We’re survivors”, Ruth said, reminding me yet again that this too shall pass. I worked alongside Ruth at a mental health clinic down in the barrio, 3rd Avenue. The Bronx, as south as it gets before the bridge into Manhattan and slightly further, Queens, Astoria country. Ruth had […]
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 […]
“In the future, further work should deconstruct categories of medicine, psychiatry, and social work and encourage strength based approaches that will supplant new-institutionalization and create a new gold standard in treatment” (Maxwell Guttman, Mental Health Diagnosis: Axioms, Continuum, and Future Directions) 2018 “Congratulations, Jacques, on your publication!” Jonas, […]
The peer world is divided. Okay, so that’s not news. Either are the divisions within the mental health community on how to best advocate and push for better health care. However, are we really as divided as it seems? Or are we overlooking fundamentally important aspects about providing […]
I have traveled all over the world. Before, after, and during my most psychotic episodes, I have been privileged in the realm of touring, traveling and seeing the world at large. After I attempted suicide in high school, my parents took me on a Caribbean cruise on a […]
I’m am very much public about my status as a prosumer in the mental health community. I’ve outed myself time and again. People ask me about my book series all the time, which is also very much congruent with my prosumer identity: “Max, what is so different about […]
I am a rhetoric scholar and a person with lived experience with schizophrenia. I am also a prosumer. My identity aside, the status of Disability studies and narratives, memoirs, and stories that aim to reclaim the writers lost authorial voice are in demand. These stories offer catharsis—Upon reflection, […]
There is an undeniable mobility to recovery. Moving forward in your path to health and healing requires an inertia. From rate of recovery, the very speed and velocity required to push life’s pash setbacks, to identifying a sustainable pace, is a space and feat that requires a high […]
I’ve said it before and I will say it again. I am an overweight Jewish man from New York State with an active schizophrenia diagnosis. I have been committed to involuntary treatment numerous times for different length of stays at both local and state psychiatric hospitals across New […]
Today I received a certified letter from my apartment building’s management company stating there is noise emanating from my studio during the day and late night hours. Without question, my neighbors directly underneath my studio contacted the management company and lodged a complaint. These are the same neighbors […]
Sometimes, school crises erupt on college campus’s unexpectedly. Other times, there is a slow build up of tension before the crescendo. The crescendo can be violence, hate speech, or any number of plausible incidents that can manifest on a college campus. Ten years ago in Binghamton, I was […]
My parents have been there during the darkest moments of my recovery and during the most triumphant. From the very beginning, my parents have been present with me in my health and healing, and if my prayers are answered,they will be with me until the very end. My […]
After being admitted to the hospital, and settling down on the the unit as best as possible, changing into hospital garb, there is little to do than to sit, wait for treatment team meetings, medication time, meals, and pace up and down the hallways. Another option for passing […]
Without question, all of us involved with the mental health system, treatment, peer advocacy, and those with a vested interest in the health and wellness of our friends use language to talk about, explain, articulate, or just commensurate about subjects involving mental health, health, and the world-at-large. As […]
We all talk about ourselves to other people in our lives. We talk about the day-to-day bullshit, the victories, however small, the good, the bad; all of it. As a therapist, peer, disability rights advocate, and just plain people person, I love talking to people about just about […]
This is the 100th article posted on Mental Health Affairs. All of us at Mental Health Affairs have aimed to bring readers the most critical and rigorous analytical commentary on the status of medicine, psychiatry, social work, psychology, and allied fields intersecting with mental health care today in […]
Everyone has a personal set of boundaries. These are the personal and professional invisible rules associated with how we decide to rule our interpersonal lives. There is no question that the more clear these boundaries are to others the more successful we will be in our personal and […]
Today, it is just a relic, a hold over, no doubt a living anachronism of the sadism of so called modern medicine & the sins of psychiatry. But that was then when I first agreed to this calling. Back then, before the last discharge at New York State […]
In the throws of madness I have found some form of peace to hold on to as an anchor in discovering my innermost serenity. Only in the very end of my tormented nights was I unable to identify a technique to self-manage the chaos around me. By that […]
Background: I have been a consumer of mental health services for a litany of diagnoses including but not limited to NPD. With this said, this presentation is intended to explore existing definitions of NPD and offer additional insight into other possible treatment pathways for people seeking support and […]
Symptom Activation Crossing into Broome County New York my vehicle was immediately pulled over by a state trooper. The trooper insisted that a car was weaving in and out of traffic in the vicinity I was driving. While he issued me no ticket, he followed me all the […]
There seems to be several types of mental health blogs on the market. Clinical blogs, peer blogs based on personal experiences, hybrid blogs which combine both aspects of recovery, and research re-blogged materials from across the web. I would hazard to say blogs focusing on prevention and the […]
When a person walks into a medical facility, hospital, or otherwise, they walk right past the gift shop. Usually, people walk right past it, just to ask someone else passing by: “where is the gift shop?” because they were headed there anyway and didn’t see it on their […]
I can never figure out why people choose to be angry. It is a choice. As a therapist, I diagnose people with Intermittent Explosive disorder from the DSM 5. I also provide treatment for the person carrying the diagnosis, help in terms of psychoeducation for the person diagnosed […]
The Living Room model suggests that people in crisis are going to go the Emergency Room (ER/ED) if they cannot resolve the emergent dilemmas overwhelming them in the moment. These emergent dilemmas can be anything from new or worsening symptoms to a change in life circumstance, or a […]
Mental Health Affairs 
You must be logged in to post a comment.