Tag: peer support
A Tribute to Stephen Gilbert, Warrior Behind Enemy Lines
Stephen Boren, who posted here under the name Stephen Gilbert, passed away November 12 after a battle with cancer. Stephen offered a unique perspective, working as peer support staff at the same hospital where he had once been held as a patient. We will miss his daily presence on MIA.
Parachute NYC Peer Support Program Presents Challenges and Opportunities
Anthropologists study Parachute NYC to identify challenges and opportunities for implementing peer support and Open Dialogue practices.
Hearing Voices Network Launches Family & Friends Support Group
One of the HVN's fundamental principles is that "the person having these experiences is in the best position to decide or discover what they mean" and thus each person must "not try to speak for" another. The challenge for a family group will likely be for members to move past speaking about our loved ones to find or imagine the space where we ourselves are liberated.
Peer Specialists in the Mental Health Workforce: A Critical Reassessment
It is time to seriously consider re-focusing our energy and resources away from placing peer staff in roles where they support the mental health systemās status quo, and toward the goal of making high-quality peer advocacy available to people faced with coercion by the mental health system.
Recovery Is Resiliency
Recovery is not a bridge we cross and never return to. Rather, it is more like crossing a stream we ford by side-stepping on different stones. Not all of the stones are as sturdy as some of the others. Yes, we slip at times, only to regain our footing and forge ahead.
Collaborative Strategies for Re-Visioning the Public Mental Health System
The beauty of sticking around for a while is that weāre living to see some of our āoutsiderā ideas beginning to challenge modern psychiatric doctrine in the public arena, and our āradicalā mental health stance is slowly re-visioning important conversations and practices.
āPeers,ā Therapeutic Harm, and Buddhist Forgiveness
I'd like to be peers with anyone struggling against persecution, anyone struggling toward the promise of dignity and respect for marginalized communities, for freaks and weirdos. To fit the diversity of our experiences, maybe our definitions need to be as flexible and individual as we are.
Introducing Voices for Choices
Between my first involuntary psychiatric commitment and my learning that the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement existed, I spent years unnecessarily stumbling along on my own. TheĀ Voices for ChoicesĀ video series was conceived to help connect those in need to the existing movements and resources available to us.
Towards Resilience and Possibilities and Away from Diseases and Symptoms
An interview with Professor Jim van Os who says that, arguably, ālove is the most powerful evidence-based treatment in mental healthā. We discuss his recent paper published in World Psychiatry which envisions a future for mental health that moves away from symptoms and diagnoses and towards peer support and lived experience.
Learning From Each Other As Psychiatric Survivors
I'm drained by talking to people who might be first discovering basic truths about the mental health system that I've been aware of for over 15 years. But my excitement comes alive when I consult with people recently off of psychiatric meds who are interested in doing work similar to me, mentoring others about coming off of psych drugs.
Building a Support Network for Peer Workers in NYC
Peer Workers are actively organizing in New York City. This is significant because the mental health system is failing Peer Workers on so many fronts, and itās long overdue that we start organizing support for ourselves. Peer work started from a social movement on the streets and has ended up a marginalized and co-opted role in a broken system.
Sign the Petition: Fund Peer Respites in King County, WA
Community Peer Respite Planning Council is petitioning King County Council Chair Joe McDermottĀ toĀ fund peer respites in Seattle/King County, Washington. Help them get the needed...
Peer Support Reduces Chances of Psychiatric Readmission
A randomized control trial finds that receiving peer support from individuals with similar lived experiences reduces oneās risk of readmission to an acute crisis unit.
Revisiting the Rationale and Evidence for Peer Support
From Psychiatric Times:Ā A recent issue featured an opinion piece by D.J. Jaffe who argued that there is little empirical support for the effectiveness of...
The REST Project Support Service for Benzo and Sleeping Tablet Dependence:...
As a service user of theĀ REST project at Mind in Camden, I want to celebrate World Benzodiazepine Day 2018 by telling the world a little bit about what REST has done for me. Iām now 18 months off benzos, but I still attend REST regularly to process the anger and grief I feel about what I went through, and to support those who are still tapering.
Antidepressant Withdrawal, Online Data, and a Bottom Line
In this piece for Psychiatric Times, James Phelps MD writes about the lack of official data on the number of people trying to come off antidepressants and mentions the work of the peer support organisation Surviving Antidepressants.
The Town That’s Found a Potent Cure for Illness ā Community
FromĀ The Guardian: In 2013, general practitioner Helen Kingston launched the Compassionate Frome Project, which provides the town's patients with social services and community support...
Who Gets to Define āPeer Support?ā
The definition of āpeer supportā should be straightforward. But over the years, āpeer supportā seems to have morphed into āpeer specialistāĀ ā or, to put it more bluntly, psychiatric survivorsā experiential knowledge has been co-opted by the system. How does peer-developed peer support differ from theĀ peer staff model? And what can we do about this?
Students With Mental Health Conditions Find Support at BU
FromĀ STAT: For the past three years, Boston University has offered one of the few programs in the nation dedicated to teaching students who have...
Launch of Online Forum for Young People Who Hear Voices
I amĀ very excited to announce thatĀ Voice Collective,Ā aĀ UK-based project supporting children and young people who see, hear or sense things others donāt, has launched the first-everĀ online forumĀ dedicated to supporting young people who hear voices, as well as their parents, carers and supporters.
Admission: A Story of Solidarity and Survival
I survived not because I received excellent care from the staff on the ward. On the contrary, the treatment was objectifying and cold. Itās not surprising that many end up in suicide behind locked doors. I survived because I felt, however fleetingly, my experiences mirrored by others.
How to Reach Out to Someone who is Struggling
In this piece forĀ On Being, Omid Safi shares how an old Middle Eastern story about a drowning man can teach us how to offer...
Here’s Why I Wouldn’t Use the Mental Health System
In this pieceĀ forĀ The Spinoff, Graham Panther, a consultant in Australia's mental health system, speaks to some of the shortcomings of mainstream mental health support....
The Downfall of Peer Support: Are You Kidding Me?
In April of this year, Sera Davidow authored a blog titled āThe Downfall of Peer Support: MHA & National Certification.ā I do not agree with much of what she says in her blog, and as theĀ viceĀ president of Peer Advocacy, Supports and Services at Mental Health America I'd like to respond.
The Strange, Contagious History of Bulimia
In this piece forĀ Science of Us, Lee Daniel Kravetz discusses the impact of media exposure on the rise of bulimia and explores the social...