Science journalist Robert Whitaker has concluded that patients rights groups have been speaking out against psychiatric abuses for decades - the torturous treatments, the loss of freedom and dignity, the misuse of seclusion and restraints, the neurological damage caused by drugs - but have been condemned and dismissed by the psychiatric establishment and others. Reading about the experiences they suffered through has been described as comparable to reading the stories of Holocaust survivors. Recipients of mental health services demanded control over their own treatment and sought to influence the mental health system and society's views.