Mental Health & Society

email guelphfreeschool@resist.ca for details

Overview: I am interested in looking at commonly diagnosed mental health problems through several different lenses. The weeks are broken down by common mental health diagnoses. We will look at the definition of the each according to the DSM*, read/watch an alternative account of the illness, and talk about the diagnosis in society. How the attributes of the particular diagnosis are useful within/to society, what values or fears these attributes reflect, and how/when are they seen as detrimental to society. How do people come to be labeled and what happens to them? And so on…

This is not a self help or confessional class. I want to talk about the ideas in general, rather than in a deeply personal way. I caution people about disclosing intimate details. I would like to consider these ideas in a more abstract way; to look at them on a societal level vietnam tours.

I am not a mental health professional and do not have any educational background that would make me any kind of authority. Just an interest in mental health and its role in society, so we will be learning all this together.

*The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is put out by the American Psychiatric Association and is the commonly used tool of main stream mental health organizations for classifying mental illnesses. It’s only supposed to be used for diagnostic purposes by professionals, but we’re not diagnosing anyone in this class. It gives a good general idea of what criteria are required for each illness.

The outline is below. Readings/audio files for each week are almost all online. Some weeks do not have readings specified yet, but check back closer to those weeks. Any suggestions for readings, send me an email - guelphfreeschool@resist.ca

Mental Health & Society

The weeks are broken vietnam visa down by common mental health problems. Each week, a different common diagnosis will be discussed – what it is according to the DSM, how the attributes of the particular diagnosis are useful within/to society, what values or fears these attributes reflect, and how/when are they seen as detrimental to society. How do people come to be labeled and what happens to them? And so on…

DSM IV information is available:

1. Online via University of Guelph library: DSM-IV-TR® [electronic resource] : Publisher: Arlington, Va. : American Psychiatric Publishing, Description: 4th ed., text revision. Call Number: RC455.2.C4 ELECTRONIC RESOURCE From UG library only - Click here for access

2. Summary for each illness based on DSM available: http://allpsych.com/disorders/disorders_alpha.html

3. Summary for each illness based on DSM available: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/healthinformation/index.cfm

4. I will bring a physical copy each week to class.

Week 1 – Feb. 8 - Introduction - review of outline & course; - brief look at the DSM and psychiatry – origins, history, oppression; - treatment options in Ontario/navigating the health care system; - the acronyms; and - self harm and suicide.

For class:

Overview of the DSM: http://allpsych.com/disorders/dsm.html

How Psychiatry Creates Racism: http://www.cchr.org/index.cfm/6757

Audio interview from Freedom Centre radio: Harvard University lecturer Paula Caplan on bias in psychiatric diagnosis. Caplan is one of the leading critics of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and was on some of the committtees revising the DSM-IV to get a first-hand look at the sexism, racism, and classism that goes into psychiatric labels. Paula also addresses the problems of isolation and stigma resulting from a PTSD diagnosis for veterans. (53 min, 72 MB)

Other interesting links:

- personal stories of mis/diagnosis: http://www.psychdiagnosis.net/psychiatric_stories.html

9-27-06: Self-injury and cutting with Ruta Mazelis, psychiatric abuse survivor and editor for 17+ years of the acclaimed newsletter The Cutting Edge. Cutting, burning, head banging and other self-harm are discussed from the point of view of people doing them -- as coping mechanisms that need compassion and understanding, not the force and judgement of mainstream psychiatry. Check out www.healingselfinjury.org. (60 min, 67 MB)

Week 2 – March 8 - Depression and PPD

For Class:

Colder Weather by Emma Holm http://www.1stpm.org/articles/cweather.html

A personal account by Joe S Baletta: http://www.mindfreedom.org/personal-stories/balettajoes/

10-18-06: Commonsense Rebellion with Bruce Levine, dissident psychologist and author of Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy, discusses the social forces that drive people to depression, anxiety, and mental breakdown, and how community and caring are the way to a healthier self and world. (60 min, 74 MB)

Of interest:

Warning: this article is very difficult to read as it deals with horrific abuse On Being Invisible in the Mental Health System – by Ann Jennings http://www.healingselfinjury.org/beinginvisible1.htm

Week 3 – March 15 - Anxiety, Panic and OCD

For Class:

The Mass Psychology of Misery by John Zerzan http://www.spunk.org/texts/writers/zerzan/sp001182.txt

Nightlight - A Woman's Life with Panic Disorder (a blog - read what you like from it) http://rachel-schneider.com/blog/category/panic-disorder

For Interest

Phobics Awareness: A global awareness and support community http://www.phobics-awareness.org/

Week 4 – March 22 - Schizophrenia

For Class:

Finding a Way out of Paranoia by Adam James. Dec. 19/03. http://www.psychminded.co.uk/news/news2003/dec03/self%20help%20group%20for%20people%20with%20extreme%20paranoia.htm

Painting insanity black: Why are there more black schizophrenics? By Anne Murphy Paul. http://www.salon.com/books/it/1999/12/01/schizo/index1.html

‘Famously Shameless in my sane and normal world’ by Michelle Shocked. http://narpa.org/michelle.shocked.htm

For interest:

Schizophrenia term use ‘invalid’ – BBC news – 9 Oct 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6033013.stm

Collaborating with madness (page 2 of the newsletter) by Will Hall - http://www.theicarusproject.net/downloads/will/CollaboratingWithMadnessISPSWillHallArticle.pdf

The Recovery Position - a profile of Peter Bullimore http://www.psychminded.co.uk/news/news2005/sept05/recoveryposition.htm

http://www.successfulschizophrenia.org/index.shtml

Week 5 – March 29 - Eating Disorders

TBA

Week 6 – April 5 - Bipolar formerly Manic Depressive Disorder

For Class:

Too Close to the Sun: Manic Depression and the Life and Death of My Friend Sera Bilizikian by S. Scatter.

Possibly:

archived audio file: 9-13-05 - Ashley McNamara? 6-14-06:Barney Plisko,

Week 7 - April 12 - DID formerly MPD

TBA

Week 8 – April 19 - Sleep Disorders

TBA

Week 9 – April 26 - ADD/ADHD and ODD

For Class:

A Rush to Medicate Young Minds by Elizabeth J. Roberts. 2006-10-08. Washington Post, page B07. http://www.mindfreedom.org/know/youth-mental-health/a-rush-to-medicate-young-minds/

Medicating Aliah by Rob Waters. May/June 2005 in Mother Jones. http://www.freedom-center.org/pdf/mother_jones_medicating_aliah.html

The end.

Other links/articles/audio files that may be of interest:

8-02-06: Reason, pseudonym of Valley Free Radio's Antidote Radio host, discusses multiple chemical sensitivity, environmental illness, toxins in our surroundings, food, and bodies, and how this affects our mental health and overall wellbeing. (54 min, ~72 MB)

Inside Soteria House with Voyce Hendrix, original clinical director who worked closely with Loren Mosher. Soteria House was a non-medication, non-diagnostic label and voluntary residence treating severe psychotic breakdown. Recovery rates were much higher in this humane and egalitarian atmosphere -- but the project was shut down because it challenged the pharmaceutical companyserv pro-medication interests. More info on Soteria House at www.moshersoteria.com. (55 min, 94 MB)

John Judge on US Goverment mind control programs. John Judge was active in the 1970s psychiatric survivor movement and is now special assistant to Congressperson Cynthia KcKinney?. Judge discusses MKULTRA and other US psychiatric mind control experiments, which involved torture of thousands of mental patients. Judge also looks at the Jonestown massacre, LSD, and the convergence of Nazism with the roots of biomedical psychiatry. (51 min, 70 MB)

Carey Lamprecht of the Icarus Project on her experiences as a staffperson in high security locked facilities with violent children and adolescents, and her creation of successful alternatives to restraints and coercion, alternatives that were blocked by facility administrators. Carey is herself a psych survivor with a bipolar diagnosis. (50 min, 69 MB) You can also read Carey's story.

http://www.oikos.org/antipsicen.htm

http://www.mindfreedom.org/