The Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia (IPA) (Russian: Незави́симая психиатри́ческая ассоциа́ция Росси́и) is the sole Russian non-governmental professional organization that makes non-forensic psychiatric expert examination at the request of citizens whose rights have been violated with the use of psychiatry. The IPA is not a state institution but a public organization, and its medical reports have not a legal but an ethical significance. There is nowhere to refute one's misdiagnosis in Russia. In recent years, the IPA forces restrictions on patients' rights and transinstitutionalization of those with mental illness.

The IPA was established in Moscow in March 1989 and became the first psychiatric association in the USSR which was not controlled by the State. The IPA was created as an association publicly opposing itself to official Soviet psychiatry and its offspring, the All-Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists, which was completely under the control of the Soviet government and implemented its political principles. The members of the initiative group on establishing the IPA were Alexandr Podrabinek and psychologist Victor Lanovoi who had developed the plan to establish the IPA and had been its first president before he emigrated to Israel. The IPA has been the full member of the World Psychiatric Association since October 17, 1989. In 1992, the IPA joined the Russian Human Rights House Network, a union of 10 well-known human rights organizations. The IPA played a significant part in the demolition of punitive psychiatry. The IPA appears to make very active efforts to communicate their views on the previous and present abuses of psychiatry in Russia to psychiatry in the West.

In 2010, the IPA has about 600 members in 54 regions of Russia. Most members of the IPA are the members of the Russian Society of Psychiatrists. The charter of the IPA runs as follows: "Independent means self-supporting, no included in the composition and departmental subordination of state medical institutions and other administrative bodies." The IPA cooperates with the Moscow Helsinki Group and has the community liaison office and examination commission where one can receive free legal advice and services. The Society of Clinical Psychotherapists (M.Burno) was created under the auspices of IPA in 1995. Later on Moscow Group for Philosophy and Psychiatry (Elena B. Bezzubova) was organized and began to function together with psychotherapeutic theatre and regular meetings grouped under the title of "Psychiatry and Problems of Spiritual Life" (B.Voskresensky and Z.Krakhmalnikova). IPA takes an active part in the movement "Philosophy and Psychiatry," with Elena Bezzubova (University of California at Irvine) and Yuri Savenko being members of the Steering Committee of International Network for Philosophy and Psychiatry.^{[citation needed]}

The President of the IPA is Yuri Savenko, the Executive Director is Lyubov Vinogradova, the Chief of the legal service is Julia Argunova.

The official publication of the IPA is Nezavisimiy Psikhiatricheskiy Zhurnal (Independent Psychiatric Journal). According to a resolution adopted on the 19 of February 2010 by the presidium of the State Commission for Academic Degrees and Titles of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Nezavisimiy Psikhiatricheskiy Zhurnal has been included in the list of the leading peer-reviewed journals and publications.

Noted public figures and scientists expressed their appreciation for the IPA activities. In 2004, the President of the World Psychiatric Association Professor Ahmed Okasha wrote: "The World Psychiatric Association has strengthened due to the membership of your Society." Three years later, his successor as the WPA President, Professor Juan Mezzich, noted that the WPA representatives highly appreciated the IPA successes in clinical psychiatry as well as ethical and humanitarian aspirations demonstrated by the IPA despite many difficulties it had to face.

According to A.I. Appenyansky, the Chief Academic Secretary of the Russian Society of Psychiatrists (RSP), the RSP appreciates the IPA role in developing psychiatric care in the country. A.I. Appenyansky noted that the IPA became a very reputable professional public organization providing pluralism for professional discussion in psychiatry and that it was promoted due to, in particular, publishing very important and interesting periodical Nezavisimiy Psikhiatricheskiy Zhurnal as well as contributions of noted representatives of the psychiatric community such as Savenko, Vinogradova, Argunova, Gofman, Boukhanovsky, Piven, and others.

In 2006, Yuri Savenko stated that a first large relapse of the use of psychiatry for political purposes in post-Soviet Russia during recent decade was struggle against 'totalitarian sects.' According to Yuri Savenko, the reason for the use of psychiatry against religious minorities, which began from 1995, was professor Y.I. Polishchuk's report containing conclusion about 'gross harm on mental health' inflicted by different religious organizations. This report was distributed to all public prosecutors' offices of the country and the presidents of the educational institutions despite the fact that its scientific inadequacy was emphasized by not only the IPA, but the Russian Society of Psychiatrists since all imputed cases of illness, suicide, family breakdown, etc. proved to be much more frequent in the general population than in the persecuted religious organizations.