Over the last fifteen years, I have dedicated significant chunks of my weekend towards writing. I wrote a memoir, I developed draft after draft of my special message material, I built a website, and I grew my writing platform. It used to feel comfortable, like all this work was a natural part of my healing journey. I used to look forward to the weekends and my projects.

I recently got to the point where needed to take a break from writing blogs. I focused on developing my training so that I could teach the system of care that I have created that guides my interventions. I geared the training for providers and family members. But now I am done, and I am just not sure what to do. I am no longer comfortable creating my work. Could it be, it is time to share it?

I have suggested across my platforms that I want to build an online course and have set my website up to help me sign people up for a low-cost Beta Course so that I might practice and assess interest in this endeavor. I believe that the course will take eight hours to complete so I am starting to advertise for four Sunday evenings. I am currently targeting the month of November for this project. That would be November 3^rd, 10^th, 17^th, and 24^th 6pm-8pm PST.

The training is for providers, family members, or peer workers who are anxious about addressing comments that seem to be “delusional” in their work with people who hear voices or who experience “other” special messages experiences. In addition to clearly defining “other” types of experiences, the training provides an eight-part definition of psychosis and asserts eight solution constructs that can guide one in developing interventions.

By the time it’s over, the participant will have a system of care that can guide them in their work with others who struggle with these dilemmas. This helps the supporter keep from getting anxious or angry (which triggers trauma) and decreases the need to use the hospital to further marginalize the loved one.

I recognize that eight hours is a lot of time in our busy lives to dedicate to learning skills that will address a challenge like psychosis. It feels like a lot to ask; and perhaps that is the reason for my current sense of paralysis. But I also believe I have done a good job shaving down the material so that it is concise and fun. And understanding psychosis does take some time.

Now I’ll admit that before I decided to reach out with this email, I was trying to decide if I would be better off writing a book and using the platforms I have built along the way along with a launch plan to spread my work in that manner. I consider myself to be more of a writer than someone who enjoys looking at myself on the Zoom or YouTube platforms.

But for you, my followers, I have decided to cast these doubts away. It’s time to ask for your support to see if my work has what it takes to transform the understanding of psychosis, so that providers and family members know how to relate to it better.

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Jargonizing the Stigma Concept:

Stigma is a mysterious external process that becomes internal that all message receivers face. Though stigma works in many different ways, I think it is particularly astounding and deceptive that it is not considered part of the definition of all forms of schizophrenia disorders. In my mind including it in the definition is a way of acknowledging and respecting that part of the negative outcome for those who suffer is the way society and our culture defines and treats the phenomenon of special messages. Acknowledging the role of stigma suggests that the outcomes of people becoming resigned to isolate, to sit and smoke all day in a board and care setting, is not only the result of their internal choice or abilities but the systemic interplay of individuals and the community that surrounds them.

For example, having myself transitioned from being treated like a hard-working, conscientious social worker who inspired social change, to a mental patient who needed to be locked on a ward for my own safety, I know that the power of this concept first hand. The transformation was profound! Suddenly my strengths were no longer defined by me. As I walked in circles on the floor to maintain my need for exercise, the only strength my psychiatric nurse gave me was that my family, in spite of all the hurt that I had experienced over the past fifteen years, was good family support. Two years later stigma still dogged me as a deli worker who worked under the constant threat of being fired. Now, fifteen years later, in spite of the fact that that I have a house, a wife, and a job where I am appreciated, I still battle with a sense of being slandered and rejected while my work remains unacknowledged. While I have not let stigma ruin me, I work with people who are extremely undervalued who are fighting the same demon. I write notes that diminish their efforts so the organization I work for can get paid.

In jargonizing this construct I want to consider that stigma starts in the message receivers’ mind long before the special message and divergent view constructs.  Stigma starts with a subjective perspective or preconceived notion of what words like: “crazy,” “mad,”  “psychosis,” or “schizophrenia” means. It needs to be remembered that the minute one enters into a message crisis unconscious stigma pounds and punishes.

Early impressions are the foundation around which stigma takes root. For me, it was the librarian in my third grade who first introduced me to the concept of “schizophrenia” in a pamphlet. I have come to best see those early impressions as lies regarding incurable brain disorder that is very rare. At the time subsequent interfacing did a lot to diminish my sense of humanity for those who suffer with this. It was somehow okay to throw them away because there was nothing that could be done. Oh, for sure it was sad, kind of like when someone dies in an earthquake.

But having this early impression reinforced persistently through early experiences in hospitals for eating disorders, in Abnormal Psychology text books in college that used misleading twin studies, and as a young professional in the mental health field did a lot to make me feel punished when I received the diagnosis. None of the trauma that I had been through mattered, only that early impression of what the “disease” was.

Early impressions of “psychosis” for those who have parents who struggle from it are going to be very different. Targeted abuse from symptoms or the outside world may result in innocent suffering and form a starkly different impression. Likewise, individuals who grow up in rural, urban, or differently zoned areas than I, where mentally ill people are housed or warehoused, are likely to develop very differing impressions of mental health in very different sets of circumstances. They may not be so book focused.  They may have more or less humanity in them. Nevertheless, I would argue that early impressions start a process of hurt and misunderstanding in many individuals’ experience.

Through this and the next chapter, I will approach stigma as though it is potentially false notions of dominance that distort the rational world and prevent the individual from using their strengths in a meaningful manner.

It’s arguable that stigma comes from the same social processes initiated by the formation of the “state” that empower some to dominate others. Social order of all sorts depends on distorted vision: how else do we all accept the fact that slaving peasants in Uganda make brand name shoes for pennies an hour, while famous endorsers who make them cool, make millions per a few seconds.  It is the justification of illogical, unreal, oppressive and perhaps even selfish reality. For people high up in the social order, stigma serves a real purpose. It is real and many would argue part of reality. But for the people in hacienda camps, their beauty and strengths might wither and disappear and that is not real. At least we could thank and honor them for allowing us to be where we are at. But in reality, the haves are the ones who hate the have-nots because of stigma.

Meanwhile, on a more personal level, for the individual cast out of their community, I believe stigma universally erodes the individuals’ genuine strengths and mandates unfair, submissive roles that are culturally-defined and that can in some cases erode the potential for self-actualization.  Here I am speaking directly about individuals in the mental health system, the industry that exacerbates wounds and defines messages in ways that barely makes sense: amplifying the myth of eugenics and denying the roles of trauma and spirituality. As I will review in chapter eighteen on mad diversity, suddenly there are dominant hereditary eugenic beliefs and myths that justify internment camp conditions, and message receivers feel controlled like a marionette by massive coils of knotted message experience and stigma shaken by corrupted powers above.

Oddly, in institutions it is often people with heightened views of stigma that message receivers have to be in relationship with to get out; they become obliged to utilize elementary social skills and R+R tasks to make friends with, rather than overthrow the oppressor; social skills that may under-estimate their true abilities that may be committed just shine on with ultimate plans to escape. Indeed sometimes the only way to escape from bondage is to take denial (the Nile) down-stream in fake-it-till-you-make-it style.  If the message receiver does not utilize denial and social skills they run the risk of staying stuck or traveling up the river into permanent warehousing.

Stigma Driving the Double Bind and Brain Damage:

Stigma and social sanctions work together in a way that makes it impossible for a message receiver to act without facing some form of punishment.  In my training, I learned that this concept was coined by anthropologist Gregory Bateson as being a “double bind.” I believe that double bind circumstances become inherent in institutions, families, and just about any social group in which power is operant. Even well run, non-punitive message groups run the risk of the “double bind” when they are backed by a system of punishment. In spite of my best efforts, I have seen this happen to individuals and bear responsibility for that even when I have done what I can to prevent it.

Hence, I am going to take a minute to explain how the “double bind” fits into the special message definitions. Recall how special messages stir up emotions that cause the message receiver to sleuth, creating streams of divergent views that soothe. In this process, the message receiver can: 1) rationally test out the divergent views sleuthing for more evidence; 2) give in and act as though the divergent views are true, committing retaliation reactions; or 3) distract from the emotion by completing R+R tasks. The first two options clearly lead to punishment. First, sleuthing will increase the special message phenomenon (which can be traumatic in many cases) until the message receiver reacts and reacts stronger. Second, retaliation reactions inevitably lead to social punishment unless the message process is understood and allowances are made. In both cases stigma further advances and exacerbates social sanctions. But with R+R tasks there is a way out! This I have argued.

But here I want to consider the way that stigma inherently can interrupt this option. If stigma is an inaccurate definition of the problem that steals identity, the able bodied message receiver does what they can to complete R+R tasks for hours, years, or in many cases decades. However, stigma functions to undermine the acknowledgement of such success. Stigma says there is still a process that is going on that impacts and gets in the way. Stigma sniffs out this process, shines a light on it, and confronts it. Stigma wants the message receiver to stop denying that they are different. It seeks to undermine characteristics of the success. It seeks to demonstrate that if the special messages weren’t present, the work could be even better. Stigma wants the message receiver to pay more attention to the problem in order to eradicate it. Stigma actually believes that there is something wrong with the message receiver, not different. Stigma will use the first opportunity to criticize and diminish the message experience.

Think about it! The first thing message receivers are taught when they commit retaliation reactions is that they will have to be put in a hospital and have help forced on them until they settle down. They are put in a holding setting where they may be more limited in terms of R+R tasks they can complete. Then slowly, they are taught that when they behave better, or at least pass through the holding period that they can have R+R tasks back in very basic and limited manners.

I would argue that this process discourages R+R tasks and social relationships in severe manners. Unless a message receiver is exceedingly well, it is upsetting to see their abilities talked to like they don’t exist. A message receiver needs to be able to dummy-down and not let the ridiculous nature of what is going on impact their sense of self.  They cannot do this if they are told this is treatment.  In my opinion, they may be able to do this if they are taught that it is punishment.

Message receiver’s need to know about the “double bind” and choose to work with the staff who are committed to eradicate it.

Stigma as a Multifaceted Mechanism of Oppression:

In giving stigma a clear role in the message process, it is so important to acknowledge that stigma about “psychosis” is only a part of a much larger picture. Message receivers are only a part of the much wider inhumane human process. I’d consider any reality that is hidden in the history books, any genocide, in which graphic and violent details that the mainstream conspires to hide to be a potential origin. Classified documents and other undocumented conspiracies, are examples. But I’d also argue that behind any legitimized genocide, or institutionalization process, there are many means of subtle social oppression; with each, stigma against groups of people is legitimized.

In considering stigmatic mechanisms of oppression, I want to classify two types. First, those second generation mechanisms that get formerly recognized by an intellectual community that seeks to reduce them, but whose work may remain irrelevant to some in the mainstream; factors such as: race, class, gender, veteran status; immigration status, sexual orientation, ableism. Second, first generation mechanisms that are not formerly recognized, in which the oppression is so raw and fresh that it does not get formally observed.  First generation oppressions may be addressed and limited to some extent through law. However, first generation oppressions keep them alive and well. First generation oppressions may be more cloaked and painted as though they are due to weakness of character, but they are all distorted, oppressive mechanisms through which social order is maintained nonetheless. They may be outlawed and blamed on the victims. They are the means of war on the poor. Examples of first generation oppressions are: educationism, gangsterism, legal justicism, creditism, nimbyism, job historyism, nepotism, traumatism, addictsism, mental disorderism, schizophrenificationism, co-occurringism.

While clearly this first and second generation divide is imperfect, the point I like to make is that those people who can get one label with the most first and second generation stereotypes associated with them in the eyes of the mainstream win. Shifts in laws and cultural changes that are happening now may involve moving the second generation issues down to first generation issues. I’d argue that any kind of institutionalization is the result of multiple layers or isms.

In my opinion, the little popularized field of social psychology with studies that prove elements of “the labeling theory” reveals that mainstream opinion can help make a stereotyped reality or oppression more likely to come true. In my admittedly uneducated opinion, social psychology is key to understanding stigma. Thus, according to labeling theory a subject gets a felony and becomes a “criminal” and regardless of their silenced stance on the role of gangsterism or valid sense of morals, they get traumatically pushed into all or nothing criminal behavior because of the box on the employment application.  Additionally a body who has any sort of altered state, becomes a “schizophrenic” and gets treated as though neurotransmitters are disrupted so forcefully that my brain really does swell and need neurotransmitter disruption due to trauma. But if a white psychiatrist has empathy for the schizophrenic they may become bipolarized if they hide what is going on with them. But, if they are black and bipolar, forget it! Even individuals who are bipolarized will suffer the punishment of the schizophrenic. And finally there is the soldier/hero who regardless of their background, level of support at home, or knowledge of covert intelligence or violence and loss they got exposed to, either stays hero or becomes defective and prone to suicide.  In other words the stigma of a word has a lot to do with the way the body and mind respond, the decisions a stigmatized person makes and the outcome of their life and health.

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When people seek mental health services from me, I routinely break what was once a cardinal sin to me early on in my recovery; I review my diagnostic history. I do this with love in my heart to help inspire recovery, however, in the process, the “s” word, “schizophrenia,” will bubble up.

I do this habitually in the outpatient program I work in. I have done this by redefining the medical model definition of the word so that it more accurately reflects the shared internal process that we with “schizophrenia,” or “schizoaffective,” or “bipolar,” or “depression,” or hosts of other diagnoses experience.

As a professional with over twenty years of experience, a diagnosis tells me more about the doctor or therapist who diagnosed the person than it does the identified patient. Many clinicians will judge the mad person based on their counter-transference: their take on the color of their skin, their sex, the socioeconomic experiences in their story, their particular take on social Darwinism, or their subject’s level of trust or emotional openness.  “Schizophrenia” will result when the subject is not liked, is judged as hopeless, or by a clinician who is not accustomed to hearing harsh stories. Depression is more likely when the clinician has been snowed, has failed to really access the details of the dilemmas, or is a righteous advocate trying to undermine stigma.

For example, I recently found out based on my inability to get into a particular health insurance plan, that my current doctor has diagnosed me as a schizophrenic. My last doctor, said I was a bipolar. “So you’re bipolar, what’s the big deal about that!” He said when I described my redefinition work to him. And then there was younger-than-me doctor I saw before that, who clearly tried to be a good parent to me. He said I was a schizoaffective. One might imagine that I changed a lot, but I can assure the reader that with every psychiatrist case I deal with, I do not change my behavior or the details I share. I am cordial and accepting of the fact professionals are going to insist on seeing me until they have enough money or trust to know that I don’t need to be bothered with them.

In the program where I work, I entitle the specialty group I have developed special messages. I like to think that we have developed into a little counterculture. In group, participants are encouraged to share experiences associated with “psychosis.” Some will come to just listen. Others will talk when they are suffering without caring about what others think. Many become compelled to join the majority and talk. Still others will demure and filter into the group when they develop strong enough relationships on the unit so as not to face stigma. They may want to reflect on their growth or end their silence. Many share things with their peers they won’t share with their doctors.

I have created jargon to define seven other common experiences (in addition to special messages) that message receivers can relate to. I call this gooney-goo-goo jargon. Often, people who get helped by my groups come up to me and we have goofy fun with gooney-goo-goo talk, usually making nano nano signs. When we crack enough jokes, having enough fun to help each other feel cool and accepted, I like to think it makes onlookers more curious and willing to explore special messages. Many do.

It’s true that I have struggled some over the years with some of my clinician peers who have had issues with me being out as a schizophrenic. I think this is because historically, people presume that the role of the therapist is a competent model who can guide the client towards more mainstream success. For many the presence of special messages is an indicator that something is unhealthy.

However, among group participants, I have found that demonstrating that one can be mindful of special message processes without experiencing crisis offers hope. I have also found that crossing over and using peer techniques humanizes the process of therapy. This can be very welcome by a people who feel condemned to therapy as their sole purpose in life.

Clearly it is arguable that disclosing that you have schizophrenia has grave social consequences. Research on stigma conducted by Patrick Corrigan suggests that trying to eradicate stigma through education and through protest both lead to higher levels of stigma in the public. In contrast, this research suggests that first establishing contact with the local public and proving that you can fit in is necessary before you come out of the closet with your disability. Thus, contact is an effective means of eradicating stigma.

When I think of my professional experience I can see that when I have grounded myself in a therapeutic community for five years and demonstrated that I could out-work many and temper my emotions sufficiently, I have been able to eradicate stigma on the unit with support of the people who I help. When I left the small world of this community and assumed the role of an identified schizophrenic, schools of piranhas openly assaulted my reputation. I found myself widely targeted and irrationally scrutinized.

As a result, I believe that I have developed that unwarranted reputation because I am out as a schizophrenic in the county. I may be delusional, but they seem to disempower me frequently. They say I function without a strong peer support system; they say my college wasn’t good enough; they say I don’t utilize psychiatric emergency service enough. I have discerned this through both human interaction and intuition. The piranhas seem to say so much. But still, I am good at what I do.

With my new definition of what it means to be in “psychosis,” (or message crisis,) I have created and documented some very effective treatment strategies. I have had success connecting with people who have been silenced and institutionalized for years. I have learned to be my authentic neuro-divergent self and communicate about special messages in the room. With people who prefer individual contact, I have had to spend months being interviewed to prove that I truly have experienced message crisis. Some have needed to do this before enough safety was established to help transition them to talk about what is really going on with them.

Many message receivers live in constant states of immediate trauma. They are not willing or able to talk about the process of what is going on with them because doing so can get them punished in a psychiatric instituion. As a result they fail to get that perspective on what has happened to them to make that shift to a less traumatized state. Often, I have observed that groups with other people randomly telling stories are extremely helpful towards inspiring individuals to make that shift in awareness.

I yearn to share what I have learned in our de-stigmatized therapeutic community. Over the past few years, I have received an occasional speaking opportunity and am trying to hone those skills.  Now as I am marketing an award-winning memoir about my journey with “schizophrenia” and trying to prepare for service cuts that are likely in the current political climate, I am exploring opening a small private practice. But, I repeatedly run into that barrier of trying to sell myself as a schizophrenic. I struggle in contexts in which people are not warm toward me.

Already, I have been excluded from joining the county’s provider list once. This is a huge barrier towards being able to help the niche I specialize in.

Since that time, I wrote a grant program that sought to explore whether four individuals with a history of message crisis could learn to talk about their experiences as they develop into careers as mental health workers. The program was led by someone (not me) who had established themselves as a mental health professional in spite of having special message experiences. During the course of the grant several worked through housing crisis’s and struggled to improve their lives as they de-stigmatized the local community and started up groups in local clinics and hospitals. The grant was very successful and participants were able to use the training and support to improve their lives. Three of these pioneers now work in mental health full-time. They have helped prove to others that it could be done and give me hope that I can continue to survive telling those who accept services from me about my history with special messages.

However, in spite of all this work, I have only received more indications that my reputation has been further smeared. They say I protest against evidence based practice too much. They say my work doesn’t fit into the trendy early prevention focus that currently dominates treatment. They say I am rude for trying to push for services for those on the streets and institutions.

So with my recent application to join the county’s provider list lying in wait for potential rejection, I found myself leafing through my mail earlier this week. I received a copy of California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists Annual Conference brochure. In scanning this professional advocacy group’s workshops, I noted there continues to be no workshops that teach clinician’s about how to work with people in special message crisis.

So here I lie in wait to see if a person who has established a new therapy really can be permitted to do a private practice with the “s” word on the loose.

Will that CAMFT Annual Conference one day be able to diversify to include message receivers as people who also need therapeutic support? Will public insurance continue to fund treatment for message receivers at all? What will be the plans for those invisible people fall into the streets or into institutions?

If you heard that I have “schizophrenia,” would you seek out services from me?

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Nine Social Skills I Developed for Myself:

Though in developing these social skills, I initially took a stab at writing from a universal perspective, I have had enough experience running them by people in groups to recognize that many of these are personal. Mad people are very diverse. As a result, the following are meant to be helpful in helping message receivers consider social skills that they need to penetrate the cultural enclave of their choosing. However, it is a wide world with very distinctive individuals and cultures so message receivers need to be constantly exploring their social skills even if they are neuro-divergent, like me, and struggle to do so.

I, for example, have learned to adapt to a ghetto culture and am somewhat comfortable in these contexts, however, have a difficult time switching so that I can be in mainstream culture without losing my social skills. When I feel excluded or sense gossip and slander, I withdraw and lose my ability to socialize. Thus, my ability and sometimes willingness to overcome deficits varies.

The following are set up to help me survive and overcome hostile environments. I’d argue that all message receivers need to consider adjusting social skills to overcome stigma and work together to help each other be successful. Perhaps some of what I have put together for myself may help message receivers and their helpers spot these issues in others and better reflect on the social skills they need to use to replace their retaliation reactions. The goal is to build relationships instead of break them.

Social Skill #1: Learning lessons from being punished or unjustly victimized

            When I get victimized I tend to personalize punishment that validates a sense of shame I live with. When this happens, I have noticed that my self-esteem goes down and the power of the message experiences goes up. Personalizing punishment feeds right into my negative divergent views and new special messages take form that support the painful negativity. Since message receivers go through social sanctions associated with message receiving, they need to learn to escape the victimization involved. In other word’s they need to learn to learn from unjust punishment.  This may be best exemplified by survivors of great atrocities.

Victor Frankel, a Jewish Holocaust survivor and existential creator of logo-therapy in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, serves as a compelling example of this skill which he defines as the ability to make meaning of suffering.  Thus, making meaning via taking spiritual levels of personal responsibility that go beyond that which results from a persons’ intentional actions.  In other words the skill of learning valuable life lessons from social sanctions rather than letting them victimize the message receiver is hence exemplified.

In recovery, I have learned to reframe what I went through during two years of message crisis as bearing a lesson that I ultimately needed to know to work effectively as a therapist.  Seeing it from a spiritual vantage point, it helped me better understand the privileges I was initially given as a private school kid, privilege that may have been based on the fact that my ancestors may have been exploitive to others. Thus, acknowledging personal responsibility for those advantages helped me accept and tolerate some pretty oppressive circumstances. Thus, seeing ones privileges, talents, and social advantages is an important part of creating the personal responsibility to learn from punishment.

I believe that helpers need to see this and help message receivers realize the advantages they hold to help them develop this sense of personal responsibility. If they cannot see this, how can they help their loved one accept the devastating punishment and suffering so often associated with medical care in this country, especially psychiatric treatment? To do this, it is so important to not fall for the trap of pitying the message receiver as it interferes with developing this personal responsibility. Stigma of all types need to be eradicated. Just like it does not work when a guilt stricken Caucasian person pities an African American person and fails to see the strengths they hold because of the color of their skin, so too does perceiving special messages as a deficit due to the medical model prevent a message receiver from learning from the unjust victimization

Victor Frankel’s work making meaning out of the punishments endured during the Holocaust, it was inspirational to me personally. To stop falling victim, I had to consider the arrogance of my initial whistle blowing belief that I could save institutionalized peoples without even understanding the codes of ethics that informally policed the neighborhood.  I didn’t realize that I was no different than the institutionalized person but for my early privilege.

Thus, the making meaning skill needs to be applied to traumatic message experience and to the double whammy of being punished for it as well. Narratives of strengths and privileges need to be seen to build personal responsibility and help message receivers choose functional flexible theories or alternative meanings that they can live with. Even harshly subjugated individuals have advantages in their life that need to be considered to develop the personal responsibility if they are to overcome the senseless persecution they may have experienced in an oppressive context. This has to do with accepting that the social sanction and stigma game is rigged and anticipating abuse and being grateful when it doesn’t come.

Social Skill #2: Creating a public-professional self:

Special message support groups establish and reinforce this principle every time divergent views and retaliation reactions are defined and reviewed. Reinforcing this as a social skill might not be too shocking and does not necessarily have to be explicitly stated. But for many like me the process of professional performance is not easy to maintain without practice and steady opportunities to work at it. Leisure time may involve just not having to fake it. This may be the time we talk back to voices privately or creatively vent and emote our stress.

This skill is based on the presumption that it is not safe to display the customs or styles of the message culture outside the group.  In other words, the culture should be used discreetly.  In the halls of 12-step meetings they ask: are you friends of Bill? What we have done on the unit I work is discuss whether they should talk about message business right now by uttering Eddie Murphy’s words: Gooney-goo-goo? Other individuals make the “nano, nano” sign with me. These kinds of codes are very culture-building and people are often curious especially when we tell good jokes. It makes them want to be part of the group rather than persecute it. It is a practice I recommend.

On some level, I knew I couldn’t discuss or display my divergent views or retaliation reactions, even early on in the process. When I did, it was often a cry for help, a statement of helplessness, or a test. This is the reason it often takes time for message receivers to open up and discuss divergent views in group.

Clearly throughout this work, I’ve argued that without having a place to be publically open about divergent views, it is hard to conceal them in the places where they must be concealed without medications. In other words, without personally observing and accepting divergent process, it may seep out in unwanted ways through things like social withdrawal, facial expressions, or unchecked oppositional behavior that sabotages the good effort of the message receiver to fit in. The question is: does having a supportive community that acknowledges special message experiences help balance the teeter-totter make it easier to be professional in the halls of human etiquette?

Too many times, by reinforcing professional behavior in therapy, therapists end up happy with the relationship and groups can go on for years that do not address message experience. Additionally, some therapists don’t believe that social rehab is possible outside a protective community; if not, therapeutic communities do not promote simple principles of social integration. The result can be stagnation and cycles of decline and revolt.

Social Skill #3: Killing the punisher with kindness:

In my recovery there have been times when people have intentionally slapped me in the face to test me out or to make efforts to return me to marginalization.  Still people will sometimes wittingly or unwittingly uphold stigmatizing beliefs because they believe they are entitled to do so, or because they have a need to test me out.  Just like a therapist is asked to roll with resistance with the drug culture during motivational interviewing, I believe message receivers need to build social relationships by rolling with social sanctions without retaliating. When we retaliate we may get branded as becoming symptomatic and appearing symptomatic can trigger us back into focusing on messages.

One clear reason for this is that for many message receivers there are a lot of angles where we may see punishment and oppression.  Most of us in the local where I work are more than just message receivers.  We may be racial or ethnic minorities, immigrants, afflicted by sex and sexual orientation discrimination, have criminal records, or come from disadvantaged educational circumstances.  There are so many ways we can be stigmatized, if we want to overcome we have got to roll with resistance and kill all stigma with kindness taking the moral high ground.  This can best be done with a polite smile and a process of keeping on, keeping on.

And regardless of the intention, the solution for all is to ignore all as if they are just names, rather than sticks and stones. This involves us smiling back and regulating the mood and paying the punisher a compliment.  It is about having the peace of mind to give them a piece of chocolate to sweeten them up a bit even if they are the reason you were homeless for two years.  It is a unique skill.  It’s like being able to look the devil in the eye without being scared or damaged.

My experience is that when this is done the racket and tests can escalate, so I’d argue that part of kind killing might need to come from a place of knowing that you are right about yourself in spite of all the stigma. Indeed, when I am hit really hard multiple times, I still slip into negative thinking at times. But still I’d argue that the best execution of this skill is to pursue a relationship with the very person who thinks you are dirt and treats you like an object.

I learned this through working customer service while in a state of poverty and hardship. This skill comes from humbling myself enough to above all else be honorable.  It’s about providing good customer service serving food even though you can’t afford to eat.  It may be about remembering that there are oh so many people who learn to do this on a daily basis.

Killing people with kindness does not mean that we forget. But as is suggested by the research of Patrick Corrigan contact needs to be established first. The message receiver needs to prove their value and social worth before they come out and identify as a message receiver. This is the suggested route to changing individuals’ minds about stigma.  Corrigan’s work may help reinforce the need to meet each normal culture where it is at, rather than trying to educate it about the covert private hell that has dominated the message receiving life. For me, I strive to kill the punisher with kindness. In many ways, it is my only choice.

Social Skill #4: Hanging in there with some troubled relationships through shared activities:

I personally have a very hard time holding onto old relationships and need to remind myself not to give up. Back when I trusted no one, the only relationships that I kept were ones that were required for my financial and material survival. And it was a struggle to hold and honor those relationships. This taught me the ethic to hang in there with some troubled relationships.

Perhaps message receivers may need to be as resilient as water in a canyon to gain the clout necessary to overcome the stigma associated with the illness.  And when they don’t prevail, keeping on via pursuing other social relationships will impact help them and help make the world better.

For a message receiver like me, who experiences paranoia, making friends with the people who were following me around, particularly hecklers in the Italian mafia, was crucial to my recovery.  A message receiver may need to learn more about who they are and the reality of their world in order to heal.

Thus, I am suggesting that any Darth Vader leader needs to encourage group members to pursue all sorts of relationships with all sorts of peoples by finding shared activities that can be engaged in. Message receivers might benefit by reaching out to all kinds of peoples including their worst oppressors. While this is an ethic, I have not always maintained, it can be a very important part of social rehab.

An example would be a time I watched a friend on BART connecting with a heckler who was calling us crazy. The friend who I met at a social club, was exhibiting retaliation reactions and the heckler was a proud Republican. Instead of being insulted, my friend who had studied economics in college, start genuinely talking about his field of interest on his terms not only to kill him with kindness but also perhaps with the intention of building a support. Exhibiting this kind of social skill proudly helped enormously and we had a much better outing as a result.

This is particularly useful for message receivers when they are working with other message receivers who may fall on hard times. In my experience, burning bridges or kicking someone who has hurt me to the curb is something I have had to learn not to do in order to have any relationships. Sometimes I have had to make people who frustrate me little projects. As a person who is sensitive to being bullied I have to remind myself not to give up all the time.

Social Skill #5: Going towards new relationships:

As I healed, I acclimated to a world where many old contacts presumed I was damaged goods. Therefore, I needed to seek out new streams of friends by going out to social groups and engaging in shared social activities. Reaching out to new streams of people can be of vital importance.

For some message receivers, traveling from the bondage of a board and care into the free world of the local community requires companionship mixed with creative resources: the poetry slam, the meet-up-group of alien-enthusiasts, the Disco floor.  Meeting other message receivers from a cultural group such as special messages and going out together into the community is a good strategy for picking up more social resources.

This skill involves remembering that the fisherman who has many hooks out there is more likely to hook a fish.

Social Skill #6: Skillfully knowing when it’s time to reveal trauma to build support:

There have been times once I’ve built relationships that I’ve needed to assertively appeal to people by making contained disclosures regarding trauma they may see in me. This has involved significant judgment as in general it is not appropriate to reveal what I‘ve been through. I have had to learn to sense when people are seeing me as a human being enough so that I can assert myself and explain my behavior via relating some trauma. After all there are times when not doing so makes things awkward.

At the same time I have decidedly chosen not to confront public ridicule systemically because I run the risk of being told I am paranoid.  Confronting it personally involves picking up on social cues that I am so gifted as to be able to do and that I would have to be prepared to address the issue systemically. This involves assuming that I can appeal to position power that is not biased against the mad.  In spite of the ADA, harassment of the mad is not in the public awareness and is rampant in the media.  Thus, I personally feign from asserting my rights and perhaps that is how I have survived professionally.

Asserting rights clearly may be different for others.  It is best done with a thick skin and sharp attention to social cues, qualities that some message receivers may have.

Still by being out as mad and letting “normals” see a part of yourself that is suggestive of your struggles, you may not only change their attitude, but deepen the way they see you.  This alone can be a way of asserting your needs. I personally see it as the way you hold your trauma cards: when to play them, when to hold them and when to fold them.

When we play our cards with normal culture we need to do it strategically, rather than out of need. We have message group and other message receivers to get our needs met. Knowing when to lightly let the cat out of the bag when our relationship is strong enough.  This involves assessing the supporter’s level of attachment to “normal” culture and accepting their boundaries with regard to their personal biases and stigmas.

I am suggesting that it depends on the level of transparency we have about the skeletons in our closet, and our ability to read social cues, how soon we ask for respect.  But there are times when we need to make assertive calls for respect.  Knowing the difference depends on knowledge of your: self, culture, and your need for power.  It is a skill.

For me revealing trauma cards to therapists or medical professional is no different. In other words, the message receiver might wait until the therapist, case manager, or outreach worker trusts them as a regular person and ready to undress the public-self.  The clear suggestion would be to wait to bring up messages, then right as the therapist is genuinely touched and demonstrating respect, the message receiver might throw their false limb off and ask for a hug.  Then the message receiver might assess based on the therapists response whether it is safe to really talk about messages.

I would suggest that message receivers not act entitled to tell their story even if they are paying for therapy. I am constantly prepared to back up and de-stigmatize the therapist about the absent limb.  This can take a lot of patience, risk and work, especially when the therapist is the one who is getting paid and screwing up.  I say this because with the amount of institutional stigma in the literature, therapists often require special treatment and perhaps need to be babied a bit.  They may be particularly hard work but the good news is they aren’t going anywhere as long as the money flows.

It is wise for anyone working with a message receiver to recognize and support this process, they might reflect that they understand by collaboratively morphing along with the process and complimenting the message receiver for skillful behavior.

Social Skill #7: Using humor:

One of the skills I have tried to exemplify at times in this chapter and throughout is the social skill of humor, or effective retaliation reactions.  (You didn’t know I was trying to be funny, did you?)  This can definitely be used to get through this terribly difficult task of building social relationships because making people laugh is genuinely a great way to get appreciated and build relationship.

Consider our friend at the USA day parade who was really quite zany and funny with his behavior too but because it lacked conformity it got punished rather than acknowledged for humor.  Perhaps dressing and behaving normal and couching his commentary in a little story that expressed the same kind of edgy message might have worked, while it satisfied his creativity.  Additionally, I am sure it would have been healing to get real recognition for the personal dilemma the message receiver was experiencing by creating genuine laughter; it would have made it easier for the message receiver to “make friends with the people who were following them around.”

Not only does mad humor demand that a message receiver accept social sanctions but it may help build upon scarred relationships and tragedy in socially “appropriate” manners.  Imagine, the people you are mad at turning around and supporting you with laughter.  It is a great way to make your point and ease your ire.

Social Skill #8: Make efforts to respectfully fit in with Romans when in Rome:

Far too often I have observed message receivers do something that is familiar to me: project our public selves to professionals to avoid punishment, and our private message culture to the public. There is something about this that is beautiful and recklessly funny about this behavior, but it doesn’t bode well for social rehabilitation.

I can even recognize that once I left home I had an unconscious proclivity towards acting like my Mom in front of my Dad and acting like my Dad in front of my Mom. Though this clearly didn’t work, it consistently happened.  I like to think of this as walking like an Egyptian in Rome and vice-versa. While it was good for a punk-ass existence, eventually this kind of behavior had to stop.

As I have gained experience being the therapist outreaching to message receivers in the community, I certainly get the feeling that I am not alone in these regards.  Often, it is as if message receivers flip flop their behavior as an objection to the entire enslavement industry.  Once a message receiver can get the validation to know there is beauty in this behavior and hypocrisy and enslavement in normal culture, they might need to realize that the only way to change this reality is to work to change these behavior patterns.

In state hospital I rebelled with this flip flop behavior by using “normal” skills when I could in the institutional setting because I did not want institutional behavior internalized. Then one day it was revealed to me that the staff in meeting constantly criticized me for being entitled. As such, my flip-flop behavior does not bode well for social rehabilitation. When I learned of the staff’s criticism, I internalized it and it only added to my sense of shame.

Likewise picture me in a room full of people who are acting “appropriate” and potentially excluding. Because I feel threatened disgusted I have to run a trust test behaving in a “message” oriented manner, perhaps with provocative behavior. This inappropriate behavior only puts me at risk of real exclusion.

Ultimately, to avoid the fate of institutionalization, I need to learn to accept the culture where I am at and respect its customs as well as I can in order to avoid the trap. I continue to struggle with this in places where I don’t feel I belong.

Again, I believe that having the beauty of the behavior and the hypocrisy of the system validated and understood would help me improve this behavior.

A message receiver using this skill would start by assuming normal culture traits and assessing and testing for safety before opening up with a high level of distinctive cultural behavior.  They would start by paying respect to the dominant culture and slowly use good judgment in determining how far to go in terms of revealing their own distinctive mannerisms.  They would not necessarily see this as sell-out behavior, they would see this as a necessary step towards teaching others about their culture if others were receptive.

The strength of the group discussing this amid members of varying stages of recovery makes this possible to help message receiver’s work together.  Instead of hating it when their friends are successful, message receivers need to know that they will not be left behind. This is why it is so important for the leader demonstrate the ability to morph back to message and demonstrate that they are in the struggle for the long haul.  This is why it is extremely disturbing for me to see recovered message receivers behaving in excessively excluding manners.  This is exactly why we need to localize and be inclusive.

But this is really about accepting both the “normal” and the message aspects of our experience, making peace within ourselves and promoting peace by taking the higher ground.

Social Skill #9: Playing aloof:

Historically I have been isolated and have often approached social interaction with a high degree of need. As a result of desire to be accepted, I can often sabotage myself by coming across in a needy manner. This is admittedly not very attractive in “normal” culture where everyone is presumed to be loved and supported. Often staying cool and being aloof gives people an advantage in social circumstances especially when they are humiliated or face exclusion. This is a skill that is difficult for me.

This is something that some message receivers may need to be aware of as well, particularly when entering the culture of the oppressor. Playing it cool means we not allow the water to drip on our foreheads, but rather run-off our rubber covered back.

While many of us who have faced significant trauma and exclusion may go from one to one hundred with our emotions, but publically we need to contain that inner pain and pretend like we don’t care.  While vulnerability heals, it does not work in normal culture. Fronting like you don’t care what people say might be necessary for other people besides me.

The post Nine Social Skills Continued appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

To avoid punishment, message receivers will need to build relationships with people who socially sanction the message experience. Social functioning will often require that the message receiver engage in relationships that are in the culture of the “normal” consensus reality. In fact, by the time many message receivers make it into a group many are taught through the mainstream system of care (and perhaps through internalized stigma) to deny their symptoms and play it normal. Indeed at the onset of group, it can take a long while for many group members to share message experiences not only because those experiences are traumatic, but also because they fear being persecuted for doing so. While there are message receivers who stick to their guns especially early in their message crisis, many experienced message receivers already know what it takes to survive in a world dominated by storm troopers. Often, it is anger and emotional desperation that makes them act out their symptoms when in crisis. The game becomes to contain these experiences so that there is no punishment. People may notice something is up with some of us, but social sanctions forces people to contain themselves when they can. Often times the way this is done is silently disdained. And still there are very different degrees of social skills as message receivers do this.

For me personally, learning to submit to this process was very challenging without medication. I do not consider myself to hold good social skills on the whole. In addition to struggling with messages, I like many message receivers have been diagnosed with dyslexia, ADD, and consider myself to be influenced by a mild level of autism. My whole life I have gravitated towards people who are different who might give me a chance. Thus, message receivers who are likewise neuro-divergent might also struggle with basic social skills like looking people in the eye etcetera. While I do my best to accept what I perceive to be the bullying nature of a great deal of social interaction, I do not like the fact that social groups exclude and differentiate themselves from other groups. For me, genuine cuddling is very difficult. As a result, I tend to come from the vantage point that social skills are very difficult when this may not be the case for all message receivers.

Perhaps historically the message receiver begrudges and is angry at “normal” folk for their role in oppressing them. Imagine being homeless and looking at all the people driving cars past on their way home from their high end jobs. For me this kind of outside-looking-in experience hurt hard. I’d feel like a failure, like something was taken from me. I’d been raised to believe that honesty and hard work would take care of me, and this just wasn’t the case. Some message receivers, however already have experienced inequity and have social skills that enable them to fake it. For some others too, it may be hard not to begrudge or be angry with those who have it all. Some people have learned to negotiate these realities without showing their real feelings. Many may already be practiced at this. As a person who primarily connects with people through work of a professional nature, I had to integrate with the very people I was most angry at and that influences my views of necessary social skills

The nine social skills we will review in this chapter are benchmarks that I set for myself in reflection. These were necessary for me in order to make friends with people who appear to be on the inside of the circle. Perhaps some will resonate with some message receivers. They function as nagging reminders for me. In this chapter, I will argue that approximately nine social skills may be set by all message receivers based on who they are and what they need to do to succeed. Undoubtedly, others will not struggle with social skills quite the same way that I do. But they are expressed herein in a manner so as to be representative of the types of skills needed to overcome oppression. The idea is to build a list of reminders that motivate the message receiver to do what they need to recover.

Message receivers do need to be able to play it normal in order to get jobs, improve housing, and thrive in the social world. They may need to reconnect with social groups that have hurt them. Be it with a marginalized ethnic group, with the culture of a prestigious university, or a religious community, a work culture, message receivers usually needs pick a culture to infiltrate that has been more welcoming of them at some point. Then they need to consider social skills that help them survive in these settings.

In this chapter, I am going to argue that this starts with befriending and going towards relationships with helpers. Once they can approach and befriend helpers they need to approach social groups they work with or play with in similar manner. This may involve a high level of executing social skills that they may not be feeling. It may well involve, as I have suggested, meeting a culture that is responsible for social sanctions where they are at and pretending to be part of it as if it is no big thing.

In this chapter we will talk about how this can involve both radical compliance and love on the part of the message receiver, and I will share a compiled list of social skills that are needed by the author to successfully integrate and experience social rehabilitation. Perhaps, some other message receivers may relate to this list.

Jargonizing the Nine Social Skills Solution:

If the message receiver and the normal need to come to a truce, the social skills presented in this chapter are not simply normal social skills. They are behaviors that are needed in the face of social sanctions. They function as skills that need to be executed in place of retaliations reactions.

Recall that if being punished for behavior that is involuntary seems unjust, it will lead the message receiver to resist authority and halt trusting anything outside their message experience. Message experiences then via the trickster phenomenon become accurate. They end up believing they will be persecuted and acting in ways that make some kind of social persecution come true. I argue that this doesn’t need to be. I believe that social skills are needed to back up positive self-fulfilling prophesies that can help put a stop to social persecution. When this doesn’t happen, the message receiver continues to overvalue their messages and continues retaliation reactions that lead to irregular social sanctions and real social persecution.

The trick of the nine social skills behaviors, is to endure the punishment and go towards the relationship with the punisher to try to get some inclusion. As the title of the chapter suggests, it’s compiling a list of behaviors necessary to cuddle up to the plastic of the Stormtroopers. When I was in crisis I called these kiss-ass skills. What these social skills do is seek to prepare the message receiver for the steps they need to take to overcome subjugation and take the first steps to fitting in with a dominant culture. The idea is that if these skills, if applied, will not change the message receiver, but they may well protect them. Then as they adjust to one setting, they might consider changing some of those skills to adapt to another. These is a way to develop a sense of belonging which is needed for good mental health.

When I present the nine social skills, I note that nine means none in German, but may mean something else in a different culture. For example in hip hop culture a nine is a type of gun and may be very effective at leveling the playing field. Beatle fans may have their own views of what the number nine means based on the Revolution Nine song. Hence, for each person the skills may be different. Social skills are always changing in different cultural contexts. So the ones I select are ones that helped me overcome isolation and social sanctions and socially rehabilitate in a hostile professional world.

Nine social skills might ultimately function as great positive self-fulfilling prophesy mantras that enhance multicultural skills. A different set of nine social skills may be needed to penetrate different cultural enclaves. But the key is that when people punish an aspect of message receiving, instead of withdrawing into messages in rebellion, to go towards the punisher and provide the kiss-ass skills necessary to build a relationship.

I intend to impress the reader with the level of multi-cultural and interpersonal skills necessary for a message receiver to integrate. I’d argue that giving the message receiver knowing recognition for successful completion of these skills is a necessary means of reducing social sanctions and stigma that prevent many of us from completing our good efforts. So often, the message receiver may have made efforts of love and acceptance that are unrecognized. Maybe they only get met with criticism and more demands. So often there is a sense of demoralized defeat and contempt for the “normal” world because of this.

Indeed, for message receivers to have success, they have to change, but also it would help if those who sanction them stop sanctioning them. In order to do this, this work tries to create a cultural understanding of special messages. Indeed, I believe social sanctions can stop, but to me it seems like the message receiver must take the moral high ground in the bulk of their relationships. In order to do this, helpers may need to be able to enter the message culture, meet the message receiver where they are at, and both notice and support the ways they do engage in nine social skills with them.

As the diagram below suggests, this involves noticing retaliation reactions and recognizing that they are being socially sanctioned. Then, instead of believing that their special messages and divergent views are true, it involves forming relationships with their persecutors. Nine social skills are the skills used to do this. The better they can be acknowledged and promoted by the helper, the more trust will build in the relationship, and fewer the retaliation reactions are that only lead to a stronger conviction in the truth of the special message process.

The Role of the Helper as a Social Skill Provider:

For the helper, this solution, essentially kiss-ass skills, takes preparation and skill to deliver. Let’s review what we have essentially done as helpers up to this point. A good helper or group leader takes the lead and meets the message receiver where they are at and develops human mutuality with the Jedi, the message receiving Yoda figure. They do this by describing the components of special messages and proving they understand. Then once social sanctions are defined, accepted and healed from, the message receiver feels more bonded with their helpers: fellow group members and the leader, and perhaps connection to an outside therapist can increase. But the leader, other group members, or outside therapist need to realize that this bond is happening and help the message receiver identify the nine social skills they are using. In order to do this, helpers need to recognize when social skills are being used and highlight them.

I believe that helpers need to have an awareness that they themselves are in a state of morphing between playing the role of Jedi and playing the role of storm trooper. This is likely happening in the mind of the message receiver as helpers generally can function in the plastic world of the empire and are going to be seen as Stormtroopers. Thus, when relationship skills are expressed toward the helper, the helper can help the message receiver by acknowledging the social skill and define it as a nine social skill. Of course, suddenly doing so means the helper morphs into a plastic Stormtrooper, and then morphs back to being Jedi. Acknowledging that they are doing this and articulating it may help acknowledge the process. Perhaps there might even be some humor in this. “I repeatedly find myself telling male message receivers, “Luke, you do not understand the power of the dark side!” Then, a good helper will morph back into a Jedi and demonstrate their competence with message culture. Of course, the leader might have to morph back into a Stormtrooper to intellectually teach the skill to the group and then they can morph back.

Ultimately in my mind this can teach the message receiver to morph or acculturate to different social contexts that can clearly be of their choosing.

In case the reader is uncomfortable with the Stormtrooper analogy, let us recall the helper is essentially throughout this work the representative of the consensus culture. Let’s face it, consensus reality is the orientation of most effective communicators and is essentially being used all the time so that group members can connect with each other. But the strength of most leaders is their ability to reflect on times when they were in message crisis to prove their humanity to the message receiver. For the most part, the leader exhibits an ability to reflect both cultures and morph into a Stormtrooper throughout.

Thus, nine social skills can essentially become a code word for an important social skill that is being demonstrated. Acknowledging that it is a moral high ground and act of love helps strengthen the relationship. As the message receiver starts to see themselves as bearing a social skill, they may practice sharing it with other Stormtroopers they are motivated to cuddle up with.

Indeed, so much morphing is not always easy for a leader. The leader may at times they are morphing between plastic and Jedi establish a plastic post in the therapy office for the sake of their own security.  Then they might run to the plastic post and cuddle it to get their emotional needs met. Indeed that’s what a good leader will do, be open and vulnerable about their own need for attachment. Message receivers generally have it worse than Barlow’s monkey’s and being vulnerable to show your own depravations in terms of attachment is a great way to model cuddling up to Stormtroopers. Clearly, the work can be done. In my mind reality and recovery consists of a balance between the Jedi and the Empire.

As the message receiver gets a degree of acceptance by a social enclave their view of it as the Empire may become friendlier and more humanized. They may see reality as more of a balance between rational and irrational forces, as more gray than black and white. Achieving some level of inclusion be it in a survivor group, in a profession, in a family role, in a romantic relationship, in a social club, in a religion, in a housing warehouse, or in any entity that helps them get their social needs met will help the message receiver move out of the survival state of black and white, good and evil, or life or death and help them on their journey towards actualization. For message receivers to remain healthy will usually involve the goal of gaining acceptance in more than one cultural context.

Admittedly, I have used metaphor to describe what helpers can do on a daily basis to revolutionize treatment. In this metaphor, mainstream treatment in our current system repeatedly punishes the Jedi until they can say the words necessary to act plastic. Then they are set free and told to stay plastic and given medications that sometimes help.

Role of the Group in Teaching Social Skills:

I believe that the group, with the leader switching from one culture to the other, develops a bit of a safe rhythm that gives participants the chance to work on nine social skills with each other. Thus, there are many times the leader in morphing from plastic to Jedi needs to let the group interact with each other and support those who are engaging in social skill building. Thus, when group members who are used to being excluded seek to sharpen social skills in a way that is inclusive, the therapist might find ways to support these efforts.

However, message receivers as a culture are particularly focused on themes that are often not encouraged in mental health settings such as politics, history and religion. In order to feel permitted to socialize these topic need to be allowed and a leader is wise to acknowledge that when the topic is participant’s natural cultural socialization and be prepared to assist with the natural socialization in a way that promotes multi-cultural skills which are needed for recovery. In my personal experience there is a great deal of socialization with regard to the bible and finding a way to acknowledge honor and include people from different faiths without killing the process is an important art that can happen as the leader becomes familiar with group members

Though, in hosting a mix of individuals in varying levels of recovery from message crisis, it is ill-advised to make participation mandatory, still the leader needs to prompt and assess, particularly when the topic is not about messages. This is an opportunity to use the rhythm and safety to promote social skills.  During these moments I assess whether the message receiver is on track and sync with the social skills the group is presenting. If the participant is bored, offended, just doesn’t want to be bothered, or simply being left behind, these are the times when the leader needs to be able to morph into Jedi and use other aspects of the reconstruction of psychosis, to make the effort to include the member in the discourse of the group. There are times it is time to change the discourse of the group at these times. Perhaps the group may respond to a different culture building message topic.

Hence, often the leader can support the withdrawn individual, by giving them attention and inclusion by listening carefully to individuals who are in message culture and are struggling to fit into the plastic nature of the communication that comes up in socialization. There may also be times when including the message receiver is difficult and it can be time to move on, still honoring the message receiver’s effort to connect.  It may be necessary to remind recovering message receivers that being patient and inclusive will ultimately help them help themselves if crisis returns. In my experience more often than not message receivers have reminded me to be patient as well and to allow the socialization. I have had to perpetually listen. When I become plastic I wait before asserting myself and weigh the temperature of the group before asserting myself.

I believe a leader is wise to remember that these groups are a radical effort to decrease isolation. Once new group members have been introduced and the general strategy of the group reviewed, and perhaps a story or two told, the leader needs to flex with the group when they want to work on external issues and social skills with each other. Though there is still the need to morph during this stage: playing plastic to some and Jedi to others.

The post Nine Social Skills appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".

January 7, 2017: I sit stunned in the wake of the tragedy of yesterday’s Fort Lauderdale shooting. As statements appear in the press that insinuate that these evil acts need to be avenged, I grieve for the senseless loss of life.  I grieve and I also wonder if anyone cares to understand the dilemmas that people like Esteban Santiago-Ruiz face. Having just endured another holiday season as a mad person, I am reminded of the importance of giving social scapegoats a space to celebrate their otherness. As a licensed psychotherapist, I create safe places where the untold story can be heard. I know that a state of victimhood can be transformed to a celebration. I see it happen every day. It helps me exponentially.

Having caught a fever, I spent Christmas day in bed in victim mode, reflecting on the way I feel scapegoated. Instead of working through the pain like usual, I lay incapacitated, overcome. I thought of my project design that could bring specialized groups into the county service system. Turns out eighteen months of pro bono work only further smeared my reputation. I not only am left unnoticed, I know there are rumors based on past politics and current ones that I can do nothing about. I reflected how, when I recently shared these ideas in a survivor work group, I only felt further marginalized. This hurt, as did the fact that my award winning memoir isn’t selling.

Reaching out to family on Christmas Day conjured that same sense of invisibility: I was reminded that most family members look away from me when they talk to each other. I reflected on how I stooped with my bad back under a tarp in a rain storm barbecuing for everyone at the family reunion and how disrespected I felt when not a single relative stopped by to check in with me. I reflected further about a recent interaction with a chronically normal co-worker that turned bully in nature. And somehow as I traipsed off to sleep, my dreams revealed that I am still afraid of losing everything. This overwhelming sense of hurt could easily be a daily state for me if I was locked up.

Maybe what was going on during this fever was that I was transported back to Montana State Hospital, to a fever I had there. There had been ice growing on the inside of my window just above the cot where I stacked wet wool blankets. Two months into my stay, I still had not met with my psychiatrist. I had already been told there was no need to take my temperature, because aspirin relief was not legal for me. Orders had not been written and it was Friday. When somehow I got myself up and out to the front, I begged for aspirin anyway. It annoyed the old hen at the nursing station to the point where she accused me of being sexually inappropriate with her. I had my hand sitting on my hip tucked inside the elastic of the sweatpants I had been given. Jolted out of my misery by the accusation, I tried to tell myself I was just being paranoid. It wasn’t fair to judge the old hen. She probably would not write me up. But the next time I could manage to get myself out of bed, a conscientious staff person who I had built a relationship with leaked the reality of the note to me. It really did happen.

As a master’s level social worker devoted to going where others wouldn’t and as the survivor of multiple molestations, I was deeply impacted. Immediately, I was afraid that my three month stint on that old dank frozen, dirty unit would be extended. I was there because they said I was paranoid. And now it was possible that I could be held an additional nine months. This is exactly what my family was advocating for.

But when mad people let themselves feel victimized and hurt by such circumstances, not only do they hurt, they may also harm their loved ones who helped put them there. Suddenly, everyone else looks like perpetrators. This does not help us in the least. When mad people act like victims and point their fingers at perpetrators, they may find dozens of irrational fingers back at them criticizing their every move. This is what Schizophrenia means to me.

It takes a while to learn, but there are ways to avoid this. There are ways to achieve mental health recovery. Instead, I have learned that we who experience “psychosis” of any form need to celebrate our otherness, our neurodivergence, our madness. We need the space to tell our untold stories. We need to learn from and support each other. This is what mental health recovery helps us do.

Of course, over the holidays, seasonal stories I endure as a licensed psychotherapist in Oakland have added to my sense of hurt on Christmas. I primarily serve individuals who are marginalized in board and care circumstances. I constantly hear reports that end up being very similar to the warehousing I endured on Unit C in Montana. And particularly around Christmas when people are desperate to give others Christmas gifts, there is a lot of theft, or flim flam. As a staff we do our best to undermine the spank of the poverty over the season, but I always find myself paying attention to the individuals who lose during the Christmas raffle. I give those who won’t even take the risk of playing a knowing look.

But because as a staff person, I believe the horror stories and inquire deeper into them; because I share my own lived experience, I have developed a host of techniques and ways to be helpful to individuals who are suffering from “psychotic episodes” or recovering from them.

And suddenly the person who is down because his Christmas gifts were stolen at his board and care can talk about how the voices respond by telling he is going to go to jail. Then I can tell him about how that’s what I believed was going to happen to me when I ran away from my job at a notorious section 8 housing authority and tried to escape to Canada to seek asylum. That is what landed me in Montana State Hospital. Then, someone else can relate similar experiences. Suddenly this person who has never admitted he hears voices in ten years of treatment doesn’t feel so alone. Perhaps, a few stories later he can celebrate his otherness. Now he and I are no longer marginalized victims. We become proud others. And we prevent the whole system that for years has suppressed and ignored from being attacked as perpetrators.

In Oakland, the more we dig, the more stories of real gang, and police harassment surface. At times we uncover never before told experience of police beatings. I find I no longer feel alone in those instances I bumped heads with the police in the days that led up to my hospitalization. In fact, I don’t feel so bad because I was not nearly killed the way my fellow victimized friend was. And together we become able to accept the tragedies that have held us down and heal. While there are ways we’ve had it worse, there are always ways we’ve had it better. I believe we can all walk away with a sense of better understanding the world.  We can be proud of being others. Now we have mad brothers and sisters.

A few days ago, I was presenting to one of our senior Ivy League psychiatrists. I tried to explain what it is like for a paranoid person who objects to the life of crime to be followed for real and what they have to learn to do to avoid being hurt by real crime rings. The psychiatrist who I have always felt snickers about my street informed content, got confronted by one of my peers, an ex-con who has endured brutal police beatings and been tortured to the point where he lost an eye. This co-worker, and age cohort to the psychiatrist, lifted his head and explained that that is what happens to squares on the street for real.  They often get set up and victimized. This is part of how prisons become so filled with mentally ill. This was such an enormous moment for me. I have been working on the unit for fourteen years and I am grateful to have some back up. While these dilemmas do not afflict everyone in the mad community, it is a very common reality for many of us.

This is another example of what happens when silenced stories get revealed, there is such a sense of relief, comradery and connection. Suddenly the recipient feels like less schizophrenic and more like the subjugated person that they really are.

And then, to learn about the fate of Esteban Santiago-Ruiz, an Iraq war veteran, who had become lost to contact from his family as he cycled through a system that tries to forcefully suppress his trauma and experiences. I spend my livelihood forging a way for people like Esteban to rise up and experience recovery. I see it work time and time again. I have never had a person who revealed the truth about their suffering go postal. But when Esteban contacted the FBI, and cycled through the system in Anchorage, it didn’t help. He boarded a plane and flew home. At the airport he killed at least five innocent people.

Now many outraged individuals will believe mad people need to be locked up and go directly into marginal poverty in order to be controlled. Will my right to prevent these occurrences come under further attack and marginalization? Will I lose my wife and my house and end up in a FEMA camp bearing a microchip that says I am autistic?

Though I never came close to shooting, I can relate to Esteban because I too at one point reached out to the FBI in desperation.

It happened a year after I was released from Montana State Hospital. The only job I could find was at an Italian Delicatessen. My delusion was that my family was a mob family and that the mob was picking on me. In spite of hundreds of resumes and job applications, the only job I could find was at an Italian Deli. My aunt, the rare relative who seemed willing to support me, got me the job. Every day I encountered individuals during my two hour commute (ten miles on a bike, one hour on BART) to the wealthy suburb where I worked. Everyday there was an individual who I believed to be following me. Some were real out-of-state gangsters I recognized from my job at the section 8 housing program. Some appeared just to be purposely dawdling, trying to get my attention in effort to mock me. I ignored them entirely and chose to keep my job and risked the uncertainty.

I ignored them, that is, until the day after 9-1-1. On that day a Muslim man was taunting me in a crowd of people in a festival. Thinking it might be a test to see if I would turn a blind eye to terrorism, I called the FBI and left a very careful short and discreet report.  I was afraid of failing the test, but I was also afraid of being taken back to the hospital.

My therapist was appalled. She always sided with the poor kids who were loved had automobiles, and sold drugs. They spent eight hours a day carving me up, and she always took up for them and my family, though she said she didn’t. She judged me for being a drain and a drag to sit with. Paid 250$ per week by my family while I could barely afford food, I couldn’t share with her what was really happening. I learned time and time again that she wouldn’t believe or care about what I was going through. All she did when I called the FBI was, without an ounce of curiosity, threaten me. I would get in real trouble if I ever did that again.

A day later I saw the Muslim man again by chance and went up and talked to him. He said he washed dishes at a restaurant around the corner from where I worked.

I looked at him. We both knew there was no restaurant around the corner. I apologized to him anyway.

I never saw him again. Strange?

I do not think it is okay to randomly shoot people. But so rarely is there consideration that the media response might escalate the occurrences. It is not fair to use this kind of tragedies to spread hatred and ignorance about what so many individuals go through.

It’s true my beloved co-worker, the ex-con, does fly through that same Fort Lauderdale airport several times a year. It terrifies me to think that for all he does as an elder in the community, for all the family he looks after, for the support he has given me, that he too could fall victim to such a desperate and random tragedy. But I am also not going to judge Esteban until I know all the gory details of the trauma he endured in Iraq and elsewhere. I believe he and many like him do not have insurance that covers treatment that helps humanize what they go through. In many places, treatment doesn’t even exist. They most certainly didn’t in Montana. And the program I have built in the outpatient hospital clinic is the only of its kind. I believe it has had quite a profound effect. I believe it helps individuals get what their insurance pays for, treatment.

While I am grateful for having enough at my disposal so I do not, as a scapegoat, have to live in a state of victimhood, judgments about Esteban are a threat to my very existence. It does make me worry about returning to the torture of the incarcerated state of victimhood. Even with all I have learned and created, incarceration pains me so bad. It set me back two and a half years in the past. It remains to be seen what my future will hold as the reality of my existence remains distorted in the public.

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Jargonizing the Social Sanctions Construct:

Consider this construct a commentary on the ineffectiveness of punishing retaliation reactions with irrational and endless social sanctions. In jargonizing this construct, I have had a lot of success in uniting message receivers behind the idea that their history of treatment experiences basically feel like punishment. Sure some can evade it. Too often this takes privilege or gifted abilities. But those of us who have made it to social rehabilitation might need to acknowledge the advantages we had, advantages that we may have taken for granted during the process due to our intense suffering. And additionally it can help to know ways that you are gifted. Doing this helps one be helpful to others.

Whether primarily appearing to be paranoid, grandiose, somatic, spiritual, religious, catatonic, disassociated or other the tendency of the mainstream to disagree and reject divergent views hurts message receivers in a way that may even open old wounds. And the goal of getting the person into a hospital or a jail and medicated feels initially like suppressive cruel and unusual punishment.

In my experience many in the group will have an acceptance of these suppressive realities have learned that they improve with them. Often they may be homeless or institutionalized in circumstances that are worse, or find their message experience itself so unbearable they already feel a strong sense of deprivation or dehumanization. But still they can relate to feeling punished in some way. Usually, if a person says that a hospital or medication is not so bad they have a much deeper story of feeling punished to tell. All the helper has to do is inquire and learn.

The argument here is that if treatment were to be defined as ongoing efforts to social control and punish people who are different, it would be not only more transparent, but help people successfully adjust to without getting hurt and causing further brain damage. After all, punishment is a message that says: don’t do that or else . . . For message receivers already inundated with messages from varying origins, it is unreasonable to presume that they will take the punishment message the way it is intended.

Perhaps, the inherent flaw in the system of treatment is that special messages aren’t voluntary and that there is no way out but be punished when you are a message receiver.  The famous work of Gregory Bateson and the double bind, the idea that there is no direction the subject can go without feeling punished, emphasizes this point. I believe that it takes a markedly different culture to create no-way-out but win situations for a long time to counter the damage that the mainstream one does.

Special message groups are the effort to create such an environment. In being prepared to review this construct the group needs to have enough strength to hold and manage trauma. Stories of feeling punished and othered for having these experiences may go back a long way for group members.  Simply put, it takes a group that distinguishes itself from others to bring many people out of their shells. Historically I come equipped to distinguish every group I do by normalizing divergent views, asking questions that inquire about message experience, the sharing of my own lived experience, the ability to define associated constructs like sleuthing, theories, and tricksters, and by tolerating the confusion and tangents of those who act out retaliation reactions. Once these processes are reinforced people start to open up about things they’ve kept silent. When we discuss the reason many are so initially silent about their experiences social sanctions naturally social sanctions come up as an explanation.

I believe that in so many cases, being unjustly punished results in a decrease in trust for the establishment, in society and in our loved ones leading to a greater dependence on ourselves against everyone and a stronger faith in our special messages. In other words, message receivers become more committed to their message experiences. It becomes part of the experience of the altered state. As the diagram below depicts, once retaliation reactions get unjustly punished they are most likely to accelerate the message experience

Getting Punished Outside of Institutions:

Social sanctions may go back a lot farther in a message receiver’s consciousness than the first run in in the system and are vastly different for different individuals. I will trace an evolution of social sanctions as they follow a very general pattern involving: 1) early impressions; 2) observing social norms develop; and 3) relationship with first responders. I will start by openly using my own frame of reference, but I will also consider alternate cultural considerations as the experience and views of message receivers is in fact extremely diverse.

Early impressions are the foundation around which social sanctions take root. For me, it was the librarian in my third grade who first introduced me to the concept of Schizophrenia in a pamphlet. I have come to best see those early impressions as lies regarding incurable brain disorder that is very rare. At the time subsequent interfacing did a lot to diminish my sense of humanity for those who suffer with this. It was somehow okay to throw them away because there was nothing that could be done. Oh, for sure it was sad, kind of like when someone dies in an earthquake.

But having this early impression reinforced persistently through early experiences in hospitals for eating disorders, in Abnormal Psychology text books in college, and as a young professional in the mental health field did a lot to make me feel punished when I received the diagnosis. None of the trauma that I had been through mattered, only that early impression of what the “disease” was.

Early impressions of “psychosis” for those who have parents who struggle from it are going to be very different. Targeted abuse from symptoms or the outside world may result in innocent suffering and form a starkly different impression. Likewise, individuals who grow up in rural, urban, or differently zoned areas than I, where mentally ill people are housed or warehoused, are likely to develop very differing impressions of mental health in very different sets of circumstances. They may not be so book focused.  They may have more or less humanity in them. Nevertheless, I would argue that early impressions start a process of hurt and misunderstanding in many individuals’ experience.

The second part of social sanctions is the development of a social sense of what normal is. Though there are a great many ways people are different, children norm up and develop different perceptions on issues such as popularity, conformity, and authority. Bullying starts to happen and directs children in very different directions. But early impressions of what it feels like to be part of a group and what it feels like to be hurt by others along with senses of dominance and submission, have a lot to do in developing what it feels like to be socially sanctioned.

I myself quickly found myself not fitting in when I was not allowed to wear popular clothing. Perhaps my parents wanted me to go through this as they had and develop a sense of character. But I quickly found myself not fitting in and was easily hurt by the exclusion, not having the same skills to build my sense of character. I responded with hatred and isolation and lacked a place where I had a sense of belonging. This was the times when I first experienced issues such as abandonment, rejection, failure to be acknowledged, slander ridicule, intense criticism, issues that would become part of my experience with messages. While it is clear that not everyone with messages experiences this kind of early sense of bullying or feeling unaccepted, they may develop impressions about these kinds of issues that will affect them when they run into being different later on.

The third part of social sanctions are the quality of the support they receive from first-responder people who intervene when they are different. Do those people staunchly defend the norms as they guide the message receiver towards them? Do these people respect and honor the individual’s strengths when they show sign of having message experiences?

Not everyone is so lucky as to have a headshrinker help them along on this path. Early responders can be parents, outside family members, spiritual affiliates, teachers, coaches. I personally had a series of therapists who did not have a track record for accepting who I was and the gifts that I presented with. Yes, I did what they said and I became more normal, but as they noticed that I wasn’t willing or able to norm up and they recognized my message tendencies, the forecast became negative and the support was very poor.

I feel this is largely reflective of society’s vision of Schizophrenia and brain disorder. There was no one teaching me that there were mentors and people who I could relate to who had the same sense of things that I did.  Even though I maintained a career and got an advanced degree education, my headshrinker, unbeknownst to me, did not think I could do it repeatedly. I have been through training in psychotherapy and the standard of care that was taught to me was, to get the message receiver into the hospital and medicated, that therapy is not the place for them. Programs, institutions, and warehousing appear to be the only options to many first responders.

This Effort to Depict Punishment in Institutions

It is true institutions vary a great deal, state to state, county to county, private to public, and jail to prison. As a result, it is very hard to characterize what punishment is like across the board. Again, I will limit what I say throughout to my own frame of reference that spans different states, three decades, and experience both as staff and as patient. As I do this I will do my best to allude to and consider what other people from different backgrounds may go through.  Sure, what follows is limited and generalized. However, as a group leader, I argue that the leader needs to be prepared to explore social sanctions in distant epochs and across distinctive locales and institutions. Thus, as I have practiced in California, I have been called on to bear witness to stories about jail and prison and will make an effort to depict them as they do impact public mental health facilities in significant ways.

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Jargonizing the Retaliation Reaction Construct:

This chapter’s construct consists of natural reactions that come up for message receivers as a result of acting as though their message experiences are the dominant reality.

Retaliation reactions can be as minor as a facial response: a glare, or a laugh; and in more dramatic occasions can involve actions that put the message receiver or the public at risk. In the course of this chapter I will provide some examples from my experience. While I certainly have observed the actions of others as most readers have too, I will limit the examples within, to my experience. Perhaps doing so will help make a case for group leaders to demonstrate their wellness by being able to take responsibility for their own complex behaviors.

From my perspective as someone who faced a sense of imminent danger against my life, those of us who are taught to defend ourselves or are victims of violent circumstances in their community, may end up in a bit of a disadvantage. In many ways, I certainly can understand how the prisons and jails become full of our people. Message receivers are most likely to get framed in crime rings as well as sucked into them. I certainly was afraid and conscious of this possibility. And I was most definitely recruited. Moreover, I believe that, in such contexts, passivism is clearly an advantage as efforts to hold tormentors accountable in families, work environments, the military and on the streets, ultimately are more likely to lead to incarceration, homelessness/barracks, and death. But I also reveal my own cultural bias here.

From the start, retaliation reactions are an integral part of the special message experience. To the outside observer, who knows nothing about all that has been written up to this point, they might seem easier to be mindful of than concepts such as sleuthing, theories and tricksters. But over time they become less pronounced and more subtle. By definition, retaliation reactions are usually reactions that are likely to lead to disruption in the lives of normal. Over time they shift from being reactions that happen as special message circumstances seem real; and they become corrective measures committed in social commentary on the oppression a message receiver has experienced.

However, because of the way these natural reactions are received by the social world, they become harder and harder to recognize. And the more institutionalized and adept the message receiver becomes, the more minute and innocuous the resistance gets expressed. Ultimately the institutionalized message receiver need to learn to stop all retaliation reactions in order to socially rehabilitate. In re-entering the work force they are often under a high level of scrutiny and retaliation reactions can get them rejected. Perhaps those who make it and who have more a sense of privilege may develop ways to be successful like normals and return to use of retaliation reactions to wield power over others. And this can actually come in the form of bullying, or using power to impose your views and influence over others.

Reducing the ways Retaliation Reactions get Misunderstood:

Consider that a message receiver’s specific message profile is essentially a personalized language of alternative meaning that, during crisis, they believe the world shares with them.  As Patricia Deegan in material published off the National Empowerment website and others point out, there is always meaning behind a message receiver’s action even if it is subtle and slight.  Seeking to decode and understand this meaning be the meaning subtle and institutionalized or drastic and dangerous, is a great way to help a message receiver. In order to decode the meaning, I’d argue, the helper needs to be curious as to the meaning not punitive. This can happen in group and in any therapeutic milieu. It means being interested and curious about behavior that gets hammered into innocuous institutional gestures; it means decoding the truth behind overt and punishable actions and honoring the communication.

Examples of overt and offensive behaviors behaviors that I engaged in include: emotional red-faced grimacing when taunted by a policeman, crossing the street backwards on a red light to block traffic, talking to psychiatric inmates to about the evils of the mafia (not smart when you know that gang affiliated individuals share their lives with you,) even, at one point, suggesting that I was mistreated (or pissed-on) at work by gesturing as though I was peeing on the floor.  As the name I have chosen suggests, there is a sense of retaliation in the behavior that alarms others and can easily be misinterpreted, even if there were explainable and exceedingly valid reasons for the behavior.  They can feel almost involuntary, compelled from the message reality that simmers beneath the consciousness.

As to the references to my own aberrant behavior in the above paragraph what I was saying and how I got treated were very distinct. In other words the communication was poor. Letting the cops know that I had already known they were following me resulted in be being physically hurt. Blocking traffic was meant as a call for help so that I would not be shot as I headed to the border, resulted in a car trying to run me over and further police contact. Talking to inmates about the mafia, resulted in an inability to get a job outside of an Italian deli for two years. And peeing on the floor in front of my nineteen year old boss was an effort to let her know that now she was back from vacation, I knew she was bullying me and being unfair in driving me to work in ways that were unnecessary and unnatural; it resulted in her effort to get me fired a few months later.

Retaliation reactions happen all the time during crisis many of them are so minor, they don’t get scrutinized.  Thus when a punishment is imposed via a sanction it has a strong impact because there is a sense that it is unpredictable, unjust, and inconsistent.  When a message receiver is under a microscope in a hospital or a job, there is a tendency to try to break them of the retaliation reaction habit through constant sanction. The problem is that this may accelerate the sense of being persecuted and cause many message receivers to develop smaller, more bizarre behaviors to demonstrate their oppression that don’t get sanctioned.  Sure there have been official documented studies of peasants done in sociology that document that the same process goes on in economic oppression.  When presented in these contexts the behavior perhaps observed as cool or culturally acceptable.  The oppressors are too stupid to even notice that they are being got.  It is such a frustrating thing to live with such oppression that these expressions are medicalized as an illness.  Let me tell you from experience, it can increase mistrust of others and general sense of hopelessness.

So a major technique for managing retaliation reactions is to pay attention to them and usher in communication.  Find out what is meant and respond in collaborative and healing manners.

I would like to suggest that before a real problematic retaliation outburst happens there is a pattern of emotional build-up in which many messages and divergent views work in emotional concert with each other until there is a behavioral outburst. In reality, the behavior may be justified but it is not perceived in this way. And when it is harshly punished or negatively reinforced there is a sense of injustice that kill trust for the social world that surrounds the message receiver.

As a result, communication about messages and divergent views can go a long way toward curbing retaliation reactions and preventing them before they build up. And observing small retaliation reactions and making curious inquiry can lead to communication that reduces retaliation reactions in the community that can increase in size and danger to both the message receiver and the community.

Additional Treatment Strategy of Joining with Effective Retaliation Reactions:

If message receivers were publicly understood instead of cast as so irrationally dangerous, they might be complimented for retaliation reactions that provide relief and do no harm. Particularly if retaliation reactions are witty and “appropriate,” there could be a vast decrease in suffering with some acknowledgement. Too often the message receiver is discouraged and overpowered for making a good point just because it is against the grain.

When in message crisis and with the majority culture hitting me with insults, I could not help but come at the majority in a retaliatory manner. I did not feel I had anybody on my side who could acknowledge when I made a good point. This is largely because majority culture tries to distort and silence the valid points that some message receivers make. Instead, it is too often presumed that the majority needs to silence message culture and that if the whole world stand united against the message receiver, the message receiver will have to surrender.

This does not work in so many cases. Instead message receivers become unwilling to share their private experiences and look at them with other people. They bury them deep inside even when they have the opportunity to do so in my group, they do not do it.

Consider, in contrast, a message group in which message receivers have the freedom to explore and get acknowledgement for their good retaliation reaction quips. It is not only fun, it naturally brings up regrets and remorse about bad ones. As these get shared, message receivers who continue to retaliate hear this and reflect on their retaliations in a new manner, with better judgment.  With cultural support, retaliation reactions could become more effective and assertive and the experience of retaliatory reactions can be normalized and shaped in a direction that can be acknowledged by mainstream culture.

Thus an individual, who wants to support a message receiver, might start with an eye for supporting and acknowledging the elements of the retaliation reactions that are “appropriate.” Strongly reinforcing humor and glorifying non-damaging push back is a start. Joining with it instead of siding with the system that seeks to unilaterally muffle a process that can be adaptive and healthy is a start; however, a person who wants to do this will observe and run up against plenty of incidence when the pushback humor has made things worse because it is likely to be perceived as “inappropriate.”

Managing this scenario his can be done by fully exploring the meaning that was behind the gesture. Just this very line of appreciative inquiry is markedly different than punishing and stigmatizing the deed. While getting the meaningful intent of a retaliation reaction does take a deep step towards suspending the helper’s judgment. Once this is done validating the intent but challenging its effectiveness gives the helper the ability to then explore the potential social consequences with an eye for the role of bullying.  This is a great way to deepen the relationship with the message receiver, teach social skills and change the nature of the retaliation reaction and direct it towards something healing and positive.  The ability to tell personal stories that demonstrate these concepts from your own or someone else’s recovery is a great way to do this.

In this way, group can be a great way to learn how to increase the safety and effectiveness of the retaliation reaction.

As most therapists who have been responsible for assessing threat know, if a message receiver is able to voice their retaliatory reaction, the chances that they will act on them immediately gets reduced not enhanced.  While it’s true this is not an absolute assurance, when someone is able to open up it can go a long way to promote healing.  This is why consumers talk about the importance of risk-sharing.  The strength of the relationship is the largest predictor of safe healing intervention.

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Jargonizing the Trickster Concept:

The symbol of the trickster in Native American Navajo culture is the coyote. The coyote is a revered as a con, a sign of witchcraft, or a type of bad omen that will lead you into trouble and is very powerful. A trickster, as I am using it, is a predictive message that attaches to unconscious and conscious divergent views that are not proven to be true but that can become a powerful truth if it is trusted. Tricksters can become true via the mechanism of negative self-fulfilling prophesy.  Becoming aware of this spiritual reality is very important to understanding trauma that gets experienced in a message crisis. Indeed, unless a message receiver can see a way out of very stark circumstances they may get sucked into a meat grinding machine that can make them disappear; they may end up lacking a social role and living in unhealthy circumstances. Understanding the trickster involves understanding how to overcome this social prediction.

Thus, thinking that others are going to exclude or institutionalize you will lead you to put negative energy out there that may help your fears come true.  If helpers learn and believe in the power of this trickster spiritual trap, they may learn to practice techniques that trick the tricksters!  Instead of receiving a double bind experience, let helpers trap message receivers into no way out but to win situations.  This can help jostle a message receiver out of the trickster trap. This might need to be achieved repeatedly for a while before the message receiver learns to trust the helper. If a message receiver has been victim to trickster realities for ten years, one would not expect them to be healed from one intervention.

Awareness of tricksters can help motivate people to consider the merits of utilizing functional flexible theory styles and help increase mindfulness of their process.  I have to admit that from my vantage point tricksters involve spiritually giving up on reality and using magical thinking to alter the course of the experience. In both cases it is like using a double negative, (applying magical thinking to magical thinking) to move forward in a positive, rational, rehabilitative direction.

In Contrast to the “Reality-Check” Standard of Care:

For many, awareness of the trickster process has not been operative or reinforced during crisis because it is not recognized as being part of the treatment discussion. Instead there is the concept of the “reality-check.”  While some message receivers can accept some “reality-checks,” clinicians often note that others do not take any of them seriously. Indeed, it is arguable that the common failure of the “reality check” that leads to the definition of a “delusion” or, “a refusal to believe in spite of a preponderance of the evidence.” When I was in crisis, many times I was checked about realities that were true. In fact, my reality just didn’t sound true because it was not a part of the discourse of the reality-checker who was totally ignorant of the reality I was experiencing.

I feel it is very important for helpers to realize that many messages receivers get given “reality-checks” in which they are assured something is not true, and then because of trickster reality, they learn that those assurances are empty. The inaccurate “reality-check” is such a radical betrayal, subservient silence is likely to result. When the roofing nails aren’t long enough to reach the wood, thumbs are likely to get smacked and turn black in spite of hard hammering work. As such collective power that imposes reality only further isolates the message receiver. Too often the promise of the positive thought or the reality promise blows up in the face down the road when other associated messages turn out to have credence.

Currently, in the standard of care, falsely believing that all messages are delusions, a helper mindlessly drops a reality test and then wonders in upcoming weeks why the message receiver starts to have inexplicable vindictive, antagonistic feelings toward them.  The message receiver may get seen as stubborn, a character defect, and this then gets blamed on the power of the disease. Even worse, the message receiver gets extorted into seeing themselves as symptomatic and the issue of the false reality-test never gets brought up.

Recovery takes years or doesn’t happen in part because of the need to overcome the preponderance of reality checks. It means learning the reality of the trickster internally and falsely yessing the reality checking community when you know you don’t mean it.

In the institution, the right to be self-determined and deal with the consequences of your own decisions, gets stripped. It is a structural and punitive reality check that is very traumatic and can lead to years of decline. Even if it is not internalized and the message receiver stays industrious and believes in themselves, having a false reality imposed on you gets in the way.

I feel that even skilled workers who acknowledge that there is an element of truth to delusions and can occasionally have a good experience with a reality check; can set themselves up for resentment or the message receiver up with long term distress and catch-22 binds. While sometimes institutionalized people will welcome a helper to have confirmation that the messages aren’t real, I’d argue that it is wiser not to benevolently determine that the messages aren’t real for them because of the trickster reality. I have fallen for this myself and hurt message receivers.

If this seems to be an overblown discussion of semantics, I ask the reader to consider what happens when a helper benevolently reassures the message receiver that there is no need for fear only to have an element of the reality checked fear come true. Not only might this discourage the message receiver, the benevolence reinforces a self-stigma that the message receiver is weak and the reality-check undermines the wider need for mindfulness. Thus, for years the message receiver believes even more in their special message reality and less in the support from their material world helper.

Even if one reality check pans out, the fact that so many others didn’t means the value of an accurate “reality-check” might be made innocuous. Instead, I propose that the concept of the reality-check be replaced by the culturally sensitive practice of acknowledging the potential of the trickster.

Example of a “Reality Check” Gone Wrong:

I want to warn the reader that this is going to be a complex example that reveals the innards of the way trickster realities can come true on the streets of an inner-city community. I am going to include multiple elements to demonstrate how trickster realities become true when they don’t have to.

Consider, for example, the message—a fatherly voice—that tells the message receiver that they have no worth if they don’t believe in Jesus. The divergent view, that the socially respected voice is godly and accurate, coupled with the theory that the deceased father, aligned with the church, represents the heavenly ghost, causes significant trickster hurt and pain. In fact, one day the message receiver reacts to the voice by staying in bed all day and not taking care of her or himself. To make matters worse, when the message receiver in fact stays in bed all day the message receiver’s board and care operator, a friend of the family, comments among the staff about how worthless the message receiver is in contrast to the father as a result of staying in bed all day. The message receiver senses the whispering and negative energy then tests out this reality and gets facial messages from the board and care staff that reinforces the message receivers’ voice, that the voice that the message receiver has no worth if they don’t believe in Jesus.  In trickster fashion the voice proved itself right throughout the message receiver’s community.

But to make matters worse, the culturally encapsulated psychoanalytic therapist/helper who just last week had reality checked the message receiver and proposed that this fatherly voice was only inside the message receiver’s head, their inner anxiety. Now not only does the message receiver feel spiritually condemned, they have a helper who has provided a reality check that offers an alternative stab, that the message receiver is to blame for their worthlessness.  When the message receiver returns angry the following week and tests the therapist/helper out by saying she had been in bed the whole week, the therapist winces and now offers the message receiver the same feedback as the voice and the community at the board and care; suddenly the whole deal has become not a double, but a triple whammy. If the helper then defends themselves and challenges them over inappropriate anger, we have a quadruple whammy.

Example of Culturally Sensitive Use of Trickster Concept:

In addressing this complicated example, I am going to suggest that a helper who fully understands the ramifications of the trickster concept can help. Such a helper has to believe that negative realities are more likely to come true if they are believed. I seek to demonstrate ways they might better know how effectively confront someone about reality in a way that does no damage.

Helpers who understand and teach the trickster concept can transition the message receiver to a rational conversation about crisis emotions. They can do so by being culturally sensitive to the message receiving experience. Doing so enables a supporter to boost message mindfulness of all message constructs. In essence, this culturally sensitive reality-check that can result might increase the level of trust between helper and the message receiver regardless of the reality of the message receivers struggles.

Using the trickster concept, helpers essentially sidle up to the message receiver’s process and playing a non-domineering role. It can help the message receiver apply the next chapter’s magical positive self-fulfilling prophesy skill thereby, (through prayer or mantra) radically change potentially tragic outcomes.  My belief is that in crisis it can help motivate a message receiver to magically reduce the sense of external conflict with the material social world and pave the way for the important role that social relationships play in recovery.

Contrast this to the passive suggestion that the helper hopes the message is a trickster. The culturally sensitive helper, not firmly psychoanalytic, can help tilt the message receiver away from the message process and towards the potential of effectively circumventing the stabs of the board and care staff.  With one quick validating swoosh, the helper can get to the heart of the matter, the fact that the voice might play the role of a trickster.

“A trickster, what do you mean?” says the message receiver.

“I mean is it possible that the voice, if you choose to listen to it, could turn around and make itself come true in some way?  I don’t think you’re worthless but maybe the voice may make others say that you are, maybe even yourself, but I don’t know if I am making any sense to you at all when I talk like this.”

“Oh yeah, that’s already happened, that happens all the time,” says the message receiver.

Not only are there no whammies in the above interaction, but there are also opportunities to explore the voice and figure out a potential alternative theory styles associated with the trickster that might lead to healing Consider how a supporter might list some alternative ways to make meaning of the voice:

Alternative Meanings

• “Maybe on this occasion that fatherly voice is really a demon disguising its voice as your father to do you harm. Maybe there are other times when your father’s voices is very supportive and maybe that is an occasion when an angel is sending you the truth!

• “Maybe you are picking up on the reality of stigma that might exist within your community which may even have included your father. Did you know there are local efforts to help decrease stigma that sometimes exists in some spiritual communities; maybe you want to be part of that!

• “Maybe that fatherly voice doesn’t always understand everything about you. Let’s say, a church lady baby-sitter molested you when you were younger and made you feel worthless and question Jesus. I don’t know if that’s true and I don’t know what relationship you want to have with Jesus or your spirituality. But let’s say something like that were true. It might really hurt that your father and the rest of the world always takes up for your abusers!

Perhaps a list of such options leads the message receiver to open up and reflect on their life in some new ways. This can lead the message receiver to better define the potential of a healing explanation. This, I’d argue requires a lot of study of the theory and creative application of different styles of theory. It helps confront the message receiver without imposing reality and challenges. It also might meet this extremely smart and sophisticated pretend message receiver where they are at and make a different.

Then the message receiver might feel inspired to use a positive self-fulfilling prophesy to get out of bed and spend the day walking. At the end of the day the community and the spirit understands the message receiver better and the fatherly voice apologizes and compliments the message receiver for his efforts.

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