As a psychiatric survivor, I hope Soteria stories will be told and retold, again and again, because together they illuminate an exhilarating path toward deliverance from a mental health “system” gone mad. In this book, Soteria's stories about how people can support and help others experiencing extreme mental and emotional crises emerge in loving (and sometimes humorous) detail. Here, the authors detail how dissident mental health workers, professionals, and researchers heroically championed an historic project in the face of a tidal wave of repression from the arrogant, tradition-bound psychiatric profession. These stories teach us how to survive a confused, drug-addicted, authoritarian, and, at times, deadly mental health establishment. For all those who—when confronted with psychiatry's crimes—ask, "But what's the alternative?" Soteria offers an elegant reply. It tells the inside story of an effective, hopeful, commonsense, empowering alternative to mainstream mental health practices.