The author uses personal narrative to vividly describe his entry into the mental health system with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Based on his experience, he describes and criticizes a mental health system that forces people to endure oppressive treatments in the name of help. Interweaving first-hand experience as a patient with his later training as a psychologist, he challenges the biomedical brain disease model and advocates for self-help, empowerment, and peer-run alternatives. The history of the almost 30-year-old movement of activist consumers/survivors/ex-patients is described and introduced as offering promising possibilities for creating innovative options for services. Questions are raised as to why mental health professionals have absented themselves from speaking out against the obvious abuses, rights violations, discrimination, and social injustices faced by people who are diagnosed and treated for madness. An invitation is extended for professionals to modify and reconsider the usefulness of the expert role and instead to form new partnerships of collaboration and advocacy.
Although people who have been diagnosed and treated for serious mental illness are visible as advocates and for some new paying jobs within public mental health systems, there are few psychologists actively engaged in the emerging models of consumer-provider collaboration. The key values and concepts of the consumer, and even more so the psychiatric survivor, have received too little attention. The lack of information, dialogue, and trust sustains an adversarial relationship that prevents the respectful sharing of expertise attained from different learning experiences. The knowledge gleaned from consumer/survivors' personal experiences can provide a rich resource for everyone who attempts to aid individuals engaged in the struggle to deal with these painful life circumstances.
The purpose was to study the New York State Office of Mental Health's Core Curriculum training program. The 3-day program included recipient recovery principles, team training, cultural competence, clinical issues, and safety. Exit questionnaires were completed by 3,732 staff members. Additionally, samples of staff and recipients of inpatient care completed pre- and posttraining questionnaires and the Ward Atmosphere Scale. Staff sampled also completed the Work Environment Scale. The training was well attended and well received. There were statistically significant increases in communication and interaction, respect for recipients of inpatient care, and increases in cultural competence levels.
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