The BBC are producing a documentary that will form part of the next series of Horizon, the BBC’s flagship science series. The programme will engage with some of the issues surrounding mental illness in Britain today. In particular ther’re interested in the labelling and stigma that is associated with living with a disorder. The programme is inspired by the ground-breaking Rosenhan Experiment conducted in the early seventies. Dr. David Rosenhan sent a number of pseudo-patients into US Mental Hospitals, and illustrated that these institutions couldn’t distinguish between sanity and insanity. Psychiatry has moved on since this study but there are elements of it that are worth looking at again.

We are working in collaboration with Dr Peter Byrne, a Director of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a practicing Clinical Psychiatrist. Together we are planning to recreate some elements of this seminal study in an attempt to prompt the viewer to question the stereotypes linked with mental illness.

We are looking to draw together a group of volunteers who will work through a series of tests. Some of the group will have a history of mental illness and some will have no history of mental illness. The challenge for the viewer, and a panel of expert Psychiatrists and Psychologists, will be to work out who is who. It is by this process that we will get the wider public to question what they consider to be ‘normal’ and more importantly whether being mentally ill makes a person any different.

This is clearly a sensitive area but I believe passionately that we shouldn’t hide away from addressing the subject of mental illness just because of this. We are keen to ensure everyone finds the filming process a positive experience. All the participants will be carefully screened by an independent team and we will only consider people who pass this process.

This is an opportunity to show the real people and personalities behind the labels. The group of volunteers are essential to the programme, it will be through their experiences that we will illustrate how mental illness sits on continuum, running from healthy, everyday behaviour, to something that can become a serious problem. In the process they will dispel some myths: such as ‘people with mental illness are dangerous’ or ‘that the mentally ill cannot function in society’.

This is a challenging project but one that’s exciting to be involved in. We are currently seeking volunteers to take part in the programme, both as subjects and on the expert panel. If this is of interest to you, or you’d like to find out more, please contact us on the details below. There is no obligation to take part.

Email: Helen.crocombe@bbc.co.uk

Telephone: 020 8008 3978

Contributing writers include INTERVOICE members: Sandra Escher , Maths Jesperson , Hannelore Klafki †, Rufus May, Marius Romme, Philip Thomas.

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More information

Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry reflects current approaches to self-help and non-psychiatric alternatives in cases of acute emotional problems, as well as pathways to treatment that respect human rights.

Ex-patients/survivors, therapists, lawyers, social scientists, psychiatrists and relatives from all continents report about their work outside the mainstream, their aims, experiences and successes while addressing the following questions:

More information about selected chapters

In “What Helps Me if I Go Mad?”, 14 former psychiatric patients describe how they manage their acute emotional crises without entering the psychiatric system. This section also includes contributions about natural healing methods for depression, self-help groups for people with unusual beliefs, and new approaches to voice-hearing which allow people to appreciate their voices and to address them in meaningful ways.

In the section on “Models of Professional Support,” a number of functioning alternatives are introduced, ranging from the Soteria model, the Windhorse project and the Berlin Runaway House, to non- or anti-psychiatric projects in Alaska and Sicily, and Jaakko Seikkula’s “Open Dialogue” in Finland. All of these approaches lead to a substantial reduction in coercive measures and drug prescriptions. Karyn Baker reports how families affected by psychiatry are being trained in Toronto to support their relatives in the recovery process, instead of, as usual, pushing them to take psychotropic drugs, resulting in their becoming “career mental patients.” Specific forms of support for migrants, children and youth, confused elderly individuals and men experiencing emotional crises are further areas of interest.

In “Strategies Realizing Alternatives and Humane Treatment,” Maths Jesperson introduces the reader to a personal ombuds service in Skåne, Sweden, and Jim Gottstein details the success of the Alaskan association PsychRights in getting millions in public funds reallocated to the development of non-psychiatric alternatives. Laura Ziegler and Miriam Krücke elucidate the legal and self-help aspects of advance directives, David Oaks introduces the organization MindFreedom International, which is accredited as an NGO at the United Nations and advocates for human rights as a basis for a non-violent revolution in mental health. Dan Taylor describes the struggle of this organization in the African nation of Ghana, Jan Wallcraft (UK) extols the usefulness of user-controlled research as an underpinning for alternative approaches, and her colleague Andrew Hughes emphasizes the extent to which his association trains former psychiatric patients for user/survivor involvement work in mental health and social care.

In the final section, the Irish psychiatrist Pat Bracken affirms the necessity for a radical paradigm change, away from the tendency to understand human difficulties as technical problems and towards a non-psychiatric approach that gives primacy to relationships, contexts, meanings, values and power-relations within a thoroughly reformed psychosocial system. Therapy, services and even psychotropics are not fundamentally rejected, but seen as secondary to those other elements. Stastny and Lehmann hold the century of psychiatric reforms responsible for the spread of forced treatment into community programs, the increase of electroshock, the rampant psychiatrisation of children and the elderly, and the massive extent of damage caused by psychotropic drugs. They demand the long overdue creation of alternatives and choices, based on the many successful programs featured here and elsewhere, which should be a matter of course in a society that considers itself democratic. About the editors

Stastny and Lehmann consider themselves ideal collaborators to give a lucid and well-synthesized account of the possibilities within individual and collective self-help, structural reforms, protection of unwanted psychiatric interventions and the advocacy movement to implement alternatives beyond psychiatry. Peter Lehmann, Berlin, is a Board Member of the European Network of (ex-)Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (ENUSP) and has been actively involved for nearly 30 years in self-organization of psychiatric survivors and their autonomous collaboration with the small number of critical mental health professionals. Peter Stastny is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and a founding member of the International Network Toward Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR), which is also introduced in this book, and which brings together the most important alternative projects world-wide.

Themes

Personal alternatives – Natural healing methods – Intervoice for voice-hearers – Jogging and arts instead of psychiatry – Unusual Belief Groups – Recovery and empowerment – Soteria – Runaway House Berlin – Second Opinion Society – Trauma informed peer run crisis alternatives – The Crisis Hostel project in Ithaca – Sicilian way to anti­psychiatry – Windhorse – Hotel Magnus Stenbock – Psychotherapy instead of psychiatry – Open dialogues – Common­sense solutions for troubled children and teens – Alternatives for minorities and families – To be with people who suffer from dementia – Experi­ences of gay, straight and bisexual men – MindFreedom International – Enforcing legal rights – INTAR – The Personal Ombudsman in Skåne – PSYCHEX – Advanced directives – Organising, self-help and internet – MindFreedom Ghana – User led research – and much more.

Authors

Volkmar Aderhold, Laurie Ahern, Birgitta Alakare, Karyn Baker, Wilma Boevink, Pat Bracken, Giuseppe Bucalo, Dorothea Buck-Zerchin, Sarah Carr, Tina Coldham, Bhargavi Davar, Jeanne Dumont, Merinda Epstein, Sandra Escher, James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Chris Hansen, Michael Herrick, Guy Holmes, Andrew Hughes, Theodor Itten, Maths Jesperson, Hannelore Klafki, Bruce E. Levine, Harold Maio, Rufus May, Shery Mead, Kate Millett, Maryse Mitchell-Brody, David W. Oaks, Marius Romme, Marc Rufer, Gisela Sartori, Jaakko Seikkula, Andy Smith, Chris Stevenson, Dan Taylor, Philip Thomas, Jan Wallcraft, David Webb, Salma Yasmeen, Laura Ziegler and many more

Bibliographic data

Peter Stastny / Peter Lehmann (Eds.), Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry. Soft cover, 432 pages, 3 figures, British ISBN 978-0-9545428-1-8, American ISBN 978-0-9788399-1-8. € 24.90 / US-$ 34.50 / £ 16.99 / CHF 43.70 / CAD 35.- / AUD 38.- / JPY 3900. For more information, content list included, please go to Peter Lehmann Publishing