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Baltic Street in NYC Shows the Power of Peer Support
The power of peer-led mental health services is at work at Baltic Street AEH in New York City, and is making a real difference. Baltic’s mission is to achieve full social inclusion for all persons living with mental illness. Its integrated network encompasses vocational, educational, social and...
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Quality Life Promotes Recovery
What may have been lost and left out in discussions on mental health treatment has been the importance of “a quality of life” as a tool of mental health treatment. What I have become aware of is the need for consumers to live at a standard that is not separate from what he/she sees as preferred...
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Peer Run Services Playing Pivotal Roles in Promoting Health, Recovery and Full Citizenship
In the words of one of our greatest peer support leaders Shery Mead, “In peer support we come together with the intention of changing our patterns, getting out of ‘stuck’ places, building relationships that are respectful, mutually responsible and potentially mutually transforming. We...
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Stigma and Recovery: New Approaches to Old Challenges
Thomas R. Insel, MD stated, “Psychiatry is the only part of medicine where there is actually greater stigma for receiving treatment for these illnesses than for having them” (Insel, NIMH Report 2006). There are many aspects to the stigma surrounding mental illness. It manifests itself as a...
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How About Recovery for People with Psychiatric Disabilities in Long-term Care?
Happily, the concept of “recovery” has become a powerful force in the mental health system. We talk now about a “recovery-oriented system” and “recovery-oriented services.” In doing so we express our sense of hope—our conviction—that people with serious, long-term psychiatric...
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Helping My Fellow Consumers in Their Recovery
When I was diagnosed with depression, I was devastated. I thought that this could not be happening. However, I accepted it. I knew that if I could just keep holding on, this too would pass. Somehow, I knew that I would get better. I enlisted into a partnership with a great psychiatrist, took...
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Recovery: A Participant in Life
Living one’s own life: a rather simple concept but somehow thrown on the back burner. Somewhere along the path in this journey of mental illness, we lose ourselves. Prior to the onset of my mental illness—well into adulthood—I was someone: a daughter, an educated woman, a teacher, a wife, a...
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Clothes Make the Man
Stigma means “a mark of infamy.” In ancient times they used to literally brand criminals and slaves. Now we talk about the stigma of mental illness. We know how we are marked by others; that’s obvious. We’re marked by the media, the medical establishment, the ignorant and the uninformed....
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Eight Links to Recovery
As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, I was no stranger to the symptoms of bipolar disorder when I began having sleepless nights and racing thoughts at age 44. I worked as a counselor for adults with mental illness at a residential program and I was teaching daily living skills to clients, some who...
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Providing Essential Care & Services Following Psychiatric Hospitalization
In this article we will address the discharge planning process. Affecting a proper discharge plan is an important continuation of the care rendered during the inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. This observation is especially true as the length of inpatient stays has become briefer. What an...
