The purpose of this paper is to explore potentialities for self-help groups of mental health service consumers and mental illness survivors interviewing them and examining their own stories. I think that such consumers and survivors can become the agents for promoting their independent lives. The paper first illustrates the historical development of self-help groups of mental health service consumers and mental illness survivors in Japan and Canada, which shows the long-term challenges of promoting their own independent living. Second, the paper examines life histories of mental health consumers and survivors in Canada, and the author search for potentialities of those in Canada. Finally, reflecting the Canadian experiences, I search for the potentiality of my 'Self' as an activist of a self help group called Choral Taito.

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