Working Through Psychosis Maintaining a Write-to-Live Attitude in the Social Media Era
Posted on May 21, 2018 Leave a Comment
I feel sorry for my English professor who wanted to put my essay up for an award! The glare I gave him and the lack of response: it was, at its best, very rude.
The fact is, I only learned it bothered him because my best friend who was fifteen years older than me got an invite to the professor’s house for dinner. My friend who had a lifetime of experience using and dealing drugs reported that the professor had called his cute, sleeping hound a beast repeatedly throughout the night and talked about how alcohol was his drug of choice while toasting his guest’s sobriety. However, my friend reported, when it came to me, the professor admitted that he just didn’t know what to say.
“I think I know what that kid’s problem is,” the professor had conceded.
Legal Reality
Posted on May 6, 2018 Leave a Comment
Humans inhabit the court room
Where right gets discerned from wrong
Investing all their damn money
Into the justice they long.
Anger bounces savagely
In tossed and yanked slinky veins
That domino amassment
Of hate in buzzing refrain.
How to Work with Issues of Mental Health Warehousing as a Professional
Posted on May 5, 2018 Leave a Comment
Early in my career as a social worker, I couldn’t even see the phenomenon of mental health warehousing let alone know how address the issue in a relationship. My college texts had promoted the mainstream eugenic presumptions associated with mental illness. I didn’t know what was needed to recover from things like psychosis, personality disorders, or addictions and live a fulfilling life other than to tell the client to take their medication.
Now, in my twenty-three years of experience working in the system, I have seen many other workers not really learn about the effects of mental health warehousing. It’s as if those of us who work in the field slept during social psychology lessons of Stanley Milligram and the Stanford Prison Experiments. And many of us who do understand the dehumanization process associated with warehousing may abandon the work for private practice. It’d nice it they left a little space in their practice for warehoused individuals. Perhaps some do.
Believe me, I never imagined that mental health warehousing would happen to a conscientious person who excelled in the mental health professional like myself. I used to think I was empathetic towards clients because that’s what always impressed others about me. Now I think I was just sympathetic and encapsulated! Indeed, though it could happen to most us, we rarely think that way. When I did land in warehousing, it was a real education.
The Average, One-Lining, Love-Liable Narrator
Posted on March 25, 2018 Leave a Comment
When I profess to love you forever,
You should know, cause I already told you
That I’m lying—that my love is for never.
Now I can see that your attractive look
Diminishes as time passes on, first
Impressions of your beauty, I know I mistook
Are you Prepared to Address Psychosis in Your Practice? (Feature-Length Version)
Posted on March 18, 2018 Leave a Comment
In Madness and Civilization, philosopher Michel Foucault has predicted a proliferation of madness as disparities increase and modern society advances. Indeed, with psychopharmacology industry booming, rates of addiction, fueled by the opioid epidemic, skyrocketing, terrorism wars raging abroad, ongoing drug wars afflicting low income neighborhoods, escalation in homeless encampments in major cities, and a rise in bullying in schools, and even cyberbullying, it really does seem like higher percentage of people have been forced to explore their mental health struggles. While mass shootings have kept danger stigma in the media high and the media response continues to reinforce silence about mental struggles, the field of psychotherapy does have a lot more trends to address.
When I look through my state’s psychotherapy association’s annual conference, I see many of these trends getting addressed in workshops. But ever invisible is the issue of psychosis. Is it possible that the issue of psychosis functions as a significant part of the madness narrative? Is it possible that psychosis too is affecting more and more Americans as Foucault inferred?
What the Statistic Say: Read More
Leaving My Hometown with Nothing but a Platonic Relationship
Posted on March 17, 2018 2 Comments
My mission has become a haze
In these droning hours—
Snaking pavement,
Grass coated medians:
Another couple hundred miles,
Another tank of diesel fuel,
Another nook and cranny town
Left unexplored by my consciousness
As the gas logo sign posts,
Bat me in the eye
Like flies
Pillars and bridges are swooping down
With on and off ramps
Leading to livelihoods
That embrace all the homes
That I defy.
How Diversifying Causation Beliefs Can Lead to Recovery from Psychosis
Posted on March 11, 2018 2 Comments
I believe that a powerful dialectic exists when participants study their similarities in psychoses focus groups. Converse to the great opportunities for growth that result when participants genuinely identify with each other, there are often important points of difference highlighted that likewise can lead to growth when nurtured properly.
I have observed that participants often become more aware of their diverse beliefs regarding the causation of their psychosis experiences. I also believe that the causation of psychosis experiences is a natural preoccupation for people who suffer. In fact, this preoccupation is so powerful, it warrants becoming part of the definition of psychosis in the model of treatment I have created.
The Issue of Medication for Psychosis
Posted on February 24, 2018 Leave a Comment
The issue of whether to take medication or not can be a difficult one. While medication may work well for some, it may do little for others. This syncs with the fact that experiences associated with psychosis are vast and varied. People who suffer are very diverse, and causation remains nebulous.
I believe that causation for each person is a constellation of a series of modalities. I have witnessed how comparing causation theories becomes the spice of life in a psychosis support group. I find support groups for people who experience what is labeled as psychosis to be full of cultural learning that can result in powerful growth and wisdom.
As someone whose been in recovery for fifteen years, I have also witnessed the issue of medication to be politically divisive amongst message receivers or people who experience psychosis. Personally, I am starting to see it more as an element of cultural diversity in which differences can make the support groups I run vibrant and spectacular.
I believe I have a moderate view on this topic, which means it can be hard not to feel under attack in differing circles. My hope in this article is to provide perspectives to help people make their own decision about medication and work together regardless of their views and life experience.
