are supported entirely by private individuals and families who believe in our cause, including current support from the Healthy Choice Fund, and past support from the Michael Fund. We are actively seeking to grow our base of support so that we can sustain ourselves into the future and reach more people in need. (If you would like to support us with a one-time or recurring donation, you can do so here.)
We are not a “mental health” organization; we are a public education and community-building organization. We come to this work through our own personal encounters with and experiences in the mental health system, whether as patients, family members and friends of patients, independent researchers, or critically-minded practitioners. Our core team is comprised of a full-time Executive Director and a small number of part-time paid and volunteer staff.
Though we have sometimes received comments and feedback from medical, pharmacological, and clinical practitioners of different kinds as we’ve created this website, and some of our team members, contributors, and volunteers may work as practitioners, all of the final editorial decisions related to the content on this website have been made by laypeople and are provided for general educational purposes only. None of the information and resources at Inner Compass Initiative or Inner Compass Initiative constitutes or should be seen as medical, mental health, counseling, clinical or professional advice of any kind.
View our Team, Contributors and Volunteers.
Support us to make change happen
The significance and scale of the issues we’ve touched on here cannot be overstated—they are issues that affect millions of people directly and many millions more indirectly. And so, while we may at this point be a small organization, our plans are big and our appetite for making them a reality bigger still. If anything here resonates with you—from concerns about rising levels of psychiatric drug use to our vision for something different—then support us, and we’ll make a new path forward together.
Sources
1. SAMHSA, 2023. 2023 NSDUH Detailed Tables: Section 6PE. [online] Available at: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/reports/rpt47100/NSDUHDetailedTabs2023/NSDUHDetailedTabs2023/2023-nsduh-detailed-tables-sect6pe.htm [Accessed January 17, 2025].
2. CDC, 2023. Summary of Notifiable Diseases—United States, 2022. [PDF] Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/su/pdfs/su7201-H.pdf [Accessed January 17, 2025].