Creating Refuge from Psychiatric Force: Holding Space for Imagination

We are ...a community of mental health workers, clinicians, psychiatrists, current and prior users of mental health services, advocates, artists, and survivors of trauma and adversity, who are interested in exploring the link between personal and societal transformation.

Institute for the Development of Human Arts

Part of IDHA's 2024 virtual training series  TOPOGRAPHIES OF (DIS)CONNECTION

<h3>*ASL and captioning provided*</h3><h3>NOTE: 2.75 CE credits are available for this class (click <a href="https://www.idha-nyc.org/topographies-of-dis-connection-ce" title="https://www.idha-nyc.org/topographies-of-dis-connection-ce" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">here</a> for more information)</h3><h3>To learn more, please visit: <a href="https://www.idha-nyc.org/topographies-of-dis-connection" title="https://www.idha-nyc.org/topographies-of-dis-connection" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.idha-nyc.org/topographies-of-dis-connection</a></h3><p><br></p><h2>Class Description</h2><p>As our wider society experiences a crisis of connection, similar dynamics are evident in a mental health system that often perpetuates isolation through practices of policing, coercion, and control. Right now, we are witnessing a trend of expanding involuntary psychiatric detention, culminating in a human rights crisis that denies people self-determination. Rooting in history, it’s critical to remember that the asylum is a colonial institution, designed to pathologize and isolate anyone perceived to disrupt or deviate from the social order. As Indigenous healing traditions continue to be erased and co-opted, and mental health policy and practice increasingly follow carceral logics, how can providers and advocates practice deep listening, celebrate creativity, and embody approaches that meet the needs of individuals and collectives?</p><p>This class will explore how we can remake care by changing systems, rather than allowing systems to change us – creating refuge from practices rooted in individualism and knowledge hierarchy. Drawing on examples from peer support and peer-run respite advocacy, it will present a radical analysis to working in systems that can override trust in self and community knowledge. Honoring more expansive forms of meaning making that are older than psychiatry – including the realms of imagination and metaphor – faculty will hold space for the entire ecology surrounding grief, distress, suicidality, and potentially transformative states. With these approaches in mind and centering the wisdom of psych survivorship, we hope to foster shared understanding, encourage intuitive guidance and keep the human spirit alive.</p><p><br></p><h2>Learning Objectives</h2><ul><li>Identify the impacts of psychiatric coercion on personal agency and long-term healing</li><li>Define key values and lessons from peer support and peer-run respite advocacy</li><li>Demonstrate the importance of “meaning making” as central to upholding autonomy, interrogating the power of the psychiatric lens</li><li>Review examples of systems changing us instead of us changing systems to help participant create future action plans</li><li>Identify practices and strategies to protect the agency of people navigating the mental health system, moving toward freedom, justice, and choice-based support</li></ul><p><br></p><h2>Faculty</h2><p><strong><strong>Joana Arcangel </strong></strong>is a parent, writer, artist, and consultant. She emigrated from the Philippines to the United States at the age of eight and speaks Tagalog fluently. She values finding ways to explore and honor neurodiversity, creativity, and resiliency. Her career journey includes previously managing a peer-run respite home in California. Joana is a Community Resiliency Model (CRM)® Certified Teacher, and Master Facilitator of Core Gift Discovery.</p><p><strong><strong>Leah Harris</strong></strong> is a psychiatric survivor, activist, and independent journalist. Their work examines mental health and disability policy, with a focus on deinstitutionalization and involuntary psychiatric intervention. Leah's writing appears in Truthout, the Disability Visibility Project, The Progressive, and Mad in America; and in the anthologies <em><em>We've Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health </em></em>(North Atlantic Books) and the forthcoming <em><em>Mad Studies Reader </em></em>(Routledge). Their forthcoming book <em><em>NONCOMPLIANT</em></em> traces two generations of psychiatric survivorship and resistance in their family, alongside in-depth reporting on America's failed mental health policies and movements for psych abolition.</p><p><strong><strong>Vic Welle</strong></strong> is an activist, psychiatric survivor, and peer support trainer. Vic is co-founder of Monarch House Peer Run Respite in Wisconsin and an advocate for non-carceral, community based crisis supports.</p><p><br></p><h2>What You Get</h2><p>Registration includes the 3-hour class session, an optional 90-minute discussion group one week after the live class (Sunday, May 12, 2024 from 12-1:30 pm EST), and access to IDHA’s School for Transformative Mental Health on Mighty Networks (our virtual learning community where you’ll have the opportunity to engage with other students and your faculty).</p><p><br></p><h2>Questions?</h2><p>Email us at contact@idha-nyc.org</p>

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Creating Refuge from Psychiatric Force: Holding Space for Imagination

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