The Bay Area Mandala Project is an alternative services planning and implementation group seeking to make really radical changes to how mental health services are provided. Their focus is on offering services that will allow people to minimize the use of psychiatric drugs while addressing trauma and community and spiritual issues. You can read about their innovative diversion system aimed at providing family members and their loved ones voluntary alternatives to hospitalization and/or long term dependence on other mental health treatment or psychiatric drugs here.

Cardum Harmon, Dina Tyler, Michael Cornwall, PhD are key members of the Mandala Project, and they will be the presenters for this meeting, which will address "Responding to Extreme States with Loving Receptivity: Honoring the Spirit's Transformative Journey" All three have lived experience of "psychosis" or "extreme states" as well as extensive exprerience helping others with those states.

In this meeting, they will share effective ways to be with people in intense spiritual experience by focusing on loving receptivity and the importance of honoring one's spiritual journey. We will explore the strategy of “being with” instead of "doing to", as an accessible tool for averting prolonged crisis and supporting healing.

We will discuss a diversity of research on this topic, hear about the effects and impact of undergoing altered states with a spiritual component and learn how to support individuals as a strategy to counteract the stigma and the negative impacts such experiences can cause in the lives of individuals and their families.

This event will be the second of what is planned to be a series of ISPS online meetings, where ISPS members and other interested persons will be able to listen to and engage with leaders in our field around topics of interest.

These meetings are free to ISPS members, with a donation of $5-$20 requested from others, though no one turned away for lack of funds. Please do register if you want to attend!

(And note the start time is 2 PM Eastern time, so that's 11 AM Pacific time etc. - mind those time zones!)