What does best practices mean when it comes to Mental Health treatment?
who are these webinars and conferences for anyway?
Reflections on Neesa’s Blog article: How My Schizoaffective Disorder Helps Me Help Others
So, I was just reading an article by Neesa Suncheuri called: How My Schizoaffective Disorder Helps Me Help Others In this article, the author likens the side effects (no pun intended) of not working and responding to the impact of paralyzing mental health symptoms as a strength. This […]
2010-2020 A Decade of “Returns” and New Directions💫
As 2020 fast approaches, I can’t help but think its necessary to reflect on what was the most ambitious, self-directed, and awe-inspiring ten years of my life. There wasn’t a moment I would re-live, so much to celebrate, and nothing I’ll ever be able to forget. The decade […]
The House Negro: Remastered
The fact of the matter is, Peer Professional work in mental health is now monitized, traded among agencies as commodities…
In Response to the Mighty
So, I read an article today on the Mighty titled: “I’m not high functioning- and I’m okay with that”. So, this is more complicated than it seems, to quote the article. In the DSM 4, the GAF or Global Assessment of Functioning, attempts to capture the ability of […]
Decriminalizing Mental Illness👿
This article was originally published in NAMI’s the Advocate Spring 2019
When is sharing too much? Is oversharing a real thing?🗣
Ive been accused of a number of crimes, socially unacceptable behaviors, and litany of outrageous transgressions during the course of my mental illness. While the majority of the truly grotesque periods and expressions of my mental health disorder where shadowed by the gates of a locked down unit […]
The Right to Fail
The right to fail. To live our lives as people that are flawed, diagnosed, mentally ill the the way we see fit to do so. In New York State, and many other states in the United States, unless you are mandated, or in a AOT (Assisted Out Patient […]
Learned Helplessness Must be Stopped🔴
One of my biggest struggles as a social worker in the human services is challenging learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is a phenomena in which clients, patients, or any person connected to a larger system becomes so conditioned by it that they begin to need connection to it as […]
Rejected and/or “kicked-out” of Treatment: Untimely discharges and subpar linkages🔄
Finding the right treatment fit can be difficult. Not only are therapists important to try-on, so are facilities, programs, and treatment centers. This article evolves out of my experience in St. Vincent’s Hospital in Harrison, New York. St. Vincent’s was my treatment center for seven years. I began […]
The Mystique of Psychosis
Psychosis is experienced by people carrying its active constellation of corresponding and altogether unique symptoms differently. At different times, along a spectrum, psychosis symptoms exist in a dark harmony, sometimes feeding off one another, and sometimes, working in complete isolation. The spectrum intensifies in many cases over time […]
The Peer Standard⚖️
There is an unspoken, invisible and arbitrary standard for being for every oppressed group living in the United States and everywhere discrimination goes without question. This social norm and standard of being exists even in the helping profession and the social welfare system for its staff, direct-service workers, […]
Dismantling state-level psychiatric centres: instituting full community access and integration
This paper presents a long-overdue proposal to the New York Office of Mental Health (NY-OMH) to close state psychiatric centers and discharge all remaining patients into the community. From long-term care and extended service units to admissions and adult, children, and adolescent services provided by inpatient treatment wards, […]
The Modern Psychiatric In-Patient Technician: Skilled Worker or Guard?
One of my earliest memories as an adolescent in an in-patient unit was the tall, stocky men brazenly hanging around the treatment areas, lounge, and nurses station. These people were anomalous. They didn’t seem to have a purpose upon first glance. I couldn’t have been more wrong about […]
Recovery is a Privilege
So, when you encounter people in your life that need help: reach out to them. Point them towards the necessary resources they will need to continue living without bounds
NAMI doesn’t Speak for US
“So, when I say, or hear, that NAMI doesn’t speak for us, it is because they speak for my mother, my father, my brother, but not me” The Mental Health Awareness campaigns of modernity (e.g. Mental Health Month), commonly associated with “friendly” and person centered staff in your […]
Living in Two Worlds: Navigating the Intersections of Health and Healing
“It was at that very moment I re-discovered the power of defining new words in the context of our histories can, if taken seriously, create entire worlds and a lifetime ahead of self- learning and re-negotiating our histories in more positive terms” Before I lived in two worlds […]
Community Health re-discovered: Addendum on the New Gold Standard
The rise of the Modern Health Home and fall of the silos gestures to the system’s attempt at integrating care, but, like most new turns treatment, the outcomes reflected the clumsy practices of the care management philosophy and regulations
Too Big to Fail
Too Big to Fail Undeniably, our support systems, both natural, and artificial, play a vital role in our health & capacity to heal from sickness. Our supports have several important roles in our recovery & ability to problem-solve difficult situations without incident. It is my professional experience as […]
The Jewish Ghetto Police & Today’s Peer Professional: The Psychology of Complicity
Background: Today’s peer professional in Mental Health systems of care share a similar psychological bend with the Jewish Ghetto Police or Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei. This unit was an auxiliary police force organized within the Jewish ghettos of Nazi occupied Eastern Europe. Members of the police force were appointed by […]
Dignity in Risk & Risk of Harm
Unquestionably, the spectrum between negligence and overprotection carries with it serious implications in clinical & peer professional practice in mental health. Even in our personal lives, we have friends and family we care for and we wonder where the line is drawn when it comes to caregiving or […]
The Future of Peer Movement: A House Divided Cannot Stand
“A house divided cannot stand” Abraham Lincoln They are familiar words that defined a period in this nations history that defined the future and course of world history. These words seem to be long but forgotten today in the peer movement. We expect people to learn from our […]
Lessons from the American Revolution, King George iii & the Power of Forgiveness in Mental Health
“Would you Forgive?” – Lois Einhorn, PhD During my most tormented days, angry and bitter over lost personal battles I sat in a lecture class centered around forgiveness, empathy and making our personal needs clear to ourselves and people around us. It was a rhetoric class and I […]
The Power of Support
Written by Sabrina Johnson LMSW & Max Guttman LCSW This article is intended to showcase the power of support for people with a medical and psychiatric condition. We all need support in our lives. Obviously support and its power to create a space of safety & even asylum […]
Mental Health & Higher Education
Too many people carrying a mental health diagnosis in higher education are subject to discrimination, unfair and disproportionate disciplinary action & premature expulsion from campus life. While colleges have services for people with mental health disabilities, treatment programs, and on site consultation for community vendors providing assistance, the […]
Hanz Medard
J. Peters
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