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.

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,

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 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.