Collaborative Strategies for Re-Visioning the Public Mental Health System

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For many years, those of us in The Icarus Project and fellow traveler organizations have been driven by the need to be direct actors in our lives: not just protesting the current system but actively creating new ways of living for ourselves and our loved ones. It’s this spirit of direct action and need for genuine mutual aid that has propelled my community forward and given so many of us a sense of purpose and camaraderie in a world that can be crushingly alienating and violently small-minded.

Importantly, I believe it has been our sense of outsiderness, a distrust of larger mainstream narratives about the world, that has allowed us to stay out of the public discourse and cultivate new and alternative ideas in our cultural underground. But the beauty of sticking around for a while is that we’re living to see some of our “outsider” ideas beginning to challenge modern psychiatric doctrine in the public arena, and our “radical” mental health stance is slowly re-visioning important conversations and practices.

Given the current toxic political climate for those of us labeled “mentally ill,” the recent publication of We’ve Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health is a solid victory for all of us who have been working hard to transform the public mental health system from the inside and the outside. The book documents a new direction of a growing movement that is increasingly creative, tactically diverse and full of visionary spirit. I’m happy to be one of the chorus of voices in its pages.

There are many themes that weave throughout We’ve Been Too Patient and one of them is the role of “peers,” or people like me (and maybe you) who have the “lived experience” of struggling with serious mental health issues and who work to support each other from a stance of reciprocity and mutuality. Where do our lived experiences and understandings of the importance of mutual aid fit into the current mental health system? Where does the wisdom that comes from hardship fit into the transformation of the mental health system? Can we see ourselves beyond the tired narratives of “reducing stigma of the mentally ill” and instead see ourselves as being part of the evolution of a sick society?

In a system that has always relied on the authority and hierarchy of medical professionals, the introduction of “peers” as workers creates the potential to shift dynamics in positive ways that are often challenging for clinical workers. At their best, peer workers create an opening in a formally closed system: a space which allows for new voices in an old model, especially if there is a vibrant peer movement outside the system offering alternative visions and creative practices. In this way the peer role is a potential change agent in a system desperately needing change.

Collaborative Strategies

The editors of We’ve Been Too Patient published a section of a paper I wrote just as I was finishing my Masters in Social Work a few years ago. After twelve years of working outside the system developing a peer support network and media project with my friends, I made the fateful decision to go back to school and become a clinician. My personal journey led me back to my hometown of New York City as a student at Silberman School of Social Work.

It’s important to note that one of the reasons I decided to go to social work school was that I desperately wanted mentorship — supervision from people wiser and older than me. After many years of navigating roles of unofficial authority in The Icarus Project, without any kind of system of ethics holding myself and others accountable, I longed for clearer boundaries and the power and camaraderie of a professional group. I was grateful to find in social work a profession where an analysis of oppression was incorporated into the healing practice and worldview, unlike other schools of therapy. I also saw that if I wanted to have an effect on the larger culture I would need to be able to understand how people were being trained to be workers in the public system, and it would help to have the legitimacy of a master’s degree. I truly wanted to understand what it meant to play the role of a mental health “clinician”.

But I soon discovered that there was virtually no space in my classes for fellow students and I to talk about our own lived experience related to mental health and illness. While we were encouraged to have open conversations about our relationships to other forms of oppression — race, class and gender — and there were multiple semester-long classes to make space for these important discussions, it was very much a taboo subject for clinical social workers in training to talk about their diagnoses and things like taking meds and navigating complex identities. While plenty of my fellow classmates had struggled in all kinds of ways, it was considered unprofessional to talk about it.

Furthermore, I heard stories from my classmates regularly about the poor quality of their supervisory relationships, and how little space there was for genuine reflection in the workplace. Those experiences made me realize that the kind of mentorship I was looking for was most likely not going to come from my school or the clinical environment of public mental health agencies.

At the same time, I was working as a clinical intern on a mobile treatment team that was a mix of clinicians and peer workers. It was an experimental project funded by the city called Parachute NYC that worked directly with people recently let out of the psychiatric hospital who were diagnosed with psychotic disorders, and their families. It was a very creative environment marked by a tolerance for uncertainty and a team who were all trained in Intentional Peer Support and Open Dialogue style practices. It was very untraditional and not surprisingly has since been defunded, but a whole bunch of us in New York City, peers and clinicians alike, had the opportunity to be a part of it over a period of four years.

As an intern at Parachute NYC I became very interested in the working relationships between the peer workers and the clinicians, in part, no doubt, because I was struggling with my own identity as a “peer” and a “clinician.” But my interest truly sprang from witnessing and participating in many positive examples of peers and clinicians collaborating for the benefit of the families we worked with and for the benefit of our team. There was so much wisdom brought to the table by peer workers, and because of the training environment, the clinicians were given the opportunity to be way more open than a conventional team. What this looked like in practice ranged from clinicians changing the kind of language they used in meetings to giving peer workers the authority, on the ground, to take the lead in situations where they clearly had more expertise. In practice, over the course of my year at Parachute, I saw the team leader genuinely revising the protocols for engagement so that clinical work ended up looking more like the peer work — a lot more power sharing, a lot more self disclosure. My paper explored the possibilities for the peer role on a clinical team to be truly transformative and visionary in the context of the public mental health system.

Struggles and Opportunities for the Peer Workforce

Right after I finished my paper and graduated from social work school, I was hired by the Center for Practice Innovations to develop a model of peer support and trainings in a national First Episode Psychosis Program. I was also put in charge of training all the ACT Team peers in New York State. I immersed myself in studying the peer role and the possibilities for integrating creative peer work into a clinical model of care. It was a very challenging job. For starters, while there are many of us out there who see the peer role as an agent of change, on a national level the peer role in the public mental health system almost seems as if it was created with the vision of building a cheap labor force to implement traditional clinical tasks like case management. There is an eerie lack of role clarity for most peer workers, which is a great way to take a marginalized group and keep them on the margins. There’s a kind of tokenism in the way the language of “peer” stops signifying “peer support” and ends up signifying “person with a mental illness” or “person in recovery from a mental illness.” Also, in almost every case I’ve seen around the country there is a lack of solid hiring practices, comprehensive training, livable wages or career ladders beyond the murky entry level position. All of this makes it really hard to work as a “peer” in the mental health system.

But most importantly, I believe the biggest stumbling block to the growth of the peer workforce comes down to an ideological issue: the medical model still dominates the culture and practice of the mental health system and that means people in peer roles are forced to navigate a work culture where they are seen as mentally ill and have to use language that was designed for clinicians to assess and diagnose. Underneath the ubiquitous language of “recovery” the medical model is waiting there like a guard of the old order to keep us thinking about illness, disease and disorder. “Recovery” language (which in the system where I worked often has “illness” embedded in it) is used as a sneaky way to keep the old power dynamics entrenched. It is very hard to build progressive practice upon these foundations if we don’t challenge the heart of the problem.

The labyrinth I’m describing is where I’ve spent the last three years of my life. During that time I came up against a lot of systemic issues that made it incredibly challenging to implement genuine “peer” services in the system, but I tried my best: I worked with a lot of really good people at the Center for Practice Innovations, a lot of people at the City and State levels who want to see changes, a lot of national organizers and researchers and trainers like Pat Deegan and Nev Jones  who pour their hearts and souls into trying to build better services for people diagnosed with serious mental illness. I made a bunch of friends and learned a lot of important lessons in the process about what is and what is not possible in the current system.

There are a few victories I can count in trying to play an evolutionary role for the peer workforce. During the time I was working I built an unofficial network of collaborators and we communicated from across the world with each other. I sat at my desk at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in Manhattan and had conversations with all kinds of system stakeholders and outliers who I now consider friends.

At CPI we clarified the language of the peer role for our programs and drew explicit distinctions between what it means to be “peer” and what it means to be “clinical,” in a way that is potentially useful for other programs in the rest of the country. In the ACT Institute we developed a Scope of Practice Document over a period of a year with a group of more than 20 stakeholders that is being used to clarify the peer role on ACT Teams in New York State. We developed trainings for the clinical supervisors of peers and created explicit tools for discussion about the ways peer workers transformed the culture of the clinical team. I had the chance to mentor a whole group of new peer workers and developed an Office of Mental Health version of Transformative Mutual Aid Practices (based on an old Icarus Project tool) to help them learn to talk about their inner worlds and how to do direct service work from a place of mutuality.

I gave endless trainings that attempted to challenge the medical model in creative ways: “Multiple Frameworks for Thinking About Psychosis,” “Minimizing Power Imbalances,” “Mutual Self-Disclosure,” “Trauma Informed Perspectives.” One thing I can tell you: some of the most amazing folks I’ve ever met are peer workers in the public mental health system and the people who train them. Another thing I can tell you: it’s hard for people like us to stick around the system for too long because it’s lonely work, and the system was not designed for people to bring their authentic selves, especially when those selves are naturally wild and creative. The persistent medical model language and culture, the old school clinical boundaries, the absurdly low pay for people without academic degrees, it’s often a recipe for moving on.

The Peer Workforce Into the Future

In 2019 there are cohorts of peer workers and their clinical supervisors being trained in practices that came directly from grassroots peer movements like The Icarus Project, the Wildflower Alliance and the Hearing Voices Network.  Around the time I started working in the system, my friends and I founded the Institute for the Development of Human Arts and we have been actively organizing peer workers in New York City. At the same time, we teach classes to mental health workers and are training a new generation of clinicians and peer workers to think about their personal relationship to mental health and illness. We are actively creating spaces for conversation about what an evolved mental health system can look like and trying to put our ideas into practice. We are building that network of mentorship that is so desperately needed for those of us working to transform the mental health system. If we put our energy into developing a strong and creative grassroots peer support movement outside the system, there’s a possibility we will be able to influence the growing peer specialist workforce in North America and help to positively transform the public mental health system.

If you’re interested in reading my article in We’ve Been Too Patient, “Underground Transmissions and Centering the Marginalized: Collaborative Strategies for Re-Visioning the Public Mental Health System,” and the rest of the 20 articles that represent a new generation of perspectives on the mental health system, learn more about it here. If you’re interested in being part of a reading group then be in touch with me. See you in the future we are creating together.

***

Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussion—broadly speaking—of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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51 COMMENTS

  1. I am thankful for your work in this area. 🙂

    Having said that…oppression and control are the name of the game at community mental health centers all over the nation. where I live…well, funding for hospitalization has been shredded, so the emphasis on outpatient treatment -can- mean the person/patient/consumer/? has more bargaining power, sometimes. other times, it just means…more olanzapine, depakote, trazadone cocktails, with the threat of court orders lingering over many peoples’ heads.

    i guess im just…not convinced that mental health, inc. can be reformed. i think in some places, where the variables are in alignment, it can happen (less rabidly ‘conservative,’ funding for alternatives, legal aid to the people/patients/consumers, a vocal subgroup interested in reform…), but…

    speaking for many of the “Severely mentally ill” in 21st century America…

    on a day to day basis, the best I can do is to just…do me, and pray+plan for a quiet, graceful exit.

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  3. I just wanna say I trained a few hundred people to work as peer in Illinois. I was one of the statewide trainers there. It was one of the highlights of my career working there.

    I moved out to East Coast and had to attend the state peer five day training. I was accepted but I declined. I enjoyed the peer job here and I’m grateful peer colleagues helped me get situated out here. I’m very thankful to them despite it not being lateral move.

    It was April and just now August I got an awesome job using my college degree and resume experience in peer leader role. I’ve already had tears of pleasure obtaining this. I also got a part time job about ten hours a week. This goal was so tough to get done.

    I was experiencing homelessness however I found or got support. I feel it was my pendant of my faith background absolute.

    I got food and then roommates. I’m a terrible roomie and I feel terrible. I’m gonna tell them this weekend how much I appreciate them and I’m gonna move out soon. I’m gonna get them both a gift later.

    This was one off the best summers of my life.

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      • Steve thank you. Without my pendant I am a something white guy in a scary place with many strange people. With this I obtained food at a Church. I acquired friends and roommates. I am a terrible roommate.

        With my pendant I confront shall we say dangerous people. I don’t move through this tundra in a disrespectful manner. I do it with my pendant. I have not ventured as a conquistador into a nearby dangerous neighborhood though it is on my to do list.

        Moderator Steve will you permit a YouTube as I give a video comment to this blog. It’s posted a second comment conveniently.

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  4. We don’t want to be sustaining the mental health system. We want to be eradicating it.

    We should not be seeing articles written by mental health people. The articles should be written by attorneys, because that is the only way we survivors will ever get justice.

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  6. Nobody mentioned the mental health America peer credential.

    I did ole peer certification and watching films on the peer movement.

    Seemed accurate not to do it second time. The mental health America supposed to be a national credential.

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  8. I didn’t know you trained ACT Team CPS. I was recently offered an opportunity to work as a Georgia CPS with a provider on an ACT Team and I opted out because I’m fucking raging and SICK OF what the CPS in Georgia does in the 1013/1014 72 hour psychiatric involuntary hold on anyone who so much expresses self/other harm. It’s fucking bullshit and I can’t do it and will not. To be the WATCHDOG for medication compliance or treatment compliance and spend my days signing up peeps for food stamps is bullshit of my time where I bill for 20x what the ACT Team pays me as a CPS. It’s all fucking bullshit and I’ve had enough. It’s riot time. It’s walk-out time. It’s time.

    I’m starting my MSW cohort 2019 program where I’m specializing on crisis, trauma, disaster and terror management. I’m out.

    Jen

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  9. I was impatient before I was a patient/prisoner, and I’m still impatient, impatient for change. When you say We’ve Been Too Patient, well, I’m not there. I was so impatient I bucked the patient part. So much for the “mental health” bubble with it’s incremental *cough, cough* change.

    What is “peer work” except a weird word for more and more medicalization. Cut to the “cure” (i.e. reality) , and we’re ‘over it’. I am anyway.

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  10. This article is disappointing and doesn’t deliver on its tantalizing caption “collaborative strategies” involving who? 20,000 peers employed by the mental health system who are going to collectively fire their bosses? This is not how revolutions usually happen. Re-envisioning is one thing. Action is another.

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  11. Jen and Sasha I don’t know if the Social Work path is any better but I don’t know that much regarding now. I know there is trauma focus but of what kind, range, and depth?
    And yes the Social Work Field has or had some really great stuff but at times and not in all ways and I haven’t heard ANY sense of this is what we did wrong and amend making.
    Those who came with a history sometimes were talked behind their backs and marginalized – who the student was assigned for not only fieldwork placement but supervisor – a whole world – truly -even those who had trauma issues during career- treated with kid gloves very hush hush hush whispers.
    And remember the field was created by rich white women. Kind of like the Abolition movement clarity but created by those who had more power than others and at the same time compromised by culture and society power grid.
    There use to be a MSW/JD degree. I would urge you both to do that.
    As a mother ( one hat I wear) I was confounded by being unable to use the skills I had required in my social work profession because I was unable to confront others and advocate for my children as well as I would have as a professional. I could go toe to toe , head to head with adults in the community for one of the kids I was working with and I also was known as a fighter.
    Could not do that with family especially children because ah college reference letters , place on sport team, place in high school cast, ect ect ect. And even then the fix was in in my community without being totally calling stuff out.
    So for the folks who say burn it down, I get but sometimes one really needs support and witness to call out the BS.
    Since you both know you could do this service. Think on it.

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  12. “Recovery” has so many different meanings attached. Many anti-psychiatry people oppose it.

    On the other hand militant pro-psych people oppose the idea too. Such as our “mental health” czar who also complained SAHMSA is too soft on the psychiatrized.

    I went to a “Mental Illness” Center for many years. Repeatedly they told us we would be “depressed” forever and would never recover from our “illnesses” that were created by the alleged “treatments” they warned us never to quit taking or our heads would explode or a comet would collide with earth or something.

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  14. Thanks so much for this refreshing view of the future! People seem to be afraid to speak of the possibilities in favor of pointing to the problems. I love that you noted training in “Multiple Frameworks for Thinking About Psychosis,” “Minimizing Power Imbalances,” “Mutual Self-Disclosure,” “Trauma Informed Perspectives”!!! This can only aid in the transition of funds and ethics to those who can really make the difference, such as Icarus Project and Hearing Voices Network. We need disruption into what’s not working just as much as we need something new. Thanks for all the work you are doing and for writing this to inspire a greater view into the future!!!

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      • Trenches, for example were to be when I was helping to get a Pentecostal daughter molester incarcerated. His entire church was standing behind him. And he had an attorney who has devoted his life to making all child protection laws impossible to enforce.

        I had participated in some earlier clergy abuse matters where activists packed the court room and also protested in front of TV news cameras out front.

        Those efforts were successful.

        But when it came to my Pentecostal supported molester, none of these people were interested in attending. And it actually proved to be exceedingly difficult to get him convicted.

        The activists would not attend. Familial sexual abuse means betrayal of a child by someone who is as close as possible. These clergy abuse activists did not want to deal with that. And being religionists themselves, they were notably offended by my own anti-parental views.

        So in the court room it was just me, no one else outside of the family and those others directly impacted. No one who only represented the public.

        So there should have been trenches, convicting molesters who are still married and still financially solvent is rare, I believe.

        Here it explains that only in sexual child abuse, is it common to find defendants who have money and can afford to hire private defense attorneys.

        https://www.amazon.com/Childism-Confronting-Prejudice-Against-Children/dp/0300173113/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=childism&qid=1566506917&s=gateway&sr=8-1

        The newspapers refused to cover it. I assume this is for the benefit of the victims. But the effect is that the public and jury pools are totally in the dark.

        So getting him convicted was a fight, and I had a ‘trench’.

        Though I did not know about it, getting this NY child victims act passed, must have involved trenches.

        Stopping this new forehead electrode device will involve trenches.

        Stopping this new Radical Neurodiverstiy Program, telling children that they are neurologically different from those who do not have ~Autism~ will involve trenches.

        Stopping the use of Psychiatric Drugs, will involve trenches.

        These are there, because this all comes down to political and legal fights.

        Reforming our inheritance laws will involve a huge fight. The only state which prevented disinheritance was Louisiana, including Civil Law conventions into its state constitution. But in the mid-90’s, a reactionary movement, changed state laws. Legal scholars at Tulane vowed to overturn the new changes. But the Right then amended the state constitution. So there are already trenches.

        Each time one of these issues lands in my lap, I see it as the Burning Bush.

        And then here today, talking about Violence Against Women Act

        ”
        And Trump quietly, this past April, rolled back the definition of what domestic violence is. It took us a very long time to move away from the judicial definition of domestic violence, towards the much more comprehensive view of what domestic violence means, you know, talking about emotional abuse and verbal abuse and so much more. It was a very long, comprehensive list of what that is, and it took years to get there. And as of April, it was rolled back to just one sentence.

        And so, the Violence Against Women Act provides funding for indigenous communities so that they can continue to educate and work with people, with victims of all sorts of crimes — sexual assault, rape, domestic violence. And it’s a much-needed act that is used to help keep our people safe.
        ”

        https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/22/mark_trahant_christine_nobiss_mark_charles#transcript

        I think this is all a whole bunch of trench fights, and that it is very relevant to psychiatric and sexual abuse survivors. It all gets down to attacks on personal legitimacy, and the middle-class family is one of the most prevalent abusers.

        https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/22/mark_trahant_christine_nobiss_mark_charles#transcript

        And then someone else is being brought into our county hospital by police, psychiatric hold, and they will be drugged. Before they are allowed to leave they will have been given a diagnosis and a prescription for more drugs. And most people will accept these drugs gratefully.

        No one is protesting outside the office of that Psychotherapist, and no one is protesting outside of our County Hospital.

        There are places for trench fights all over. There are legal and political battles underway continually.

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          • I am not aware of any sustained opposition to the mental health system, not where I am.

            Mostly the mental health system seems still tied to the middle-class family and the self-reliance ethic.

            So commonly, suburbanites might start taking their child to a psychotherapist. I think that should have to be reported as suspected child abuse, so it can be under court supervision.

            Or another example is that a poor person, or a homeless person, will get detained by police. Because there is really no justification for making an arrest, they get sent to the county hospital for a psychiatric hold.

            Before they are released they will have been drugged, diagnosed, and given a prescription for more drugs.

            It seems to be a means of control and regulation. As from now they will always be keeping white coat appointments.

            And most important is that the party come to believe in this idea ~mental illness~. It is very much like how they get children to believe in ~Autism~ ~Asperger’s~ and ~neurological difference~.

            So in all these cases there is no resistance whatsoever.

            We see people posting here that it is only because of his meds, that their son gets to live at home, otherwise he has to go to the homeless shelter.

            And then our county’s mental health and substance abuse people have all day long meetings with religious outreach groups, and they talk about Recovery, and our mental health people profess allegiance to this. And the religious people are so proud of themselves, getting involved in recovery, besides just offering salvation.

            It sucks, totally. Zero resistance. The most that ever happens is people argue for compassion, in making sure that the needy get their therapy and drugs. Local government wants to house the homeless, but it is always integrated with onsite mental health services. And that means that people will not be seen as people, they will be patients.

            Trenches suggests a war of attrition, mobile break thru’s not likely.

            We cannot approach that this way, trying to argue with psychotherapists and psychiatrists. I say what we have to score public victories, by putting some out of business, and even getting some incarcerated. But we also have to go after the families. Right now they can do this to a child, and there is no consequence.

            And then barricades is suggestive of the Paris Commune, a Temporary Autonomous Zone. Nothing short of a tank could safely drive through a barricade.

            https://thefunambulistdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/barricade-paris-1945.jpg

            But that was a time when that Louis Napoleon III had started a war with Germany and lost it and got captured. So central authority had broken down.

            Here in the US I think it possible that central authority could break down over the Immigrant Detention Centers, and those who might act to liberate them. The country does seem rudderless, as Trump just throws out one extreme idea after another, not having committed to any actual plan for anything.

            Another way is communes. Try to build up a group. The people have agreed to some things, and they take care of each other. And they engage in political activism.

            It is socially a Temporary Autonomous Zone. Legally though it is like everywhere else, and the people do stay lawful.

            Eventually there should be ways to make legal reforms. Much progress in the US today has been just the result of sustained campaigns of strategic lawsuits.

            Otherwise I am not seeing much progress. But in the US, politics is still coded by race, and so I do see these immigrant issues as being underreported on in the news, and as very important.

            For myself I would like to become bi-national, spreading my time between the US and a second home in Mexico. Another culture, another language, it gives me a new life.

            Oldhead, I value your opinions, your learning, and your experience. Where do you think we can push to make some progress, and doing this how?

            I am involved with numerous political struggles right now. For one thing I am trying to take down a faction of local government which is overtly using racism and violating voting rights laws, to bolster their real estate profiteering.

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  17. PacificDawn, I think what we need to do is stop the masses from needing/wanting an expert. This would terminate the system as we know it! In my local area we have a network of mental health professionals, and those who may not identify as such, trying to break apart the medical model. We have sought to establish more HVN groups, one in a hospital setting, and we have secured NAMI folks trained in HVN which is beginning to change the paths that families choose to get their needs met. I’m an active advocate of peer respite, so long as it’s governed by peers. To shift the funding away from the so called expert you almost have to show the payers how alternative ideas will meet the need that some people will still think they need an expert for, but to do that it seems you need money. UG… In my local network we have also been implementing community wide education about alternatives for healing such as what is found in HVN, Icarus, Mad in America, and Madness Radio. Clearly there is still oppression/ignorance, and so much more, in much of the US, but I know people, many of whom think themselves experts, across the US that are fighting everyday to abolish the system as it is known today to transform how our masses see truth. I am always looking for new ways to do this work and I appreciate your question of how can we make it happen faster. I understand why legal proceedings seem right, and while some of them are, I still think the masses won’t follow until they are shown a healthy path loudly to detour those stuck, and holding us stuck, in old ways of thinking that perpetuate pathologizing rather than finding effective alternatives.

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  19. Teresa Kirchner, I agree with you only to a most limited degree. Getting people to see that they do not need or want these experts is a first small step. But these other things you speak of, I would call them the no-diagnosis therapy and recovery approach. We do not need or want these either. What they amount to is teaching people to live a so called life that is without honor. There is no redress in them, no justice.

    Psychiatry and the medical model make the experience of injustice into a medical project.

    But this healing, therapy, and recovery model make the experience of injustice into a self-improvement project. It pathologises the evolutionarily developed instincts to fight back and to penalize foes.

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    • Agreed… Problem is when we identify with disability because we feel the inability to succeed as we once did so we ask for help. This is why communities like HVN are so useful. Susan Robinson said in her Ted Talk… “In the spirit of incentivising the rampant failure of people all over the world, and enticing the so called normal to just give it a rest already, here are 5 tips to fail at being disabled.” My other favorite quote of hers… “Flip expectation upside down and shove limitation (The mental health system- not in Susan’s quote :)) of a cliff to meet it’s demise.”

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    • Sorry I failed to quote that accurately. “In the spirit of NOT incentivising the rampant failure of people all over the world, and enticing the so called normal to give it a rest already, here are 5 tips to fail at being disabled.” “Flip expectation upside down and shove limitation off a cliff to meet it’s demise.” Susan Robinson Pathology is certainly perpetuated by the inability to realize normal doesn’t exist.

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  23. I received a notice from our local public school they had a stranger refusing to leave school property taken to the hospital for mental health evaluation. Clearly the hospital is an awful option, or worse yet the Jail. What is it that you would like PacificDawn??? Seriously, I’m just curious if you have a vision of what you would have society do until we live in a world of appreciation and success for neurodiversity??? Australia’s Living Edge- (A peer administrated emergency department )is my among my favorite solutions so far but I’m certainly looking for other ideas.

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  25. Well, others have been involved in anti-psychiatry longer than I.

    The best option seems to be that if someone is breaking the law, the police have to either advise, cite, or arrest.

    Treating it as ~mental illness~ does not help. It is just a way of taking away the party’s personhood.

    But also, some laws are too harsh.

    As far as ~neurodiverstiy~ I am 100% opposed to that, it is just a way of promulgating the concept of ~Autism~ and that is simply a way of legitimating the abuse of children and adults.

    We could have more humane jails, but I would be opposed to anything which promotes the idea of ~mental illness~ or ~psychotherapy~.

    I encourage 100% resistance to all ~psychotherapy~ and ~recovery~.

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  26. Teresa Kirchner, thinking about my reply over the weekend, I want to clarify.

    As far as ~Mental Health~ and ~Psychiatry~ I don’t think there is anything to discuss. It already falls within the Nuremburg precedents, so it should be prosecuted in International Court. The post war German constitution provides for this, and this is done.

    I say that those who have been drugging children should get the maximum penalty.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_trial

    With ~Autism – Aspergers Neurological Difference~, pretty much the same.

    Now as far as the Recovery and Salvation Industries, we cannot eradicate these. Adults can consent to talk with and meet with whom ever they want. But as it stands now or government is driving it. This we must prohibit.

    Then for Psychotherapy, cannot eradicate it, it is just talk.

    But, as it is a con game, we must stop our government from licensing it. And we must require court supervision when done on a minor, as it is used as a child abuse service.

    Now, for the specific example you posted, a guy being unlawfully at a school and causing a problem. Two issued, handing him fairly because that goes to who and what we are, and protecting the school.

    ~Mental Health~ is bullshit. Should not use that.

    Psych hold only keeps the guy away for a couple of days. Does not do much.

    So if police warn him, next step is to take him to interrogation cell. This happens anyway if you say the wrong things to your psychotherapist.

    At some step they can search his car and home. They can request and get court restraining order. So if he does not comply, court can lock him up for some time. And then it can go up from there.

    Police know how to diffuse people who just want attention. Court order will do the job. So know benefit in trying to treat it as ~Mental Health~. Can protect school and be fair with suspect.

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