Hello all!
Our next monthly family peer support meeting is fast approaching. It’s hard to believe it’s almost been a month already! With all this beautiful sunshine we’ve been having, the days are just flying by. Looks like the start of a wonderful summer!
Things are very busy around the office but there is so much hope in every situation. It’s really an honour to be reached out to and I always look forward to hearing from you. It’s a great feeling to be a part of seeing that light and sharing that vision with you. Anything is always possible if we take it one day at a time!
I was so pleased with how our Family Peer Support Appreciation Dinner turned out. It was a pleasure for both Joel and I to honour your contribution to Nipissing Family with a nice meal and we were so happy you all enjoyed yourselves. You deserve it! The meeting that took place afterwards was truly remarkable. You all deserve a pat on the back for the support given that night. It was peer support at its finest!
Jane, our new teacher Maureen from True Self and I have been training and preparing for our upcoming NAMI Family-to Family program. It is scheduled to commence Tuesday September 7th at 6:00 p.m. Jane is doing an absolute fantastic job of preparing Maureen and myself to become teachers. As she has already taught the program twice she knows it inside and out as well as all of the tricks of the trade. Her dedication is truly amazing. So, thank you Jane, you are an angel. Please contact me if you know of anyone who would be interested in participating in our next course as we expect it to fill up quite quickly.
As we approach the long weekend, I hope you all have a chance to take some time for yourselves to kick back and read a book, work on some gardening or anything you love to do. Make it happen! The weather forecast looks great so Mother Nature is on your side. Enjoy! See you all Tuesday June 1st at 6:30 p.m.
~ April
Friday, May 21, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
THANK YOU JOANNE!!!
Also, a big thank you to our dedicated family members who continuously support our programing. You know who you are! I am so enjoying getting to know all of you and I look forward to starting up Yoga again in September with you all.
~ April Raftis
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Let's Talk About Schizophrenia - Dr. Frese National Post Article
Schizophrenia gripped the mind of Frederick Frese in the usual fashion, with an abrupt psychotic break in his early twenties that felt like terrifying insight.
Now a prominent clinical psychologist and mental health advocate, who is still afflicted by his field's most mysterious delusional pathology, Dr. Frese was then a U.S. Marine captain with an advanced math and science education, fluent in Japanese, and assigned to guard nuclear weapons at the Jacksonville, Fla., naval base.
He was also preoccupied with U.S. military failures in Korea, and China's successes, and he came to believe that the only explanation was long-distance Chinese brainwashing of U.S. officials.
Fatefully, he took his concerns to the one person he figured would know most about brainwashing, the base psychologist, who was only too keen to smile and listen, flanked by large men in white coats.
"I'm psychotic, remember, so it doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense, but to me it made beautiful sense," Dr. Frese said in an interview this week in Toronto, in advance of a lecture hosted by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario. The Chinese "had to have something, and the only thing I could crystallize on was hypnosis," he said.
He recalled the terror at his immediate incarceration, and his belief that the nurses were assassins. He demanded a priest give him the last rites, and surprisingly one did indulge him, going so far as to leave him material about how he could join the priesthood. Even when he accidentally saw his own chart, with the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, he thought this was a ploy by the government to protect him from the Chinese, and so he should pretend to be insane to keep the ruse going.
In a way, everything made sense.
Two years later, discharged from the military and living in Ohio, he had another in a series of relapses that would see him institutionalized by the state as "insane," but also set the stage for his unique story of redemption, in which schizophrenia was merely an obstacle to a successful life, a disability, but not the mental death sentence it can often seem.
Twelve years later, he had completed his doctorate in psychophysiology, and was appointed director of psychology at Ohio's largest mental hospital. The inmate was literally running the asylum.
That improbable process began with a crisis in a church, as the disoriented and floridly psychotic young man -- then unemployed with uncertain housing, like many schizophrenics -- walked up the aisle to stand beside the priest, his head awash in terrifying superstitions about the numbers 13, 3 and 4. Someone called police as he fell to the floor by the altar.
"I was like a snake writhing around on the floor. Then I was like an amoeba, then an atom," Dr. Frese said. "I had to be the hydrogen atom [the smallest and most basic], but isotope three, tritium, the kind used in the hydrogen bomb, the kind that would be "split," which in Greek is "schizo," the linguistic root of the disease. I had become the instrument to usher in the holocaust."
That was the summer of 1968, and his mind was engaged in what he now calls, quoting the German philosopher Edmund Husserl, an "expanded horizon of meaningfulness." In such a mindset, coincidence becomes sinister and all conclusions are grandiose. His brain "over-connects." For example, two major assassinations happened that summer, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, which fed his delusion that he would be next, to complete the trinity.
He was put on thorazine, the original anti-psychotic, the side-effects of which can still be seen today in his "bucal movements," the strange twitching of his jaw that makes him talk like a cross between Bruce Lee and Christopher Walken, with a southern accent.
He expected to be institutionalized forever, but instead managed to apply to graduate school, and over time was hired by his former host, Ohio's Department of Mental Hygiene and Corrections, to write pre-parole personality evaluations for inmates. Gainfully employed, and by then married, his abilities started to win out over his disability.
In that process, he flirted with the anti-psychiatry movement, helping to publishing the Madness Network News ("All the fits that's news to print") and making T-shirts with the slogan "Shrink Resistant." Now, however, he is more integrated and cordial with the psychiatric establishment, and sits on many prominent boards, some as the "token psychotic," although he continues to make jokes about how "chronically normal" people misunderstand schizophrenics.
That joke conceals his singular medical accomplishment, which is to provide psychiatry with a first-hand scientific account of psychosis, one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted medical conditions.
He understands, for example, why the bizarre writings of the prophet Ezekiel, "one of our people, no question," are most often favoured by schizophrenics, followed by the naked preacher Elijah. As for angels, he reports that Muslim schizophrenics tend to prefer Gabriel, and Judeo-Christians prefer Michael.
Dr. Frese cites the question of suicide in schizophrenia -- often by falls from a great height -- as a particularly misunderstood phenomenon, with so many investigations lacking the kind of sympathy his personal experience provides. He means that if someone believes he can fly, jumping off a bridge is not suicide, and in cases such as former U.S. Defense Secretary James Forrestal, who jumped out of a 16th-floor hospital window, what looks like suicide might in fact be medical negligence. Ever since that death, in 1949, windows on U.S. psychiatric wards are fitted with "Forrestal screens."
This week, in a lecture that is so well-rehearsed and folksy that it verged on stand-up comedy (although, he notes that a standard script keeps him from getting too excited, which risks a relapse), Dr. Frese also offered a re-analysis of the common image of a schizophrenic talking to himself. Sometimes this is because he is hearing voices, and there is truly some kind of hallucinated two-part conversation going on. But in Dr. Frese's experience, schizophrenics are especially sensitive to social interactions, and tend to replay them over and over again in their mind, just as everyone sometimes does, finding some solace in this role-playing.
He also cited social exclusion as an important factor in psychotic breaks. "When you get into these things, you know you're acting a bit weird, but you think you're OK, and if no one around you gives you feedback, you are convinced you're normal," he said. "I've been learning that you can't really tell when it's happening to you. If you knew it was a delusion, it wouldn't be a delusion."
Dr. Frese's last hospital admission was in 1977, but he is not cured. In the years since, he has been stopped by authorities for such strange behaviour as trying to dance among a group of Hasidic Jews at an airport, and his wife Penny is on a constant watch for the signs of psychotic onset, which she can manage with extra medication. He said it usually begins with a pleasant excitement that builds a momentum of its own.
Their four children are grown, but when they were at home, "Rule number one was that when Daddy's like this, the kids can't have any friends over," Dr. Frese said.
Strange as it may seem, dance is an important part of how he manages his symptoms, often retreating to his basement to play ABBA records and dance until he sets himself back on the path to normal.
When he was in the grip of his psychosis, Dr. Frese never really had intense visual hallucinations. Nor did he think he could fly. His delusions were coloured more by his fixation on numbers and his role in the military. But with his uniquely scientific bird's-eye view of the cuckoo's nest, he stands today as an especially powerful inspiration for anyone whose horizon is expanding out of control.
National Post
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2732294#ixzz0jzbBXpXu
Schizophrenia gripped the mind of Frederick Frese in the usual fashion, with an abrupt psychotic break in his early twenties that felt like terrifying insight.
Now a prominent clinical psychologist and mental health advocate, who is still afflicted by his field's most mysterious delusional pathology, Dr. Frese was then a U.S. Marine captain with an advanced math and science education, fluent in Japanese, and assigned to guard nuclear weapons at the Jacksonville, Fla., naval base.
He was also preoccupied with U.S. military failures in Korea, and China's successes, and he came to believe that the only explanation was long-distance Chinese brainwashing of U.S. officials.
Fatefully, he took his concerns to the one person he figured would know most about brainwashing, the base psychologist, who was only too keen to smile and listen, flanked by large men in white coats.
"I'm psychotic, remember, so it doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense, but to me it made beautiful sense," Dr. Frese said in an interview this week in Toronto, in advance of a lecture hosted by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario. The Chinese "had to have something, and the only thing I could crystallize on was hypnosis," he said.
He recalled the terror at his immediate incarceration, and his belief that the nurses were assassins. He demanded a priest give him the last rites, and surprisingly one did indulge him, going so far as to leave him material about how he could join the priesthood. Even when he accidentally saw his own chart, with the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, he thought this was a ploy by the government to protect him from the Chinese, and so he should pretend to be insane to keep the ruse going.
In a way, everything made sense.
Two years later, discharged from the military and living in Ohio, he had another in a series of relapses that would see him institutionalized by the state as "insane," but also set the stage for his unique story of redemption, in which schizophrenia was merely an obstacle to a successful life, a disability, but not the mental death sentence it can often seem.
Twelve years later, he had completed his doctorate in psychophysiology, and was appointed director of psychology at Ohio's largest mental hospital. The inmate was literally running the asylum.
That improbable process began with a crisis in a church, as the disoriented and floridly psychotic young man -- then unemployed with uncertain housing, like many schizophrenics -- walked up the aisle to stand beside the priest, his head awash in terrifying superstitions about the numbers 13, 3 and 4. Someone called police as he fell to the floor by the altar.
"I was like a snake writhing around on the floor. Then I was like an amoeba, then an atom," Dr. Frese said. "I had to be the hydrogen atom [the smallest and most basic], but isotope three, tritium, the kind used in the hydrogen bomb, the kind that would be "split," which in Greek is "schizo," the linguistic root of the disease. I had become the instrument to usher in the holocaust."
That was the summer of 1968, and his mind was engaged in what he now calls, quoting the German philosopher Edmund Husserl, an "expanded horizon of meaningfulness." In such a mindset, coincidence becomes sinister and all conclusions are grandiose. His brain "over-connects." For example, two major assassinations happened that summer, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, which fed his delusion that he would be next, to complete the trinity.
He was put on thorazine, the original anti-psychotic, the side-effects of which can still be seen today in his "bucal movements," the strange twitching of his jaw that makes him talk like a cross between Bruce Lee and Christopher Walken, with a southern accent.
He expected to be institutionalized forever, but instead managed to apply to graduate school, and over time was hired by his former host, Ohio's Department of Mental Hygiene and Corrections, to write pre-parole personality evaluations for inmates. Gainfully employed, and by then married, his abilities started to win out over his disability.
In that process, he flirted with the anti-psychiatry movement, helping to publishing the Madness Network News ("All the fits that's news to print") and making T-shirts with the slogan "Shrink Resistant." Now, however, he is more integrated and cordial with the psychiatric establishment, and sits on many prominent boards, some as the "token psychotic," although he continues to make jokes about how "chronically normal" people misunderstand schizophrenics.
That joke conceals his singular medical accomplishment, which is to provide psychiatry with a first-hand scientific account of psychosis, one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted medical conditions.
He understands, for example, why the bizarre writings of the prophet Ezekiel, "one of our people, no question," are most often favoured by schizophrenics, followed by the naked preacher Elijah. As for angels, he reports that Muslim schizophrenics tend to prefer Gabriel, and Judeo-Christians prefer Michael.
Dr. Frese cites the question of suicide in schizophrenia -- often by falls from a great height -- as a particularly misunderstood phenomenon, with so many investigations lacking the kind of sympathy his personal experience provides. He means that if someone believes he can fly, jumping off a bridge is not suicide, and in cases such as former U.S. Defense Secretary James Forrestal, who jumped out of a 16th-floor hospital window, what looks like suicide might in fact be medical negligence. Ever since that death, in 1949, windows on U.S. psychiatric wards are fitted with "Forrestal screens."
This week, in a lecture that is so well-rehearsed and folksy that it verged on stand-up comedy (although, he notes that a standard script keeps him from getting too excited, which risks a relapse), Dr. Frese also offered a re-analysis of the common image of a schizophrenic talking to himself. Sometimes this is because he is hearing voices, and there is truly some kind of hallucinated two-part conversation going on. But in Dr. Frese's experience, schizophrenics are especially sensitive to social interactions, and tend to replay them over and over again in their mind, just as everyone sometimes does, finding some solace in this role-playing.
He also cited social exclusion as an important factor in psychotic breaks. "When you get into these things, you know you're acting a bit weird, but you think you're OK, and if no one around you gives you feedback, you are convinced you're normal," he said. "I've been learning that you can't really tell when it's happening to you. If you knew it was a delusion, it wouldn't be a delusion."
Dr. Frese's last hospital admission was in 1977, but he is not cured. In the years since, he has been stopped by authorities for such strange behaviour as trying to dance among a group of Hasidic Jews at an airport, and his wife Penny is on a constant watch for the signs of psychotic onset, which she can manage with extra medication. He said it usually begins with a pleasant excitement that builds a momentum of its own.
Their four children are grown, but when they were at home, "Rule number one was that when Daddy's like this, the kids can't have any friends over," Dr. Frese said.
Strange as it may seem, dance is an important part of how he manages his symptoms, often retreating to his basement to play ABBA records and dance until he sets himself back on the path to normal.
When he was in the grip of his psychosis, Dr. Frese never really had intense visual hallucinations. Nor did he think he could fly. His delusions were coloured more by his fixation on numbers and his role in the military. But with his uniquely scientific bird's-eye view of the cuckoo's nest, he stands today as an especially powerful inspiration for anyone whose horizon is expanding out of control.
National Post
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2732294#ixzz0jzbBXpXu
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The link between genius and mental illness
Gifted, successful people with depression, bipolar and anxiety disorders
Men have called me mad," wrote Edgar Allan Poe, but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence...whether much that is glorious--whether all that is profound--does not spring from disease of thought..."
Many people have long shared Poe's suspicion that genius and insanity are entwined, writes psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, international authority on mental illness. Many poets, painters and composers throughout history have had depression or mania.
Some researchers, along with Jamison, speculate that mood disorders allow people to think more creatively and to experience a broad range of intense emotions. Jamison, the author of several books on mental health, explores the topic in Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament.
Here's a glimpse of just a few of the gifted and successful figures of our times who have lived with mental illness.
Bipolar Disorder
Anna Marie Patty Duke Pearce, Award-winning star of television, Broadway and film; author and spokesperson for mental health: After years of turmoil, she was diagnosed with manic depression (bipolar disorder) "She credits Lithium with keeping her symptoms under control. "No more crazy highs, no more suicidal lows. It's given me a life!" Anna said about her successful treatment.
Winston Churchill 1874-1965, Prime Minister (U.K.): "Had he been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgment might well have concluded that we were finished," wrote Anthony Storr about Churchill's bipolar disorder in Churchill's Black Dog, Kafka's Mice, and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind.
Brian Wilson, founding member, producer, composer, and arranger for The Beach Boys: "I went through times that were so scary that I wasn't sure I'd make it through," he recalls in a story in The Los Angeles Times: But he returned triumphant to the stage, having "emerged from his darkest, most paralyzing blue period to again celebrate his music - and the human spirit - with his fans."
Robert Munsch, beloved and best-selling children's author, of such delightful and irreverent books as Mortimer, The Paper Bag Princess and Love You Forever. “About grade seven or eight, things started getting weird and wonky,” he says. “I'd feel great for two weeks, then horribly depressed for two weeks.…" Munsch says he's not classic bipolar, “I'm depressed more than I'm up.” Antidepressant medication has worked well for Munsch, softening his moods but not stifling his creativity.
Art Buchwald, writer, Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist: Buchwald's career, built upon his razor-sharp wit, includes 30 books and syndication in 500+ newspapers. He talks openly about "the black pit" of his mental illness, having been hospitalized for depression in 1963 and for manic depression in 1987. Since his recovery, he has used his high-profile status to educate the public about mental health issues, especially about stigmatization of mental illness in the workplace and the ways it affects employee promotion, job security and work relationships.
Carrie Fisher, actress and author renowned as Princess Leia in Star Wars and daughter of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, was diagnosed as manic-depressive at age 24. In her book Postcards from the Edge and the film it inspired, she wrote about her rehab, electroshock treatment and recovery from her illness and her drug addictions. She has started in countless films and television shows and her memoirs and novels have been best-sellers.
Depression
Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States
In Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatnes, author Joshua Wolf Shenk writes: "Sometimes, a impenetrable fog seemed to settle around him... [At times] Lincoln sunk into a deep depression which deeply worried his friends and led in 1841 to aggressive medical treatment which probably made him worse.
Ernest Hemingway: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize (1952), and the Nobel Prize in Literature (1954), the novelist's suicidal depression is examined in The True Gen: An Intimate Portrait of Ernest Hemingway by Those Who Knew Him by Denis Brian.
Mike Wallace, Co-Editor of 60 Minutes "On two or three occasions, I came very, very close [to suicide]. But, when I got the right help and treatment, I was able to put that behind me....There's nothing, repeat, nothing to be ashamed of when you're going through a depression. If you get help, the chances of your licking it are really good….[Having battled depression] I'm more compassionate, I'm more understanding and, ultimately, my life has been a lot fuller because I experienced this," he says in an interview with CBS Cares.
Dave Matthews, chart-topping musician, composer: "I was depressed. It was not a good time for me," he told Rolling Stone magazine. "I was feeling remarkably alone… I don't want to be someone who writes about how sad I am, I'd rather write…with some sort of strength. Otherwise, I don't think there's any gift - or offering - being made. I would like to be an inspiring force." A new album, with an entirely new sound, essentially saved Dave's life; he finally felt good about what he'd accomplished.
Judy Garland, singer, Oscar-winning actress: Performing from the age of two, she starred in countless musical films and thrilled audiences with her live performances. She led a life of great highs and deep lows; through it all though, her inestimable talent shown.
William Styron, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist: After being fired from McGraw-Hill for tossing balloons out an office window, he co-founded the Paris Review. His books included The Confessions of Nat Turner, about black slavery, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968, and Sophie's Choice, which was made into a powerful and moving film.
After "having trudged upward out of hell's black depths," he wrote Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness in 1990, an uplifting and probing look at depression. He died in 2006 of pneumonia.
Zack Greinke, Kansas City Royals pitcher, winner of the 2009 American League Cy Young Award: Greinke says he'd prefer to remain anonymous when he's not on the mound. He quit baseball for six weeks in 2006 when he was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, for which he received treatment. Still extremely shy, he says he’s uncomfortable being around people. "I really don't like having a bunch of attention.”
Emily Dickinson, Nineteenth century poet: In her later years she would sometimes refuse to see visitors that came to her home, only talking to them from behind a door…After the late 1860's, she never left the bounds of the family property, occupying herself with her poetry, letters, baking, and tending the family garden. The most prevalent speculation is that Emily Dickinson suffered from some form of agoraphobia or anxiety disorder.
Kim Basinger, Academy Award-winning actress: `It can hit at any time,'' she says. ``You feel like you're in an open field, and there's a tornado coming at you. And you're just consumed by it.'' Even though her career was booming, she felt crippled and became so depressed she considered suicide. "My therapy was about awareness and education. And it lessened those horrible panic attacks,'' she says, adding that she has learned to face her fears and has regained control of her life.
Carly Simon, Grammy and Academy Award-winning singer-composer: Anxiety, depression and stage fright have haunted her for years. An early '80s concert tour was suddenly canceled when the pop star collapsed backstage. "I was lost. I really was lost." After surviving personal losses and cancer, Simon continues to be successful." I hope that people will be subtly changed by what I've said or written or composed."
Charles Schulz, cartoonist, internationally renowned creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip: He won the Reuben Award, comic art's highest honor; International Cartoonist of the Year award; and an Emmy for "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Despite the success, Schulz struggled with depression and anxiety, according to his biographer, Rheta Grimsley Johnson. But the struggle only improved his work, she found, as he poured those feelings of rejection and uncertainty into the strip and turned Charlie Brown into Everyman.
http://www.moodletter.com/GeniusMentalIllness2.htm
Monday, May 17, 2010
Looking for Some New Reading Materials to Better Help you and Your Loved one?
Here are Some Recommended Readings for you and your Family
Books and Publications
Mood Disorders, Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety
• Ajjan, Dianna L. and the Natural Medicine Collective
The Natural Way of Healing Stress, Anxiety and Depression
The Philip Lief Group, Inc., Canada, 1995
• Attacking Anxiety and Depression: a comprehensive, cognitive behavioural-based solution fostering strength, character and self-empowerment
The Midwest Centre for Stress and Anxiety, Inc., 1985
• Bourne, Edmund J.
The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook
The New Harbringer Publications, Inc., CA, 1995
• Carrigan, Catherine
Healing Depression: A Holisitic Guide
Marlowe and Company, USA, 1997
• Huber, Cheri
Being Present in the Darkness: Depression as an Opportunity for Self-Discover
The Berkley Publishing Group, USA, 1991
• Jamison, Kay Redfield
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Vintage Books, USA, 1996
• Jamison, K. R.
Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament
Ontario: Free Press, 1993
• Sahelian, Ray, M.D.
5-HTP Nature's Serotonin Solution
Avery, USA, 1998
Spirituality and Mental Illness
• Choquette, Sonia, PhD
The Psychic Pathway: A Workbook for Reawakening the Voice of Your Soul
Three Rivers Press, 1994
• Grof, Christina and Stanislav, M.D.
Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis
G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1978
Schizophrenia
• Fisher, D. et al.
Personal Assistance In Community Existance: Recovery at your own PACE
National Empowerment Center, Lawrence MA, 2003
• Killick, K. and Schaverien, J. (ed.)
Art, psychotherapy, and psychosis
New York: Routledge, 1997
• Laing, R. D.
The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness
New York: Routledge, 1997
• Learning About Schizophrenia: Rays of Hope
Schizophrenia Society of Canada, Canada
• Marsh, D.
New Directions in the Psychological Treatment of Serious Mental Illness
Praeger,Westport CT, 1994
Web Articles
• Almaraz-Serrarro, A. et al.
"Psychosocial Interventions for Schizophrenia"
Effective Healthcare
Aug.2000, Volume 6, Number 3
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/ehc63.pdf
• Cohen, Oryx
"Psychiatric Survivor Oral Histories: Implications for Contemporary Mental Health"
Center for Public Policy and Administration, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, December 2001
http://akmhcweb.org/research/OralHistories.htm
• Helmchen, H.
"Ethical Implications of Relationships between Psychiatrists and the Pharmaceutical Industry"
http://www.wfsbp.org/publications.html#2403475917
• Onken, S. J. et al.
"Mental Health Recovery: What Helps and What Hinders? Executive Summary"
www.nasmh.pd.org
• Szegedy-Maszak, M.
"Consuming passion: The mentally ill are taking charge of their own recovery. But they disagree on what that means" Health Medicine 6/3/02
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020603/health/3recover.htm
Journal Articles
• Davidson, L. and Stayner, D.
"Loss, Lonliness, and the Desire for Love: Perspectives on the Social Lives of People with Schizophrenia"
Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal
Winter 1997, vol. 20, no. 3
• Harding, C.M.
"Beautiful Minds Can Be Recovered"
The New York Times
March 10
• Harvey, R.
"Government wants mental illness stories"
Toronto Star
Nov. 26, 2004
• Johnson, S.L. et al.
"Psychosocial approaches to the treatment of bipolar disorder"
Opinion in Psychiatry
2000, vol.13, p.70
• Mosher, L.R.
"Soteria and Other Alternatives to Acute Psychiatric Hospitalization: A Personal and Professional Review"
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
187:142-149, 1999
• Susko, M.
"Caseness and Narrative: Contrasting Approaches to People Who are Psychiatrically Labelled"
The Journal of Mind and Behavior
Winter and Spring 1994, Vol. 15, Numbers 1 and 2
**All recommended readings taken from http://www.fameforfamilies.com/recommendedreading.php May 17, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Demystifying Mental Health Issue Myths & Stereotypes
“We failed to understand why parents of a child with leukemia were treated with sympathy and understanding, while parents of a child with schizophrenia were treated with scorn and condemnation.”
- Eve Oliphant, one of NAMI’s founders, in a break-through speech to the World Congress on Psychiatry.
Scorn and condemnation have long been applied directly to people who live with mental illness. Today, we still need to overcome stigma and discrimination within popular culture, professions and institutions. These are barriers not only to people getting help when they need it, but also to finding employment as part of the road to recovery.
During Mental Health Month, NAMI is continuing the hard work of breaking down these barriers by challenging common myths about mental illness.
Myth #1: Mental illness is a sign of weakness
Really? Tell that to Abraham Lincoln, who fought depression throughout his life, which “gave him the tools to save the nation.” *
Not to mention television journalist Jane Pauley, NFL quarterback Terry Bradshaw or Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash.
It is important to realize that mental illness is not anyone's fault.
According to the landmark U.S. Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health: “Mental disorders are health conditions characterized by alterations in thinking, mood or behavior (or some combination)…associated with distress and/or impaired functioning.”
No one should feel ashamed of mental illness any more than with other medical conditions. Of course, other conditions are often stigmatized, too. We are all part of a broader movement for change.
* Source: "Lincoln's Great Depression," by Joshua Wolf Shenk, The Atlantic, October 2005
Myth #2: Mental illness and violence are linked
The Surgeon General’s report states that “the overall likelihood of violence is low...the overall contribution of mental disorders to the total level of violence in society is exceptionally small.” Different factors may contribute to risks of violence, but they are things like age, sex, substance abuse, recent divorce or unemployment, which apply to everyone, not just those who live with mental illness.
In fact, about 25 percent of people with severe mental illness are victims of violence, a rate that is more than 10 times higher than the rest of the population.
One reason the violence myth persists is because of Hollywood portrayals in movies and on television. There has been progress in the past 10 years, but it’s two steps forward, one step back.
What Can You Do to Help?
During Mental Health Month, and in the months and years ahead, please help change the world. This may sound hokey, but we can all make a difference, no matter what our disability–if not as individuals or family members directly affected by mental illness, then simply as friends and allies.
We can all educate ourselves and help spread the word.
We can all play a role in demystifying mental illness myths and stereotypes and encourage acceptance of those living with it.
Posted by Diana Z. on May 5, 2010 11:52:37 AM in Guest Blogger, Health
Monday, May 10, 2010
Nipissing Family Program receives funding for the NAMI Family-to-Family Education Program
The North Bay and Area Community Foundation chose five organizations that were honoured at this year's fundraising dinner.
Community Foundations unite groups of people who care about their communities. They are independent, volunteer-driven, charitable organizations that aim to strengthen their communities by facilitating philanthropy, by partnering with donors to build permanent endowments, and by seeking out other funds to support community projects.
Founded on trust, Community Foundations help donors achieve their charitable goals by investing financial capital in their community, while stimulating and nurturing relationships to create a sense of belonging to a community. Social scientists call these vital connections "social capital" and have found that they play a strong role in defining community and individual well-being. With experience in building financial capital for their communities, Community Foundations also play a leadership role in building social capital, the glue that holds communities together.
The Nipissing Family Program, and specifically NAMI Family to Family Education Program, provides help to families dealing with mental health issues and works to better enable families to cope and address what can be a new and challenging time in their lives.
The goal of the North Bay and Area Community Foundation is to recognize the services these programs provide to our community, to celebrate the work they do and provide a small amount of financial support to organizations like them that may not otherwise have access to fundraising or community support.
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