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Peers in the Workforce: Reversing Misconceptions and Succeeding
This article is part of a quarterly series giving voice to the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences as they share their opinions on a particular topic. The authors of this column facilitated a focus group of their peers to inform this writing. The authors are served by Services for...
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Treatment Works! The Recipe to Recovery and Storytelling as Medicine
When I was training to be a child psychiatrist many years ago, I had a mentor who was one of the most well-known and beloved child psychiatrists in Illinois: Jay Hirsch, MD. Jay had many sayings, quotes, and “clinical pearls” he taught all of us and I continue to use today. One of my favorites...
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A System in Transformation
This article is part of a quarterly series giving voice to the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences as they share their opinions on a particular topic. The authors of this column facilitated a focus group of their peers to inform this writing. The authors are served by Services for...
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Consumer Perspectives: The Right Research
This article is part of a quarterly series giving voice to the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences as they share their opinions on a particular topic. The authors of this column facilitated a focus group of their peers to inform this writing. The authors are served by Services for...
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“I’m Not Strong – I’m Steel” Life and Recovery with Co-Occurring Disorders
You may have heard it before: acceptance is the first step in recovery. Nothing could be truer, as was made abundantly clear as each of us shared our histories together in a discussion about Behavioral Health News “Understanding and Treating Co-Occurring Disorders” issue. Trauma leading to...
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Consumer Perspectives on Change: for Better or for Worse
We were asked to consider whether changes in the way we receive and respond to behavioral health services has been for better or for worse, now that Medicaid Managed Care is the order of the day. It was a tough conversation because at the beginning, some of us really felt like we hadn’t even...
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From the Publisher’s Desk “The Handshake of Hope”
With the holiday’s only a month or so away, I recall a true story I wrote about several years ago in this publication. It began with, “Let me tell you a story about a simple handshake that saved the life of a man from New York suffering with mental illness.” The year was 1987 and he was 38...
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Youth in Transition
This article is the third in a quarterly series giving voice to the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences as they share their opinions on a particular topic. The young authors of this column came together as a focus group of peers to discuss their experiences and collaborate on this...
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A Clinic’s Initial Experiences Conducting Multiple Family Groups
Jose is an 11-year-old boy who has, for years, been threatening his family to run away and never return when he is upset with them. His family has tried to cope with these behaviors the best they could, but things reached the point that they felt they needed further assistance. His grandmother made...
