It has been a long time since I have written a blog post. I turned my efforts away from creative essays and introspective exploration. Instead, I focused on creating a 12-16 hour Master Class entitled: Redefining “Psychosis:” A Cultural Approach to Working with Madness, A Roadmap to the Rabbit Hole.
Time away from weekly writing has been important for me as I was not gaining an audience or selling many books. I’ll admit a sense of frustration was entering into my work. It’s not a good look writing about how jaded you feel. In working on the Masterclass, I had plans to present it, but those plans fell through when I couldn’t agree on a contract with the agency with which I was working. I decided to complete the project and apply to present the class through PESI. I am aware this is a long shot, but completion made sense. This way I am prepared if any opportunity arises.
I have been finding my Facebook feed is full of advertisements about creating online courses. I have started to explore and research what would be needed to convert my knowledge and skills into something that is concise and that could offer me a return on investment. I figure I could market through the infrastructure I have built up on my website.
I think my greatest challenge is to tilt my perspective towards providers who work with people who are in special message crisis.
I remember starting out in social work while I was in graduate school. I didn’t sign up for the job because I wanted to do harm, I just listened to my supervisors and tried to make it. I just didn’t fully understand what the people I was trying to help were going through. I didn’t want to know that I was doing everything wrong, but I did want to have good relationships with the people with whom I was working.
Some preliminary web searches has connected me with the work of Ron Unger out of Oregon and I see he has sold a number of online courses in my field.
I also have been interviewed by Charles Shaw over the course of a few years. It is my understanding that in his new book there will be a chapter about me. Working with Charles was interesting. I had the opportunity review his work and to see myself through Charles’ eyes. Charles is a writer who has been able to gain an audience. My hope is that I too can build an audience that can help change the public’s perception of “psychosis” if I can adjust what I am doing and learn how to teach online.
I am currently on transit from a visit back east to see my parents. I am in the Denver Airport and am sitting in a crowd of people who are waiting to go on a plane to Wichita, Kansas. During the visit with my father, we commiserated a little. He has also struggled for years to have his voice influence public policy with regards to ecology and economics. He eighty-one years old and grieving that he doesn’t have the influence he would like. I have listened to him talk for years and he has good ideas about save lives and the planet and address the economic income gap. He has struggled to be satisfied with his gains and to accept the fact that his ideas aren’t popular in the mainstream.
I am working on having more compassion for both of us much as I need to build compassion for the people who don’t want to listen to us. None of us are perfect. Fighting against mainstream views takes compassion and patience even when you feel like your efforts are going nowhere. I had a great time writing my memoir and it won awards for being well written. I haven’t been able to attract a large audience as a blogger or writer but am still working to find that voice that people want to hear. I love writing, but also recognize that currently YouTube and videos attract a larger audience. If people want to learn something it is important to meet them where they are at. If people like my courses, maybe they will also purchase my book.
At this point, I have a meeting with an online course guru to see if I can get help marketing and producing a digital product. I am not sure what it will bring, but I will keep readers posted.
Click here to learn about my Master Class!
I am in a similar point in my activism. I would describe it as being on a plateau, not so much as a place of stuckness, (i have been burnt out, and i know what it feels like to despair) but a place where I can get a sense of har far I’ve come and the scale of the mountain that must be climbed to change public perception of ‘psychosis’. I am aware of the landscape below me: the allies, the opposition, the barriers, the individual battlefronts, and i am aware of wanting to ‘win friends and influence people’ to borrow from Andrew Carnegie. I’m aware of the need to go farther, go higher, but my load has to be lightened first.
I embrace the ‘reparations’ model promoted by Tina Minkowitz, because I am the parent of a psychiatric survivor and because my beloved daughter was wrongfully subjected to six years of institutionalization, and I feel a deep sense of moral outrage at the lack of alternatives to forced drugging and institutionalization. Despite being rigidly attached to my outrage and righteousness, I’m finding the need to pare down some of my baggage: the guilt, fear, anger, etc. because they no longer serve me on the jouney. I long for human rights in the mental health system. A part of that longing includes a worldwide ban on the use of force and coercion, the creation of effective and humane alternatives for supporting people in distress. Building blocks to that end are consciousness-raising and education. I find the education piece taxing to my patience. I want to grab people by the lapels and shake them and shout to their faces, “Do you kniw how harmful this system is?” I want ti shout. but this is not an effective way to win people over. Anger internalized turns into despair; i know that trap well. The pursuit of justice turns out to be almost indistingishable from the pursuit of balance. I finally figured out why justice is depicted as a lady figure holding scales. If I am going to make it up that mountain, I have to figure out how to balance my negative past experiences with a message of hope, how to distinguish what is important from what is not. For example, is it important to be liked to be effective? What if the unpleasant parts of my personality make it more likely that people will reject my message or jeer? Should I strive for a wide audience or a narrow one? Am I wasting my time seeking only the company of the converted because that is a safe audience which reinforces my outrage? Am I wasting my time speaking to a hostile audience such as those who are aligned with my arch enemy, Treatment Advocacy Center? Broadening my influence depends sonewhat on my ability to answer these questions and find a personal balance. I think we all could be tremendously effective if we defined our audience carefully, stayed constant and true to our values, and became unwavering in our pursuit of truth and justice.
HI Sarah,
I really appreciate your comment. Thank you for taking the time. I generally believe in balance and have to use it a lot to survive at work. Sometimes I have just gotten too frustrated in some of what I do and I struggle to find the audience. I am learning though that there might be better ways to do this. I currently am home with COVID and am working a plotting to discover ways of marketing that might get me that audience. Thank you so much for your inspired words, they mean a lot to me.
I hope you get really good help with the marketing piece! I hope you are able to expand the number of people you reach. I think the rigid way that counseling is defined and the way it must be licensed and billed for, really limits the number of people who can benefit from people with lived experience, in terms of one-on-one counseling. I think that if you submitted an application with the Association of Social Workers both in the state of California, as well as the national one and turned your training into ‘modules’, with each being worth 1 CEU, you would find that the process of getting CEU accreditation is not too difficult and would greatly increase the number of people you could reach. Best of luck!
Hi Sarah, Actually I am currently working with an old friend who knows about marketing and building an online presence. I think it might be really helpful and hopeful. In CA I can pay to offer CEUS and I might consider doing it if I had enough customers. Thanks so much for your support.