Lessons from Soteria-Alaska

Jim – Thank you for your energy and efforts in helping create Soteria-Alaska, and I very much appreciate your candor in describing its fate. Your report here is EXTREMELY VALUABLE, as you are very clear here in helping us understand what ultimately can happen to fantastic experiments which lack funding and lose their visionary leadership. You article is sobering in the best sense of that word, as you make it clear that while courage, compassion, and creativity are necessary, they are not sufficient for sustainability; as “rehumanization sustainability” also requires practical concerns around finances, politics, and maintaining organizational integrity with leadership changes. Once again, Jim, thanks for all your efforts, including this report — Bruce

This is terrible news. I feel so sad to read this.

But it isn’t surprising that the “mental health” establishment, and the drug corporations who control it, always wanted Soteria to fail.

This reminds us that it isn’t enough to come up with great ideas for helping people. We also have to struggle very hard politically to make them happen and keep them going.

I myself was helped a lot by a program similar to Soteria in Vancouver, B.C. and I am very grateful. Like Soteria Alaska, it fell apart after its original leaders left, though not in the same way as in Alaska. I don’t know what might have happened to me if it wasn’t for the help I got there.

“Mozelle was one of Soteria-Alaska’s greatest successes, having been psychiatrized and drugged from her early teen years, and arriving shortly after she turned 18 with extreme “psychiatric symptoms.” Over the time she was there, she was able to completely turn her life around and was in the process of becoming a volunteer and was on track to become a staff member.”

Is Mozelle’s story of success written somewhere that could be read by others? ( I don’t mean anything to do with the murder – I mean her psychiatric survival story. ) I am always looking for stories about young teens with extreme symptoms who then recover, and the details of people’s experiences can sometimes resonate with the story of my loved one, which provides us with great hope.

It sounds that Mozelle’s story of success could be both a lasting legacy for her and a source of inspiration for others – if there is such a story I would be so grateful to be able to read it.

Thanks for the article Jim, you were able to explain what happened to Soteria in a way that I couldn’t find the words to express. There were lots of lessons learned… Seeing how soteria Alaska started and the passion of everyone to do something different and helpful was amazing….watching it slowly become an organization were billing Medicare and playing nice with the system was the fundamental concern was heartbreaking. Peace – Foster Berg

Thanks for writing this article Jim. I hope my remarks below are of some value as we all seek to understand the lessons from Soteria Alaska.
I knew Loren Mosher, and co-led a workshop with him on first episode psychosis based on his experience with Soteria San Jose, and my follow-up research of the Diabasis House first episode med-free program, and my years of serving at the I-ward med-free first episode psychosis program in the early eighties. The whole rationale behind those three bay area programs was to divert the majority of people who first become psychotic from being in the system indefinitely as you say.

For the past 35 years I’ve specialized in serving people in extreme states as a therapist. I regularly serve people in their late teens and early twenties who are having their first psychotic episode who have had no contact with the mental health system and have not taken any meds- plus I see some who may have been psychotic and placed on meds for the first time in their late teens or early twenties, and want me to help them get off meds and integrate and heal from their life shattering experience.
So, I disagree with Susan Musante’s assessment that by the time someone is 18 and is becoming psychotic for the first time, they have necessarily been on meds for a number of years. That’s certainly not my experience.
The developmental glass ceiling of young adulthood that is the stressor that triggers almost all first episodes of psychosis to manifest between around 18 and 25, happens because the young person who is vulnerable from earlier trauma and childhood adversities becomes overwhelmed at college, or on their first job, or in the Army. or from the loss of their first love relationship- and generally is swamped by the huge, sink or swim existential and daunting task of attempting adult autonomy. Jay Haley called these first breaks a leaving home psychosis. They often happen with a rapid, dramatic onset with the young person having no previous contact with mental health services or meds.

From conversations with Daniel Mackler and other Soteria Alaska staff, I understand that there was a crucial lack of an ironclad MOU with the Alaska mental health administration that insured that every person who is identified at any portal of the system to be in a first break, be admitted at once to Soteria. That is what we had in place for I-ward and it insured our 20 bed residence was almost always full with young people in first episode psychosis. We were open for 8 years and diverted many hundreds of people from being in the system indefinitely. For the story of I-ward, see my MIA article- “Remembering a medication free madness sanctuary.”

Daniel Mackler even wrote here on MIA about his efforts several years after Soteria opened, to set up ad-hoc connections with individual psychiatrists at psych emergency to send Soteria first breaks.
I tried to urge Steven Morgan when he was setting up Soteria Vermont to take the necessary political action to get iron clad MOU’s with the state to send Soteria first breaks.
Without those iron clad MOU’s that in effect force staff psychiatrists by their bosses above them in the organization, to send first breaks from psych emergency and clinics to Soteria, the medical model standard of care that says every second someone is in psychosis, they are undergoing irreversible brain damage, will prevail- and the young person won’t be sent to Soteria.

The incredible political pressure by NAMI, psychiatry and pharma that forced the closings of Soteria San Jose, Diabasis and I-ward, accounts for the 45,000 acute hospital psych beds being the destination for almost every person who becomes psychotic for the first time.

If instead, those young people got to go through their process in a loving, med free setting and come out the other side- ‘weller than well” as Karl Menninger said, then a huge percentage of them would not be in the system indefinitely that shortens their lives by 25 years.

Beautifully written blog, Jim, you made me tear up. And I’m so sorry to hear of the demise of Soteria Alaska, and the takeover of CHOICES.

Perhaps this is the wrong place for this question, but I’d like to ask it anyway, especially of the ‘professionals’ who frequent this site. My experience of ‘psychosis’ is that of unusual thoughts. And I cannot seem to find any medical proof whatsoever that odd thoughts / ‘psychosis’ actually causes brain damage, despite this being widely claimed to be true by the psychiatric industry, and the basis of our current psychiatric paradigm of care.

Is there any proof, whatsoever, ‘psychosis’ / odd thoughts actually cause brain damage? And without proof of this, what is the proof that ‘psychosis’ / odd thoughts actually need to be medicated at all? As Jim points out, “not immediately going to neuroleptics can achieve 80% recovery rates, while our system is producing 5% recovery rates.”

And from a logical standpoint, it makes no sense to me that the content of one’s thoughts – odd or concerned or terrified or whatever – would cause brain damage. Thoughts are just thoughts.

I am reminded of the independant crisis house in Wokingham, UK, that has a rule that no mental health worker is allowed on the premises unless invited.

Keeping your independance over the long term seems to me to be really important.

I was shocked by this statement in the article, “by the time people get to the age of 18, which is the youngest Soteria-Alaska could house, they had already been on neuroleptics for a number of years.” As Michael says most psychotic breaks do not happen until early adulthood, I was expecting that to be 18 – 25. So this raises worrying questions about the use of these drugs earlier on.

More proof, if needed, that state aid is a Faustian Bargain, and yet vital at times. In any case, amen to all, particularly Dr. Cornwall’s good points re ‘Leaving Home Psychosis’, which can leave any of us emotionally, and sometimes literally, homeless for years or decades.

Do you know if the people who ran the program were able to collect any outcome data?

I’m so sorry to hear the tragic news .It was a courageous and uplifting accomplishment to create and man these outposts of freedom even in the midst of the fascist state and for them to last as long as they did. Natural healing has a long history of being attacked in this country by the seekers of humungous profits that can be made by capturing a person in a weakened state that really could just be temporary and sickening them further striving to lengthen their condition for as long as possible through the predominately making people subservient by way of the pseudo-science multiple modality triple threat from pharma psychiatry , pharma AMA mainstream medicine, and conventional ADA dental mercury , root canal care , also the GMO Monsanto and company turning food into poison, corruption cartel. Lets not forget the neuroleptic nursing homes , with collusion by the fascist (merged with the corporation ) government, all together making up the back to feudalism Therapeutic State. We must join and make the fight for health freedom a big part of our agenda. Read Robert Young’s book “Sick and Tired ” and read of the subverting of truth that certainly has cost more lives, hundreds of millions and untold suffering beyond belief. The powerful control by subverting truth . They don’t care whats true , they care what grows their cash flow power and influence . They control the media and can easily confuse and control the population till they even believe 1+1 is 8. We need to get way more creative join forces with people who love freedom and truth and probably figure out how to raise or earn funds to support soteira like efforts where needed besides revolting against coercion wherever it raises its head in whatever way we are able to creatively do so . There can be no accepting this accelerating fascism ,feudalism , trying to shove pseudo- science down our throats from every direction through multiple cooperating cartels. The people have a right to their birthright of long life ,health, and happiness and the freedom to totally reject the bullshit generated by the 1% seeking to enslave us, shorten our lives, and behaving as if they own the planet . Expose the robber barons to the inside of the prison system they created for others. As long as people are in distress soteria like places must be there. Thank you for your valiant efforts.

And lets call the next Soteria like house organized Mozelle House .

Very sad to hear about all the problems you’ve had sustaining alternative drug-free approaches in Alaska, and particularly because the rest of us now have a few fewer places to look for that beacon of hope. This puts pressure on us, too, but thanks, and thanks very much, for the lead. The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is still very much there, and remains an inspiration to all of us.

Thank you for a clear and very relevant account, Jim! Relevant – because such developments are not rare but they are rarely openly and honestly analysed. From the painful perspective of somebody who was among the founders of the Runaway House Berlin – I can say – it is better to close the project in dignity than to let it run under the same name but not how it was meant to.
Around 2002 – six years after the start of Berlin Runaway House several people who conceptualised this project and invested years of commitment before the house could finally open – have jointly left. At that time it was already clear that the project is taking a rather different direction in comparison to its first years. This process reached tip of the iceberg in March last year when the grounding rule that half of the workers should be psych survivors was formally abolished. That decision was a logical consequence of all the other substantial changes that step by step took place in the course of 12 years, so nothing really new. However, the fact that this was not publicly communicated felt like the meanest part of it. It confirmed that the project still profits from its ‘anti-psychiatric’ history and sells itself as such, whatever that means. A Runaway House worker who took part in one of the panels of Mad in America film festival was announced as working “in the Runaway House, which is an ‘antipsychiatric facility’ in Berlin that works without diagnosis and supports people to come off drugs. At least half the staff are ex-users of psychiatry.” (http://madinamericainternationalfilmfestival.com/speakers-panelists/) The festival took place 7 months after this statement was even ‘officially’ no longer true. As a result of some pressure to at least stop hiding their decisions – the Runaway House team finally announced this change on their website (http://www.weglaufhaus.de/). Discussing the justification they provided would largely exceed the scope of this comment.
What I meant to say is – however sad it is that people will be denied access to your project, you also prevented Soteria Alaska from getting credits and paying salaries for a kind of service whose values and principles you don’t share anymore. To me, this is something to respect and add to lessons learned.
Warm greetuings from Berlin
Jasna

I will begin by agreeing with what others have said. The demise of Soteria-Alaska is a crying shame, and Jim Gottstein deserves all the praise he has been offered here. That said, the bad news should hardly surprise us. George Orwell said, “We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.” Previously, Frederick Douglass wrote, “Power concedes nothing without a demand, it never did and it never will.” I would substitute “fight” for “demand.”

For a demand is likely to be futile unless it is backed by countervailing power or by a credible threat. Following David Cohen’s very good talk near the end of MIA’s film festival last October in which he pointed out that psychiatry will be very difficult to weaken or eliminate so long as it performs a socially approved function, I rose and suggested that we are engaged in a power struggle with psychiatry. To prevail it will be necessary to develop power based strategies and tactics or imaginative ju-jitsu techniques calculated to employ psychiatry’s own claims and tactics against itself.

Only rarely has a power-free good example weakened significantly the standing and authority of a powerful bad example. Jesus has often been cited as such an example, but Jesus was murdered, and the example of the life he led has hardly had an effect on the quantity of evil in our contemporary world.

I have only just received Whitaker and Cosgrove’s new book, however I’m aware that it describes very well influences on psychiatry of such power that it would be delusional for us to believe that one more, or even hundreds more of compassionate, helpful alternatives will lead psychiatry to see the light and yield space, power, and authority to them without engaging in a battle for what it will view as its very survival.

So, listen up survivors and allies to the words of Brecht and Weil’s “Survival Song” and, “Don’t count on your mothers for comfort! Don’t you count on the better side of Man!”

We are all aware of the harm psychiatry has done and continues to do. It is time to begin thinking about ways to prevent and end additional harm. Toward that end I hope that the film, “Where’s the Evidence: A Challenge to Psychiatric Authority” which reports on MindFreedom’s 2003 hunger strike, can serve as a useful beginning case study

Dear Jim and other readers of the blog,

In my opinion we should stop all attempts to be “better psychiatrists” or “better social workers” or stop any drugs producing industry, instead we should concentrate ONLY on the core task: stop any psychiatric coercion, forced treatment and incarceration, as long as a psychiatric advance directive (PAD) has not been signed beforehand, legalizing any psychiatric violence.
If we concentrate on this, one can instantly see that it is a political question, as the mental health laws have to be abolished.
As a step in between we need to achieve a waterproof PAD prohibiting any psychiatric diagnosis, any psychiatric coercion, any forced treatment and any incarceration, also on grounds of the insanity defense.
The reason for this suggestion: as soon as coercion is banned, all “mental health” workers would no longer have the possibility for taking hostages, so they would have to offer their services and convince the customer that they be paid only for their efforts.
We did have success here in Germany with this focus on the political question. One can read about our waterproof PAD here: http://www.patverfue.de/en

Best greetings from accross the Atlantic
Rene Talbot
Berlin
Germany

Good suggestion, Rene. But here are two problems I see: 1) We often suggest, assert, and debate what “ought” to be done. However even the best of suggestions are not self executing. European countries are in advance of us here in America with respect to a number of policies. We still, for instance, treat medical care as a privilege to be purchased from profit making organizations rather than as a human right. So one problem is by what process, likely to be effective, do we convince our less than enlightened legislatures and courts to pass and adjudicate humane laws protective of psychiatrically labeled people?

This becomes even more difficult when many on both the left and the right have lost all faith in the political system itself and appear to believe that one measure of political sophistication is to deny the utility of our political institutions while they suggest no viable substitute other than some vague notion of “revolution.”

2) Even should the use of forced “treatment” be neutralized, our “helpers” would still, it appears, be permitted to lie and to promote their false and unsubstantiated claims of expertise. My own suggestion is that we must begin a planning process which will lead to the reduction and eventual elimination of the unwarranted trust and authority which the courts. police, media, entertainment industry, and general public have granted psychiatry. Biological psychiatry will begin to wither and die when it is seen as no longer serving a legitimate public purpose for which it receives public and political support. As always, “the devil is in the details.” Now is the time to begin planning and thinking about how best to create a new political reality which doesn’t include biological psychiatry.

I do fully agree with Rene that only when there is no more possibility of forced treatment – the psychiatric profession will have to re-define or re-invent itself. As long as they are allowed to impose treatment, they don’t have to change anything. But advance directives are just one avenue towards that goal. Also, we all have different interests and skills and only this one life so not everybody should be asked to work on one same issue.
In solidarity
Jasna

Jim, thanks so much for your efforts in Alaska, and your continuing work through PsychRights to bring needed attention and advocacy to those who continue to be caught up in the Gulag Psychepelago here in “the land of the free”. I like your following portrayal and rationale of Soteria Alaska: “… it is designed to prevent people who experience a first psychotic break from immediately being put on neuroleptics (hyped by the marketers as “antipsychotics), and thus transformed into chronic, disabled mental patients. It is pretty fair to say that 80% of such people so treated can get through their experience and on with their lives, compared to 5% of the people who can be considered recovered under the current psych-drugs-for-all, mainstream approach.” I find it both incredible and intensely frustrating that so very few in our current “mental health” system seem to have any inkling of this. Yes, to be fair, the 80% recovery figure (assuming this is that reportedly achieved by Open Dialogue treatment methodology in western Finland) needs to be replicated and corroborated. But what you ran into in Alaska seems to epitomize the saying that “false knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance”. The “psych-drugs-for-all” mainstream approach, as you so aptly put it, appears to be based on the false knowledge that psychosis is the manifestation of a progressive neurological malignancy that must be arrested by drugs at all costs. Ironically, this false knowledge often results in the very thing it purports to prevent: progressive neurological deterioration as a result of the intrusion and continued bombardment of toxic substances in the brains of its victims!

Anyway, thanks for continuing to “fight the good fight”!

This site attracts a very large number of very intelligent people with a wide range of knowledge about the “mental health” system, its deficiencies and the the harm it imposes. Furthermore, these folks have numerous good and compelling ideas about what “ought” to be done. My own principal interest concerns planning strategies and tactics for eliminating psychiatry’s deficiencies, the harm it does and in the process, eliminating biopsychiatry. I am also interested in planning and using strategies and tactics which are likely to compel biopsychiatry to make room for effective non-invasive alternatives which actually do help. I have made an effort to list for myself a large number of barriers which must be overcome if the changes frequently discussed in MIA forums are to ever be implemented. Is a lack of interest in planning strategies and tactics appropriate to the task of neutralizing biopsychiatry and clearing room for helpful alternatives available to more than niche numbers of persons who desire real assistance one more barrier which must be overcome, or have I just not been observing carefully since about 1970? This is a serious and well intended question and is not intended as snark. I should add that this problem, if it is one, is very common and certainly is not peculiar to psych survivors and their allies. I do understand how daunting traveling the path to real change can appear to be.

It is with a heavy heart reading this news, Jim, and am grieved with the closing of Soteria-Alaska being a witness to all of your and others’ efforts to make it work.

As a matter of fact, I almost applied for a job there, especially after reading about Dr. Mosher’s great works at the time of his death years ago having written a letter to his wife then.

One of my projections way back then was that what was needed was creating places of rehabilitation with ways that work, along with exposing the dangers of the “existing” protocol and standard medical treatment that were actually causing more harm than good.

The tragedy of Mozelle death touches me in at the core, as most people who know of my “story” would understand.

I commend you in all that you have done over the years knowing you since 2004 (I think). I do believe that even with this closing that the mental health reform will continue and shine with everyone’s concerted efforts on many levels and in many areas and organizations.

I, also, think that all that you have in documentation and vision in creating Soteria will be used to create other places in the future, so don’t give up on this.

When one door closes, another always opens, as the intention is there for the highest and greatest good of all.

My sincere blessings to all of you!

T.A.M.

oh so sad to see a healthy alternative be closed.
So many people die within the ‘conventional’ system and these deaths are accepted. And governments continue to support them.
How can this be so? We must speak up at every opportunity to say this, the system that has been created with so much support from commercialism is the one that is truly hurting our society.
thank you for all your work and may others have the energy to connect one by one.

I believe this is such a vital story that truly needed to be told, so thank you, Jim, for telling it so eloquently. I believe the lesson can be applied in many areas of our lives. DO NOT SELL OUT. This question was debated a bit in undergrad, as writing students. Do we write what will sell? Do we research the market like mad to ensure that our next book will be the Great Bestseller? In grad school, this question was never on the table. Be yourself. To write meant to tell the truth. This in fact became part of my unspoken oath the day I graduated. Likewise, following graduation, much of my disappointment in humanity had to do with my own observation of mass SELLING OUT I saw around me. I saw many terrific nonprofits accept pharma money and then offer poor quality or no service. I noted that “treatment” centers professing to be “alternative” had sacrificed their ideals for Medicaid funding. Many schools, colleges, children’s organizations, and even restaurants sold out to Big Money and shallow values.

Jim, you alls did the right thing. Do not support those that sell out. I can tell you I know, as do us all, that sinking feeling I had in my heart I had a couple of years ago when I recognized that another terrific local nonprofit in Boston had gone that way. It was the sound of a woman’s voice on the phone. She didn’t give a shit.

And perhaps you may have done what I did. We all do it. We get curious about former providers. Those young, ambitious residents. The ones so green they still have their innocence. They are so inexperienced that we recall teaching them a few things. I remember this one guy who was so energetic that my late boyfriend said to me one day, “Jules, I think he is a preppie. Next time you see him, ask him if he went to prep school. It takes one to know one.”

I did. Dr. B said to me, “How did Joe know?”

I said, “It takes one to know one.” Dr. B was human enough to laugh.

Now, some 20 years later, he doesn’t look much different, but he’s another sellout. Very sad.

Don’t sell out. Don’t support those organizations that sell out. Be true to yourself. What is real and authentic will win out.

Julie’s the greatest ! What do you all think about an in your face strategy of brainstorming and trying to put on the ground a real functional self supporting entire Soteria Village or Town somewhere as an example for humanity of what is possible ?

Dear Jim
I am so sad to read your text, and to hear that it was not possible to continue one of the very few alternatives to conventional psychiatry.
I want to deeply than k you for the work you do, for the hope you bring and for the knowledge.
It is for sure not easy to run an alternative organization, about that I know a lot, as I also think it is essential as you describe to be dedicated to the mission. One of the things I hope for future is that we describe the importance of dedication as one of the essential things when making change. There is far too much focus on “technical” issues, whereas we all know that without passion, collaboration and taking personal stance nothing really Changes. Wishish you all the best and once again, my deepest THANK YOU!!!

The former resident Michael McEvoy thought he was killing a dragon. Why did this happen?

http://www.adn.com/article/20131101/schizophrenic-sentenced-60-years-clinic-murder

I wouldn’t know I wasn’t there but one possibility is mercury poisoning from amalgam dental fillings alone and or in combination of use of any number of neuroleptics or in an abrupt withdrawal phase from them . Certainly sleep deprivation , a terror state , some other metal or chemical poisoning ,and childhood abuse trauma or physical injury could all be contributing factors. It certainly was a perfect negative storm of variables tragically coming together . And yet McEvoy bears responsibility . Even if he was in an extreme state and shouldn’t of been allowed to purchase a gun , once he had it and was bound to use it he should of first taken himself out instead of murdering another person. We need more Soteria Houses ,nationalizing of pharma companies with survivor over site over them, definitely an end to coercive psychiatry . Call psychiatrists what they are, most all of them gestapo neurolepticists. An end to pseudo science, and for people to care about one another.Plus where did even the semblance of Democracy go ? I do not have all the answers. Your turn.

Dear Jim,

Thank you for your good work.

I’m a member of Twelve Step Fellowship which I would rate as nearly 100 percent successful BUT I have heard of incidents of Tragic Violence occuring within these Fellowships.

I consumed strong neuroleptics for a number of years myself, and when I stopped taking these with medical approval I nearly went mad in the process.

I did manage to cut them down to safe levels to recover, and over many years they eventually reduced to nothing.

It’s not uncommon either for Professionals – Lawyers, Doctors, Policemen “Act Out” dangerously under the influence of neuroleptics or neuroleptic withdrawal. While I consumed strong Neuroleptics I remained disabled and was a risk to myself.