Tag: Peer

Auschwitz and the Liberation of Ruth


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 […]

From The Revisionist: Rise of the Prosumer


“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 Mobility of Recovery


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 […]

Kendra Died for US💝


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 […]

Socializing in the Hospital🏥


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 […]

The Fear of Self-Disclosure🗣


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 […]

Respecting the Boundaries of Others


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 […]

Operation Psych-OUT


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 […]