Outreach is one important, vital and proven means of “reaching” the otherwise unreachable. It is proactive, not reactive, a preventative intervention, its about finding a Cho, Lanza etc. before they strike, and perhaps, turning them away from harming others or themselves.
Fiscally, the return on investment in prevention is dramatic. Money put into preemptive action against social ills yields anywhere from real bucks savings and dividends… 300 to 1000% return is a good deal on any investment, and it saves lives.
Can we prevent mass shootings?
It can address virtually any social need in almost any setting. Given the
Continue reading Clif Wright – How to Prevent Mass Shootings
We did a post earlier asking for an honest discussion of psychiatric medication effectiveness, and now that mental health is back on the public forum due to yet another school shooting, it’s time to ask again. How about asking how many medications cause violence instead of reducing it?
Many medication users talk about psychiatric medication effectiveness they see. We don’t say their experience isn’t valid. It often comes back to the question, “How you would explain the root cause of your experiences? Some kind of physical deficit?” These theories about what the “root causes” are tend to lead people into
Continue reading Where is our honest discussion of psychiatric medications?
Recently, my favorite blogger, 1boringoldman.com did a post about four of NIMH”s mental health research grants that add up to $10 million. $250,000 each…. for what? It turns out they are basically me too studies or finding out answers that are irrelevant or already solved, or solutions harmful to us.
So here are some free mental health research ideas for these people to see whether or not they actually want to help us. These are ideas of programs that could help folks with mental health labels to move towards control of their own lives. All of these programs could generate
Continue reading 11 Mental Health Research Ideas
I knew psych meds had a wide range of problems, but I didn’t know about drug-induced lupus until I heard this story from my friend and board member Margaret Hensley. This is how she discovered and worked through her drug-induced lupus:
Last fall she developed severe pain in her peripheral joints, was fatigued and had loss of appetite. She was so sick that when she drove up into the Colorado mountains one time with her husband to look at Aspens, she could barely walk or press the button to release her seat belt. She was using a wheelchair by the
Continue reading Drug-Induced Lupus
Is a gnetic cause of bipolar and creativityin these chromosomes?
I used to think – only half seriously — that there was a genetic link between bipolar and creativity. One element of the theory made my friends with biology training laugh out loud.
My idea was that so many people with bipolar are also very creative, and bipolar is a genetic disease. So creativity must be nature’s way of helping some people with the bipolar gene live long enough to reproduce. “Live long enough to reproduce” is what made biologists laugh, an essential principle in biology absurdly applied.
I
Continue reading Are Bipolar and Creativity Caused or Linked by Our Genes? Part 2 of 2
This is the introduction to Sue Westwind’s book Lunacy Lost.
Sue Westwind
Marie Elton stared at the dust balls revealed by morning light. How did those get there? Hugging a baseboard behind the sectional sofa, dirt in corners always accused her. Their gray, puffy dots marked her secret scorecard: how was she managing house and family? Marie turned on her heel to find a mop. She was not my mother yet.
Agnes’ door was wide open; to Marie, it sounded like the old woman was clearing her throat. Was she congested today? Marie thought she’d check, and padded
Continue reading By Sue Westwind — How Mental Illness Can be Cured, through the Natural Nutrient Cycle
The National Empowerment Center asks how peers use social media
This short survey is designed to help the National Empowerment Center understand of how peers and peer-run organizations use social media and online tools. NEC will also use this information to get a sense of how to best help meet technical assistance needs in this area among peers and peer-run organizations. This survey should only take 5-10 minutes of your time.
You can read the survey questions here, then click the link to access Survey Monkey to record and submit your responses. Your response by August 10 is
Continue reading Survey on How Peers and Peer Services Use Social Media, Respond by Aug.10
Employee with an emotional disability
Editor’s Note: These facts about employing people with disabilites come from the Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities. Exact numbers might have changed since these figures were compiled a few years ago:
There are 31.1 million working-age (15-64) people with disabilities. Employment can be clearly ruled out for only about 160,000 based on Survey of Income and Program The employment rate for people with non-severe disabilities is 74% and 75% among people without disabilities The employment rate for people with severe disabilities is 25% If the employment rate of people with disabilities were
Continue reading Fact Sheet on Employing People with Disabilities
The seratonin molecule causes depression, according to the chemical imbalance theory
Physicians told the nearly 28 million Americans, who take prescribed selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRI) for depression, that a biochemical defect — a chemical impalance in the brain — caused their distress.
No longer do psychiatrists treat patients as individuals, with complex problems to be worked through in some kind of supportive talk therapy, but as a collection of neurotransmitters in need of a jump start. A 7-minute office visit produces a prescription for the latest “happy pill” on the market. “Never has a theory with so little
Continue reading By Erin Hebler – There is No Evidence of a Chemical Imbalance in Mental Illness
This post was originally published on MadInAmerica.com, Robert Whitaker’s website about creating alternative approaches to mental health care.
Peer support is an alternative to the disease model
Four out of five adults, youth, and family members of community mental health centers (CMHCs) in New Hampshire told researchers they are satisfied. Three out of four said their quality of service is good, despite repeated budget cuts.
How do people who have never seen alternatives to the disease model know if they are satisfied with what they have?
Would fewer clients and families be satisfied if they were told about alternatives
Continue reading People With No Alternatives to the Disease Model Are Satisfied With It
Online parent education for distressed, traumatized mothers
This following post was gathered from a press release sent out for re-distribution. Although we feel that a list-serv is not the cutting edge for peer support, this is still an opportunity to learn more and get paid while doing it.
The Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion has launched a new research study examining the effectiveness of an Internet parenting education and peer support for traumatized mothers with a psychiatric disability.
Mothers who participate in the study will receive a $100 stipend.
Online Parent Education and Support for Traumatized Mothers
The
Continue reading Online Parent Education and Peer Support for Distressed Mothers
I do not know if I have ever experienced “wellness,” but it does sound like a very good concept or status. I suspect that it was relatively short-term if I did.
Forget Recovery; I Could Not Breathe
What Is Recovery When You Can't Breathe?
I remember fighting for breath and clean air to breathe in a haze of cigarette smoke in cars, homes, businesses, and public spaces indoors and out. Smoking was ubiquitous throughout my entire childhood, adolescence, and only relatively recently have I been able to stay clear of those 125 chemicals and drugs for any extended length
Continue reading Edward Duff – I Can’t Separate Pollution and Recovery
Illness or Injury?
What is the difference between injury and illness? Could it boil down to who is doing it and who is being done in? Who is the referee? Is the rule book written in Farsi or Swahili?
Local factors make several public health issues relevant to the mental injury or illness question.
In fact, there are too many factors to know for sure if a problem is an illness or injury.
Pollution Causes Illness or Injury
Industrial pollution. People are literally being poisoned by industrial operators. Rachel Carson gives a pretty good rundown of this in her
Continue reading Edward Duff – Mental Illness or Injury Come From Too Many Factors to Sort Out
This is a hunk I pulled out of a grant application for young adult suicide prevention. I had this amazing profound thought during the data gathering about the minority and hispanic suicide rate, then a friend brought me back to reality. See if you can catch the drift faster than I did.
Need: “Mental illness and suicide are a sign that one’s life has become intolerable. The solution is to change our life situations.” – Judi Chamberlin, founder of the Recovery Movement
Our mental health system is rapidly becoming overstretched as we face year after
Continue reading Ethnicity might lower black or Hispanic suicide risk, or does it…?
Mental health prevention means people in emotional crisis don’t need labels and medication: One of the groups giving out a different story about mental health prevention is the Treatment Advocacy Center. Wellness Wordworks is focusing on solutions and not problems, so we are talking about these people to emphasize the importance of entrepreneurship and reframing the mental health prevention discussion. The answer is that we can’t use the same tools of money and political influence as people like these. We have to compete with our numbers, our creativity, our artwork, our passion, our honesty. Here’s an awesome speech about
Continue reading Why forced medication doesn’t work for mental health prevention
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