Say "Yes" to Mental Health Recovery...

Yesterday a gentleman named Stephen Batson sent me an email. 

The subject line? "another country heard from" ...

It turns out that Mr. Batson is the Project Coordinator of the Michigan Recovery Center of Excellence, where "Recovery is the foundation of service delivery in the Michigan community mental health system," it states under Welcome to Michigan Recovery" on this website.

"The Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) has charged mental health providers, consumer leaders and other community stakeholders to work together to promote recovery-based service delivery models."

Stephen wrote to me because he liked my last post on – Coming Out In Class. 

(By the way, I'm happy to report that 15 students showed up in my class this morning. Earlier this week, I had seven students attend with nine registered. This morning, I had 15 attend with 20 registered. This, after I shared with them the fact that my community service is mental health advocacy and I have a long history of mental health problems. I even told them about this blog. Things are looking up.)

Stephen told me in his note that he found me on a blog that's been running since 2006 called The Recovering Life with the tagline – Observations on a Cultural Phenomenon – written by his friend Norm DeLisle.

Norman G. DeLisle runs a small, non-profit organization called the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition and blogs like a house on fire, posting five or six times a day. He's worked in disability advocacy for 37 years, has background in education, Montessori, and psychology. He seems to me to be a powerhouse who works tirelessly to raise awareness and make a difference. He doesn't miss a trick and his blog is well worth investigating.

It seems he posted my Wednesday entry on his blog and that's where Stephen Batson comes in. "Every story makes us feel good about our decision to live real and open ourselves to others," he wrote, inviting me to check out his site. I did. It's amazing.

Then he invited me to a Recovery Conference in Detroit on October 6, sponsored by the Detroit-Wayne County Community Mental Health Agency, a real going-concern when it comes to recovery judging by its publication, The Advocate News, which is devoted entirely to mental health recovery and hope. 

Stephen asked me if I knew Dr. Daniel Fisher of the National Empowerment Center, which he founded in Lawrence, Massachusetts, near Boston. "Talk about leadership," Stephen said. 

As a matter of fact, I do. Though I've never met him. I know Dr. Fisher's remarkable recovery story and his spiritual and healing approach to severe emotional trauma, often the root cause of mental disorders. Having hope is crucial.

I've read several of his books including "One Vision of Recovery" – his personal story – and "A PACE/Recovery Reader" – an excellent historical anthology of writings about psychiatry, mental illnesses and recovery. 

My psychiatrist, Dr. Bob, was the first person to enlighten me years ago about the bogus claims that mental illnesses are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain – a theory that has never been proven. Fisher elaborates in his writings. I'm reading stories from substantial sources that corroborate this all the time, but still, especially here in Canada, the biomedical model which is grounded on this theory seems to stand firm. Psychiatrists prescribe cocktails of drugs and insist on diagnoses that rarely fit the individual. And people are getting sicker all the time, when they could, indeed, recover and live meaningful lives. 

We have universal health care here in Canada, but we're in the dark ages when it comes to mental health recovery. We're the only country in the G8 with no national mental health strategy.

Dr. Fisher subscribes to "recovery at your own pace." When I interviewed him several years ago, he stressed that medications can be helpful but only as tools, in the short term. There are other tools. Toolboxes full of them. He stated that he has not taken any psychoactive medication for more than 30 years. Community, inclusiveness, helping people to feel that they are not alone, that there is hope are among his prescriptions for recovery.

His story is recovery story remarkable. 

Years ago, as a PhD student, Fisher became delusional, ironically while researching the biochemistry of the brain in schizophrenia. He was hospitalized several times, treated like an animal, shut away and ignored. His psychiatric diagnosis? Schizophrenia.

So demoralized, appalled and angry at how he was treated as a psychiatric patient, Fisher vowed, then, that if he ever recovered, he would become a psychiatrist to ensure that people with psychiatric diagnoses would be treated with dignity and humanity. 

He finished his PhD, went on to complete his MD at Georgetown University and his psychiatry residency at Harvard. He has become a leading Recovery advocate, as well as a clinical psychiatrist – one of a tiny handful of psychiatrists who "are out" and openly discuss their psychiatric histories.

His interview on January 20, 2005 in Medscape is fascinating. Fisher is the featured keynote speaker at the Detroit conference, called Redefining Our Roles in Recovery: It's Everybody's Business. Sadly, my teaching schedule prevents me from attending, though I'd do anything if I could, I told Stephen.

But I'm following the activities of the Michigan Recovery Center for Excellence and Norm DeLisle's blog.

Then, this morning, when I came home after my class, there was another email from Stephen Batson.

"Hi again. I was thinking, on the way home last night, that we have recovery stories on this site. In fact, I will be spending the next seven days in Michigan's upper peninsula visiting drop-in and Clubhouses. While up there I will be video recording more stories to post on the site.

"I'm writing to you today because your article IS a recovery story. Perhaps not like the life stories many others have told, but yours talks about an important aspect of a person's recovery ... relationships' socially valued roles. So, I'm asking for your permission to include your story among the collection we have gathered."

Of course, Stephen. It would be an honour. My story is yours. As I tell my students, I have a mantra, one of several. "I live my life out loud. No secrets. No lies."

It's one way to find peace of mind.

Have a great weekend. I wish you the best, always.

Speak soon.

Comments

[twitter.com/commpower]

Thanks for the kind words Sandy. Your blog is always one I read, and I too was impressed by your willingness to use your experience honestly for your own recovery and to help others.

[Carolyn]

Maybe I'm ignorant, and it's not that I don't think there is a problem with the biomedical model. Yet, if it isn't chemical why do the medications work so well for those who have been properly diagnosed. Ultimately, drugs give me a chance, without them I cannot function at all. It doesn't, therefore, make sense that there is no biological component. We know it's not a chemical imbalance, but that doesn't mean its not biological. I'm not being argumentative, more I don't understand the argument that it's not biological (at least in significant part).

[Sandy Naiman]

Hi Carolyn,

This is a very good question. You are far from ignorant.

I suggest, and have always suggested, that there are many causes for what we consider to be mental illnesses or disorders.

Many factors involved – genetic, intrauterine, biochemical, environmental, social, cultural, "psychological" and experiential. Trauma, for example.

Here's an example from my friend, Tufts University Professor Dr. Ron Pies, who has written a book on the use of psychopharmacological drugs.

"It is unlikely that any one of these factors alone account for most of these disorders.
Just to cite one concrete example: we know that in identical twins – even when raised in separate households – the "concordance rate" of bipolar disorder (the chances that if one twin has the condition, the other will, too) is upwards of 50%."

However, there's the other 50% or perhaps a little less, that don't develop Bipolar Disorder. This is very complex. There's no easy answer.

There is also the well-established but rarely discussed fact (Pharmaceutical companies don't like this finding) grounded in years of research dating back to the work of the late Dr. Willy Mayer-Gross of the Crichton Royal Hospital in Dumfries, Scotland, in his seminal text "Clinical Psychiatry" published in 1954. In his research, done in the 1940s and 1950s he found again and again that close to 50% of people diagnosed with schizophrenia went into remission and recovered. Many went on to live normal and meaningful lives.

They were given humane care. No medication. Antibiotics didn't exist back them.

I wrote about this in July:

http://thestar.blogs.com/mentalhealth/2009/07/musings-on-schizophrenia.html

What I've said again and again, is that the biomedical model which focuses on drugs and at least in Canada, less and less on other types of therapies, like talking therapies, isn't the only approach to mental health recovery.

You need to be carefully monitored. Being handed a prescription after a 15 minute consultation simply isn't enough. That's all too common, here.

I take medication, too. Caroliine. Every day. But, I've also been seeing psychiatrists for 49 years – one, Dr. Bob, since 1991 – and continue to do so. Biology isn't the only answer. There's more to it than that. More to recovery than popping pills. There is no insight in the bottom of a pill bottle. I have gained enormous insight from my psychotherapy. That, and my medication, had helped me to live a full, rich and meaningful life. A productive life.

There is no scientific proof that chemical imbalances cause mental illnesses. This is a theory that has not yet been proven. It's popular because the major drug companies make huge profits from drugs they market for different mental illnesses. Yes, chemicals will affect you. That's for sure, but does mean that brain chemistry alone CAUSES mental illnesses or disorders?

There's no proof of that. I've spoken to many leading psychiatrists, including my own, who say the same thing.

That's why I am uncomfortable with the biomedical model as the ONLY approach to mental health recovery. I don't think it's very hopeful to be told you have a chronic illness. You'll have to take drugs for the rest or your life. Recovery doesn't mean cure. But it does mean living a full and meaningful life. It means hope. There's a spiritual component. Self-determination is another important facet of recovery. And feeling good about yourself and your life.

There has to be more to it than what psychiatry and the biomedical model offers. Millions of people recover from mental illnesses. You just don't read about them that much.

Here's a great site from Yale University on Community Mental Health and Recovery. Have a look. You might find it interesting...

http://www.yale.edu/PRCH/about/aboutrecovery.html

Take care and thank you for writing. Remember Carolyn. Everybody is different. Unique. What works for you may not work for someone else. That doesn't negate what's good for you. You do what's good for you. What works.

I'm thrilled that drugs work for you. They do not, however, work for everyone.

I'm very happy and grateful that you wrote in and questioned me. Thank you, so much.

Cheers,
sln

[Wendy Love]

This is another excellent post and I have spent some time looking up several of those links. Just when I think I have reached my saturation point for information about mental health, some fresh insights are revealed and I am so surprised and delighted. It gives me hope. I like your use of the word 'recovery'. I never give it a word, but when I am feeling well I would probably only get optimistic enough to call it 'remission' as I think that sometime, somewhere, that old depression will rear its ugly head again. But 'recovery' has a much nicer sound to it and I think I will hop onboard and use that word! Thanks!