Recovery Origins Blog 2018

As we come to a close for the course, I would like you to reflect on the biggest "aha" that you take away from this learning experience, and post it here in the comment section.  How did this "aha" change or reinforce your thinking? (for example) If you wish, you may comment on one another's replies. I'm looking forward to reading these, and your final reviews.

Blogger would not allow this to be pasted in a comment/reply...so I had to create a new blog post. This is the kind of chair that Natasha was restrained in on February 3.  Here is a spit hood. It has a mesh front to allow airflow, but when you are agitated, and overheating, I suspect it would feel "close" and make breathing more difficult.

Though in some circles I am Dr. / Professor Barrett, with a Ph.D., there are other contexts where I hold highly stigmatized statuses. In a medical context, I am a person with psychiatric disability, and even more stigmatized, I am a person who has lyme disease...also known as a "lyme loonie." Because of my life experience, I feel deeply about our history, the lives of people with MI, and the origins of recovery movement within psychiatric rehabilitation. I teach because I think it is important to expose providers to a different way of thinking, or a perspective they may not have considered. No approach or theoretical orientation will apply in every situation (e.g., therapeutic use of hallucinations), but as a person who has skin in this psychiatric game, I also feel strongly that some approaches are more consistent with recovery than others. When I am symptomatic, I want someone to listen and validate my experience. I want to feel emotionally safe. ...

(READ THE KARON ARTICLE ON Bb -- FOUND IN MODULE 9 -- THEN READ THIS AND POST) Historically, people with schizophrenia have been told that their symptoms (i.e., hallucinations) need to be medicated away. "Once you are stable, then we can address your other needs..." This week, as we consider deinstitutionalization and people's rights in the community, often it is hallucinations that mark people as "other" or "crazy." Hallucinations can be very stigmatizing. The recovery movement offers a different narrative. One does not have to be "stable" and "symptom-free" before recovery can begin, quite the opposite in fact. The community is a place one can recover and learn to advocate for rights. One can have symptoms and live well in the community. What if hallucinations were recast as unconscious needs? What if people in the community, family, and support professionals viewed hallucinations not as an aberration, but as communication? ...