This is a last call to join the 2026 Journey Through Madness Workshop, which meets monthly the first Sunday of each month for ten sessions. The workshop is designed to introduce a new eight part definition of psychosis that gives participants a better understanding of what psychosis feel like inside and that highlights ways to work with it that involve sharing stories and becoming more aware of what we experience and felible in how we interpret what we experience.

I have created the workshop along side running professional groups over the past eighteen years that went toward experiences associated with psychosis and that emphasized story-telling and problem solving. I performed the workshop in 2024 online and had a strong group that gave me feedback and engaged in discussion points, videos and excercises aimed at helping sufferers be more comfortable with going down the rabbit hole with support and gain direction on working toward social rehabilitation.

I currently have 10 guests signed up to take the course. Please don’t let cost be a factor. I grant scholarships very easily. Simply contact me at my email tim@specialmessages7.com and make the request and I will answer questions and make sure the workshop is a good fit. You will join a mix of providers, loved ones, peer suporters, and people with lived experience. We will explore the material in community using the expertise of all involved. There is still space for more participants so do not hesitate to learn and weigh in on this important subject.

If you can easily afford the suggested donation of 200$ or want to learn more information about the content and what others who have taken the course have said, simply click the link below:

Sign up for the 2026 Journey Though Madness Workshop

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Are you, as a therapist, family member or case worker, feeling stuck in your relationships with people who have extreme experiences of psychosis? Maybe it feels hard to envision a world of recovery activities and you are wondering if distant, passive, and impoverished relationships are as good as it gets.  Maybe it seems like the only help you can provide is to ask them if they took their medication.

Or maybe you struggled with these challenges yourself and would like to help other people join you in better healing from these challenges. Maybe you don’t feel safe talking about what happened and mask your personality because you don’t want to go back to problems that can be monumental and scary.

If you are in either of these two categories, I have created a twenty-hour training workshop that aims to help achieve better outreach to people in extreme experiences of psychosis. This community-oriented workshop is built to help you feel comfortable exploring the contents of what has been experienced in a psychosis with a road map of healing suggestions so you can join people on their journey and help them be more flexible in how they make meaning of their experiences and work towards recovery.

What people go through in psychosis can be scary and overwhelming or joyous yet destructive; regardless, a lot can be learned from studying these experiences and there still is the chance for relationships to flourish when sharing happens. To demonstrate the value of this, I share several of my stories and there is opportunity for others to share as well.

I am currently recruiting participants to attend ten two-hour training sessions in 2026 from 4-6pm the first Sunday of the month. In 2024 I completed said training and disbanded a troop of supporters who I will invite back.  It was hard to give up that community.  I have missed the camaraderie and connection I experienced over the ten-session year. I hope you will consider joining me for 2026.

Working with people who experience what I prefer to term as special message crisis can be challenging. Often people suffering may hold you at an arms distance and refuse to share the contents of what they are experiencing with you. I find that reviewing components of the training helps keep me hopeful and creative in my work. When I am not working on the contents of this training, it is easy to feel stuck and hopeless.

I am aware that I may be competing against CBT for Psychosis, a training that is accredited. To be honest, I have not taken that training to compare it to mine. That’s why I wanted to take a minute to explain that I have not come to develop this training by reading accredited books or completing research. I have crafted this training being in community with message receivers where I work running clinical groups. This training comes from the perspective of someone with lived experience and who in addition has seventeen years of experience running these groups as a practitioner. It aims to better prepare you to come up with creative interventions

Yes, I have attended Hearing Voices Network Training and I have both participated in and facilitated these groups as well. I found these trainings were exceptional, but I also think my work gives guidance toward being able to bring the wisdom of a community experience to an individual relationship with techniques and activities that bear the potential of helping prepare you to change lives. Perhaps you may find as I do that working in community helps inspire you in the moments you have with a message receiver to provide something they may need.

There is a suggested price of $200 to attend the training. I see this more as a suggested donation as I plan to admit people who can’t afford the fee. If you are thinking about joining me but are scared off by the fee please reachout to me in email, I want you to join us.

Once you have paid the fee, or joined me for a while, you can continue to participate in future trainings until you are satisfied and have mastery over the material. As I stated before, this is a community-oriented workshop full of didactics, stories, videos, exercises, and discussions which means that participation also helps me learn grow and improve the training.

Sign up for the 2026 Journey Though Psychosis Sessions

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How To Be A Healing Presence Without Becoming Anxious, Power-Struggling, Or Referring the Mad Person To A Hospital

How It Works

Starting this November in two-hour sessions on Sunday evenings, I will teach you a new model for understanding psychosis that will help you be able to relate with a person in madness in a manner that helps them heal. We are looking for nine volunteers who will receive the training for free in a webinar format on zoom. Volunteers may be professionals (including peer counselors) looking to hone their skills, family members seeking better relationships with their loved ones, or people with lived experience who want to share their perspective and contribute to a new model. The sessions will be taped and edited and eventually sold at an affordable price. Come bring your stories and perspectives to the discussion, ask questions, and we will all learn in community.

Here’s what we’ll go over:

Week 1

• How listening to stories and reflecting on commonalities helped me deconstruct experiences into solvable problems and formulate the structure of the rest of the presentation

• Why the medical model definitions lead to limited solutions and ultimately to the poor outcomes, stereotypes and the dehumanization we see.

• The way the thirty differential diagnoses that include psychotic experiences in them may have kept us from creating a counter culture and focusing on solutions. 

Week 2

• Why the notion that this is a thought disorder is wrong, and the importance of considering the conglomeration of experiences that cause one to experience a break from reality.

• The reason trying to stop a person from perseverating about their experiences by telling them that they are ill only decreases mindfulness and thwarts efforts to stop perseveration.

• Why it is often important to research and know about real government conspiracies to gain a message receiver’s trust and learn about what they think.

Week 3

• How expanding the ways message receivers think about what causes their experiences adds to flexibility and can have a positive impact on functioning.

• Learn to use what we term “the trickster concept” to likewise increase flexibility and open up faith without reality checking and sabotaging your trust with the message receiver.

• Why processing past behavior and negative outcomes is essential to help a message receiver start to accept boundaries and use the social skills that work for them.

Week 4

• How social, institutional, and internalized stigma are linked to a message receiver’s irrational thinking making timing and context important as cognitive therapy is used as a tool to help them. 

• How a mindful understanding of special messages can still be a valid part of an individual’s effort to discern reality without leading to a crisis or an emergency.

• How to use this system of care in group and individual contexts so that you can meet the message receiver where they are at and develop intervention strategies.

Hi, I’m Tim 

Early on in my 27 years of working in the trenches of community mental health, I thought I was a good worker when I did things like: 1) take care of people who were experiencing a break in reality by doing things for them to build trust; and 2) reminding them to take their medication. As I realized what people were living through in impoverished warehouse circumstances and fought for better services, I started to notice ways I was being followed by the company that owned the housing project where I worked. When I received a threat from a close friend, I myself descended into madness. I tried to flee to Canada  and was rapidly warehoused as a ward in a last resort State Hospital. I learned very quickly that madness wasn’t what I was trained to believe it was in school. I learned 1) that being treated like I was incapable of doing anything myself felt insulting; and 2) being told to take my medications was pointless; these kinds of interventions were not the help I needed.  

It was a lot harder to get ready to go back to work in mental health than I thought it would be after three months in an institution. Enduring housing insecurity, moves, and underemployment was very hard. When I did manage to get my license I started to run professional groups that explored not only what psychosis was, but also what could be done that was helpful. I used my lived experience to help other silenced individuals open up. The things we all learned in the process of sharing stories were astounding. I have documented these learnings over the past fifteen years and want to release to you my findings in a course that will help you know how to intervene when faced with someone who experiences a break from reality.   

Click to Schedule Interview with Tim

There will only be only nine to ten participants so set up your interview today

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Now Accepting Beacon, Magellan, Medi-Cal, and Optum Insurance Open for Business Name & Business: Tim Dreby, MFT Contact Email: tim@specialmessages7.com Contact Phone :510-778-9194 Website: www.timdreby.com Licensed in the State of CA (Y/N/NA)? Yes Clinical Licenses or Certificates: LMFT #45563 Willing to Work Via Videoconference? Yes, on the secure doxy.me platform Able to provide support with minimal use of medications, including tapering or discontinuation (Y/N)? Yes Familiarity with the Hearing Voices Movement (Y/N)? Yes Experience working with children 14 and younger (Y/N)? SomeBackground or Prior Training in Psychosis: I have 25 years experience working in community mental health and two years of lived experience living with psychosis. For the last twelve years I have been running professional groups that involve exploring psychosis across diagnostic categories in a collaborative manner. From these experiences I have developed a six-hour training for professional to help teach them to accept and explore psychosis. Moreover, I am the award-winning author of a memoir detailing my own experience. Current Approach to Psychosis: I have formulated my own system to address  those in emergency. This is based on redefining psychosis into eight solvable components. While I have learned that people who endure what I like to call a special message emergency are extremely culturally diverse, I also have identified eight constructs to which I find most message receivers can relate.. I like to think these constructs form the basis of might be our own inclusive culture. They encourage explorations and detail skills that can be gained to lead the kind of lives we choose. I don’t believe in dividing up message receivers and excluding some. I believe we have enough collective experiences with being excluded already. In fact I find many people who experience trauma and other marginalizing circumstances often relate and learn from message receiving experiences. Insurance and Fee Structure: Beacan, Magellan, Medi-Cal, and Optum. I keep my fee low to be accessible to those with limited resources. Dont Forget to Inquire About My Training for Professional and Family Members! I Provide Training of a variety of lengths Limitations of the Medical Model Definintion The Jargon of a new definition with solution concepts Joining Flexing Behavioral changes Anti-Stigma Cognition Reframing Reality Using the Material Writing meaningful Treatment Plans I will waive my fee to market my services to the community Find Out More

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This is an announcement that Quality Improvement of Solano County Health and Social Services (Provider #57883) is offering Redefining Psychosis in two parts – 9:00 am – 12:15 pm on Thursdays, May 14 and 21, 2020.   For details regarding registration, please see attached Registration Form.

This is a 2-part training.  It is recommended that participants attend both days, but it is not required.

This workshop is intended for all levels of trainees. Parts of it are introductory and parts are advanced. It is intended to inspire clinicians to bravely address the issues that are experienced in a psychotic break or what becomes redefined as a special message crisis.

Maximum attendance for this training is 50 participants.

Course Title:      Redefining Psychosis

Date:                    Part 1 – Thursday, May 14, 2020

                              Part 2 – Thursday, May 21, 2020

Time:                   Each session is from 9:00 am – 12:15 pm

Location:             Zoom – Information on accessing the trainings will be sent out closer to the training dates

 Educational Objectives:

Historically, clinicians are trained to avoid engaging with people when they are in an emergency state for fear of escalating symptoms. This workshop is intended to provide a roadmap to the rabbit hole. In other words, it redefines what is happening during a person’s journey through madness in a structured way that justifies intervention and highlights solutions. This can help a clinician feel confident that listening and intervening has value and can be necessary to form an alliance that can help. Interventions and solution strategies that get suggested can be used at any stage of a person’s recovery to explore what is happening or what has been experienced. Often clinicians struggle to know what is and isn’t helpful. This presentation will give attendees not only a better sense of what is helpful, but also hosts of strategies to consider using.

This course is being presented by Timothy C Dreby, M.Ed., LMFT.

Tim states:  “I have been running professional survivor-led psychosis focus groups for the past twelve years in a public Intensive Outpatient Program at Highland Hospital in Oakland CA. I have a Masters of Education from Temple University obtained in 1998 and a MFT License obtained in 2008. I also survived a mid-career “schizophrenia” diagnosis that involved a three-month hospitalization in Montana State Hospital and a two-year emergency state about which I wrote an award-winning memoir. In 2013, I authored an Alameda County Innovations Grant and started to make public presentations with a small band of people with lived experience I trained and hired to promote this methodology. Since the close of this program I have been presenting and developing this material in local venues and through collaborations with the Bay Area Hearing Voices Network. This has involved annual presentations at the California Association of Social Rehabilitation Conference and other local venues.”

Please submit the attached Registration Form via QI fax at (707) 427-2774 or email at QualityImprovement@SolanoCounty.com no later than May 12, 2020.  County employees must receive supervisory approval.

If you register and are later unable to make the training, please cancel at least 24 hours ahead.

Each of the courses meets the qualifications for 3 hours of continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, and/or LPCCs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. Solano County Health and Social Services (Provider #57883) is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LCSWs, and/or LPCCs. Solano County Health and Social Services maintains responsibility for this program/course and its content.

Participants must attend the fully scheduled time to receive CEUs – partial credit will not be awarded.  Participants will not earn CE credit if more than 5 minutes late to the training, take excessive breaks, or leave early.

Certificates of Completion will be sent to participants within 3 weeks of participation once attendance is verified.

Professional credit is at no cost to the participant. The course includes course materials and learning activities to all participants.

If any special accommodations are needed, please contact Quality Improvement at least 3 days prior to the date of the training.  Quality Improvement can be contacted at (707) 784-8323 or at QualityImprovement@SolanoCounty.com.

If you would like to make a complaint following this training, please contact Quality Improvement at (707) 784-8323 or at QualityImprovement@SolanoCounty.com.

Thank you!

Quality Improvement

Behavioral Health Division

Solano County Health and Social Services

Phone:  (707) 784-8323

Fax:        (707) 427-2774

Nonproprietary

Redefining Psychosis Registration Form May 2020 Zoom

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I will be presenting a workshop at the annual California Association of Social Rehabilitation Agencies. This will be the first part of my six hour training that can be downloaded here: Training Powerpoint. CASRA is an important local resource that has supported me over the years.

 Click to view  2019 Flyer

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Dear Tim,
We had a staggering 1,023 entries in the 2018 TopShelf Indie Book Awards, and your book Fighting for Freedom in America: Memoir of a “Schizophrenia” and Mainstream Cultural Delusions has been selected as a Finalist in the category of Autobiography/Biography!

Warm Regards,

Keith Katsikas
CEO & Publisher
TopShelf Magazine

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE     

Outskirts Press Releases New Memoir About Surviving a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia:

Fighting for Freedom in America by Clyde Dee

In the frontiers of America’s mental health institutions, fighting for freedom can become very personal.

September 24, 2015 – Denver, CO and Oakland, CA – In Fighting for Freedom in America, released by Outskirts Press, mental health counselor and author Clyde Dee asks, “Have you ever wondered if something is wrong with you? Have you ever wondered what it is like to find yourself driven into madness; and whether you will ever come back from catastrophic loss?”

Six years into a protected clinical career as a mental health counselor, Clyde Dee moves to Seattle and takes a job in a Section 8 housing project—a complex notorious for drug dealing and a site where no one else is willing to go. As Clyde works to empower and protect the people, he finds himself embroiled in the politics of the local drug war, and a fractured social system is revealed. Uncanny threats and coincidences drive him into madness when he decides to go off a low dose of antipsychotic medication.

Clyde is stopped by police when he tries to exit the country and is incarcerated in a psychiatric ward for three months. In the years that follow after he is released to the streets, he moves through American disparities and cultural delusions, facing some of his worst fears and striving to regain what he has lost.

Fighting for Freedom in America pulls back the curtain to let us see what it would be like to lose our rights and be imprisoned in a state hospital. But while Clyde’s story is shocking, it is also a beacon of hope. Despite homelessness, underemployment, and harassment, he discovers that with family support, it is possible to heal and make his dreams come true. He is able to make peace with the forces that are following him around and morph into someone who is grateful for life—and a person who loves the journey.

At 328 pages, Fighting for Freedom in America is available online through Outskirts Press at www.outskirtspress.com/bookstore. The book is sold through Amazon and Barnes and Noble for a maximum trade discount in quantities of 10 or more, and is being aggressively promoted to appropriate markets with a focus on the memoir category.

ISBN: 978-1-4787-5992-8                  Format: 6 x 9 paperback cream                       Retail: $20.95  eBook: $5.00

Genre: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs

For more information, visit the author’s webpage at www.outskirtspress.com/fightingforfreedominamerica.

About the Author: Now with over twenty years of paid experience in the mental health arena, Clyde Dee works in Richmond, California, in an outpatient program. He additionally works to help train individuals who have lived with “psychosis” to reach those still marginalized by stigma, institutionalization, and isolation.

About Outskirts Press, Inc.: Outskirts Press offers full-service, custom self-publishing and book marketing services for authors seeking a cost-effective, fast, and flexible way to publish and distribute their books worldwide while retaining all their rights and full creative control. Available for authors globally at www.outskirtspress.com and located on the outskirts of Denver, Colorado, Outskirts Press, Inc. represents the future of book publishing, today.

# # #

Outskirts Press, Inc., 10940 S. Parker Rd – 515, Parker, Colorado 80134

http://outskirtspress.com 1-888-OP-BOOKS

The post Initial Press Release appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

TITLE OF PRESENTATION:

Changing the Treatment Paradigm Locally for Those who Experience Psychosis

SYNOPSIS:

This workshop outlines how diverse persons with lived experience provided outreach, made presentations and ran groups in ways that honored their lived experience with “psychosis.” Imagine how a system populated with such specialists might improve treatment for those who might otherwise be wary of accepting services.

AUTHOR:

Tim Dreby, MFT Rehabilitation Counselor, Author, “Fighting for Freedom in America: Memoir of a “Schizophrenia” and Mainstream Cultural Delusions,”

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1.Participants will be able to articulate two reasons why psychosis can be treated as a as a cultural issue.

2. Participants will be able to identify three reasons why paying more mindful attention to elements of universal process of “psychosis” can help lead to social rehabilitation.

3. Participants will identify three things that can be done locally to increase engagement of individuals who experience “psychosis”.

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