Psychotherapy for Psychosis
If you have experiences associated with psychosis, whether they are good or bad, you have probably been influenced by the history of institutionalization that works to suppress your experiences. I have created this site to help myself and others change the way psychosis is treated in the clinics and public. I spent years learning to suppress, but feel that in treatment there needs to be safe places where people don’t get punished for having these experiences.
Instead of promoting symptom suppression, we need to refine public understanding of what psychosis is: something to which most of us can relate. We need to open up dialogue about the emergency state and to challenge the medicalized cultural delusion that these experiences lead to irreversible brain damage. Finally, we need to learn to call upon to shamanic teachers who know how to live well with psychosis for help.
As someone with over twenty years of experience as a provider, I am still haunted by the fact that six years in, I found myself warehoused for three months in a state hospital. The two years of crisis I went through during and after my incarceration was a challenge. In fact, it was so bad, I wrote an award-winning book about it.
Across Diagnostic Categories!
Whether you are a sufferer, survivor, provider or loved one, I am almost certain that when we look across diagnostic categories that more people relate to these experiences than you think!
What Will People Think?
When a person first experiences a psychosis or special message emergency, many think a threshold has been crossed from which there is no going back. Often, associates presume the worst possible outcome and go on with their lives as if the sufferer no longer exists.
Treatment?
Often, the focus of treatment is overly protective reality checks and behavioral control. Many experts do not know what to do and utilize an institutional system that does not work and can make things worse. They may vastly underestimate what the sufferer can learn and accomplish.
Rabia Tanveer, Readers Favorite, five stars
“I finally understand what a person with a mental illness feels like,lives like, and how he fights for his sanity and his life every single day . . .This book has compassion, passion, understanding, and a force of will that will allow any person to become better and make peace with themselves. Great job.”
Book Viral Spotlight
“Much has been written on the subject of schizophrenia with as many paths to recovery as there are individuals affected by it, but Dee’s work is most notable for his candid reflections on cultural delusions. Clearly articulating the loss of faculties that make us what we are, they prove intrinsic to the telling of his story. More importantly they provide an often harrowing perspective on the anguish of mental illness from the inside and in doing so allow Dee to address commonly held beliefs and prejudices.”
Niki’s book review
“What a great read! As a person with mental health issues myself, I could relate to most of the memoir. Go ahead and read this book. I guarantee you won’t be able to put it down. Read cover to cover fast!”
Midwest Book Review, five stars
“An intensely personal and impressively well written memoir, “Fighting for Freedom in America: Memoir of a ‘Schizophrenia’ and Mainstream Cultural Delusions” is a compelling read from beginning to end.”
Paige Lovitt, Readers Views, five stars
“[Clyde’s] story is fascinating because he is able to intellectualize what he was thinking and feeling at the time, even if he is discussing his paranoid delusional thoughts . . . As someone with a Master’s of Science degree in a counseling field, I have found my greatest lessons have been from real people and not material in textbooks. As I read Clyde’s story, I felt like I learned many lessons through what he has to share. My work will definitely be more beneficial by what I learned from him.”
Ode to a Cockroach
I can see you skittering through my soul. I can see blood pulse through your kidney corpse. Dripping live cells into some fertile hole For upon human life your presence torques Blood pressured fear. And the multitude Abandon city and sleep on sheets clean. You sit in your puddle of Raid and laugh And will […]
Multi-Culturism in the Hacienda of Mental Health
Back when I was just a yuppie, I learned a few points of wisdom about working through stigma. I needed mentors to help teach me how wrong stigma is. Now, I want to pay forward some of what I learned outside the class room to some mental health academics and administrators who may not have […]
Spiritual Emergence in the Muddy Waters of the Mental Health System
What was emerging now was different than anything I had experienced prior. I had just gotten support from relationships I had built over the past year at the Quaker meeting-for-worship. Maybe my situation at work had been getting whispered about among my friends. Maybe my spirit was exuding a sense of desperation. Either way, I’d […]
On a Writer’s Need for Acknowledgement
Ever since I finally, at the age of forty-three, published some of my writing, I’ve found that I am particularly prone to pain again. Ever since, each morning I have woken up driven to find ways to get people to read my book. A year and a month later, I have primarily had to pay […]