Psychology Today, Wednesday, April 20, 2016 Excerpt

This Wednesday, April 20, 2016 my interview with Dr. Eric Meisel for Psychology Today goes live online. 

An Excerpt:

You’re an advocate for “mental diversity in community public health care.” Can you tell us a little bit about what you mean by that and about your advocacy efforts in that area?

I reject the disease model. I am not my diagnosis. Diversifying the experience of mental diversity is a powerful thing. It makes room for Spirit led personal growth and opens the door to magic. We honor the other. We make space.  Mental Diversity comprises a richness in human Spirit during times of (ill)health, (dis)ease, and traversing the depths of despair.  Mental diversity in US Community Public Mental Health Care must be culturally attune to seed and grow understanding of Recovery and Wellness to wholeness.

  I am dissuaded from believing or having good general faith in psychiatrists or current mental health Social Work model of care of psychotherapy, where a lackluster advanced study of medicine precludes being culturally attune. The staid training in psychiatric social rehabilitation and cognitive behavioral talk therapy steeped in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy stops very short where Dialogic communication is by far more effective.

Service recipients of the US Community Public Mental Health system are inherently sociocultural and political throwaways. We wear a dollar sign by Providers. We are not able to subsist in today’s medically, clinically necessary model of treatment, meds management or better provide for basic continuum of care. We are square pegs meant for round holes. Mental Diversity leverages a nonlinear spectrum of human behavior and holds more meaning than the terms “Mental Health” or “Disease.”

"powells" photo credit (c) 2016 amanda barnabe design.

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