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ISPS-US 23rd Annual Conference | November 1-3, 2024 | University of Pittsburgh & Duquesne University | Pittsburgh, PA & Hybrid Online | Preliminary Schedule
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Sunday, November 3
 

7:30am EST

Coffee and Registration
Sunday November 3, 2024 7:30am - 8:15am EST
Sunday November 3, 2024 7:30am - 8:15am EST
Union Ballroom

8:15am EST

Keynote: Psychosis is Not What You “Think” - How Reality Testing Can Save America from Social Crisis (Hybrid)
Sunday November 3, 2024 8:15am - 9:30am EST
Systemic unethical and illegal practices have played an undeniable role in the development of (my) psychosis. Conventional establishments may reject social and environmental explanations of psychosis because to accept them would implicate their own role in contributive causation while forcing them to acknowledge that they are currently ill-equipped to remediate the problem.  The objective of this presentation is to engage in a social exercise of reality testing by describing my personal journey through academia as an African-American woman challenging existing paradigms in (A) Sociological Theory (B) Physical Theory.  I will describe a sometimes tragic but ultimately resilient story that centers on a repeated peculiar pattern of discrimination including unprecedented violent psychological backlash resulting in a psychotic break.  However, there’s a twist—the psychotic break is not what you think.  By examining scholars with histories of mental health challenges upon facing innovation in academia, this presentation will explore how environmental stressors, pressures, and social traumas can lead to psychosis.  How should we define psychosis?  Why are paradigm shifts and scholarly innovations associated with madness in the academy?  What was the primary factor in my resilience?  These questions will be addressed in this presentation for a discussion on how to reimagine psychosis and why reality testing has the capacity to save America from social crisis.  This presentation is dedicated to the legacy of Sidney Baer.      
Speakers
avatar for Becky Brasfield, MA

Becky Brasfield, MA

Human Services Research Institute
Becky Brasfield is an award-winning Recovery Leader, Policy Researcher and Certified Peer Support Specialist based in Chicago, Illinois.  Ms. Brasfield is a staunch advocate for mental health recovery, disability rights, and justice reform.  She currently works as a Policy Researcher... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 8:15am - 9:30am EST
Union Ballroom

9:30am EST

Break
Sunday November 3, 2024 9:30am - 9:45am EST
Sunday November 3, 2024 9:30am - 9:45am EST
Union Ballroom

9:45am EST

Supporting Students with Extreme Experiences (Virtual Only)
Sunday November 3, 2024 9:45am - 10:30am EST
In this presentation, mental health professionals, caregivers, friends, and nonclinical professionals will be given a practical and principled approach to supporting college students, in a college setting, with extreme experiences. It will convey best practices in the form of a framework, the SUCCESS framework, to help health professionals, friends, and caregivers to feel empathetic and skillful in the instances where folks have these extreme experiences. In addition to the SUCCESS framework, presenter will review: challenges that folks with extreme experiences face on college campuses, prevalence information, resources, ethical considerations, and treatment approaches for this population.
Speakers
avatar for Olivia Wills, LCSW

Olivia Wills, LCSW

Therapist, University of Southern California
Olivia Wills, MSW, LCSW, (she/her) received her Master of Social Work from the University of Chicago, her undergraduate degree from Princeton University. Her professional interests include supporting college students with extreme experiences, Compassion Focused Therapy for Psychosis... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 9:45am - 10:30am EST
Virtual only (Zoom)

9:45am EST

A Retrospective of the Icarus Project: Lessons for Contemporary Mental Health Movements (Hybrid)
Sunday November 3, 2024 9:45am - 11:15am EST
From 2002-2020, The Icarus Project developed a network of peer support groups and a creative media outlet that provided a home for folks who experienced mental health struggles and a deep alienation from society. Drawing inspiration from anarchism, anti-psychiatry, permaculture, and other counterculture movements, we aimed to normalize discussions of altered states, intense emotional distress, and suicidality and foster solidarity among people with experiences that were often diagnosed as “serious mental illness” and “psychosis.” At its height, The Icarus Project had thousands of online forum community members, dozens of local peer support/mutual aid groups, and a series of DIY publications that made their way into public mental health systems and became texts for academic analysis. At the same time, we also struggled greatly with interpersonal conflict, leadership burnout and turnover, issues related to identity politics and structural oppression, technological system management, and other challenges common to small social movement organizations.

More than 20 years since its founding, The Icarus Project has left a complicated legacy of ideas and creative visions, influencing individuals and organizations across North America and the world. Former members have gone on to play significant roles in transformative mental health practices, advocating for approaches that prioritize human connection, social justice, and the de-stigmatization of mental health experiences. Others left the organization with the sense that their efforts were underappreciated and lacked recognition in public narratives.

This panel will delve into the origins and impact of The Icarus Project, exploring how its creative grassroots approach has influenced contemporary mental health movements. Attendees will learn about the project's innovative use of language, its critique of the mainstream medical model of “mental illness,” and its commitment to fostering mutual aid communities. Panelists, including co-founders and long-time collaborators, will reflect on the project's successes and challenges, offering insights into how its legacy can inform future efforts in mental health social movements.
Speakers
avatar for Erica Hua Fletcher

Erica Hua Fletcher

Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System
Dr. Fletcher is a mental health services researcher at the VA of Greater Los Angeles. Her research focuses on peer-involved interventions, mental health social movements, and Mad/disability studies. She has worked on adapting the Hearing Voices support group approach for Veterans... Read More →
avatar for Sascha DuBrul, MSW

Sascha DuBrul, MSW

Institute for the Development of Human Arts
Sascha Altman DuBrul, MSW  is the co-founder of The Icarus Project, a network of peer based mental health support groups and media project dedicated to redefining the language and culture of mental health and illness. He has a Masters from Silberman School of Social Work and worked... Read More →
avatar for Jacks McNamara

Jacks McNamara

Jacks McNamara is a trauma healing coach, facilitator, educator, writer and artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jacks has been in private practice for 11 years, with a specialty in using somatics and Internal Family Systems to support queer and trans survivors, and in mentoring... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 9:45am - 11:15am EST
Union Ballroom

9:45am EST

Enhancing Early Psychosis Care (In-Person Only)
Sunday November 3, 2024 9:45am - 11:15am EST
Enhancing Early Psychosis Care  - 2 x 45 minute sessions
  • Voices of practitioners learning a combined OD and CSC model: Exploring content and research processes - Beth Broussard, MPH, CHES, Emily Griner, MPH, Melissa Uehling, MA, Jen Van Tiem, PhD, Chris Okpor, BS, CPS-P, CTC, CTRS,
  • M-PATH: A Statewide Effort To Decrease DUP and Increase Psychosis-Informed Care - Emily Gagen, PhD

Voices of practitioners learning a combined OD and CSC model: Exploring content and research processes - Beth Broussard, MPH, CHES, Chris Okpor, BS, CPS-P, CTC, CTRS, Emily Griner, MPH, Melissa Uehling, MA, Jen Van Tiem, PhD
Two recovery-oriented approaches for early psychosis, Open Dialogue (OD) and Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC), have been developed to address individual needs of young adults. OD is founded on seven principles and fosters dialogue among networks of support (Seikkula and Olson, 2023). CSC provides evidence-based treatment through a multidisciplinary team while emphasizing shared decision making and collaboration (Bello et al., 2017). In Atlanta, Georgia, team members of Project ARROW have incorporated these two models as the foundation of its early intervention program since 2019.

This presentation will introduce OD and CSC to the audience, as well as discuss recent qualitative work with practitioners at Project ARROW. We will discuss experiences of team members learning and implementing the combined OD/CSC model. Lessons learned regarding program implementation and the importance of peer voices will be offered. Additionally, ideas for creating better research practices to promote inclusion of all voices, including peers, will be discussed such as trauma informed interviewing and techniques from the OD framework. The panel will also use the OD framework for presenting; being open to uncertainty and utilizing reflections. Small group discussions will be incorporated, as well as time for larger group discussion and questions.


M-PATH: A Statewide Effort To Decrease DUP and Increase Psychosis-Informed Care - Emily Gagen, PhD
Specialized early psychosis programs aim to decrease the duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) by treating adolescents and young adults soon after the onset of their symptoms. In Massachusetts, several of these programs exist but many families find it difficult to access them, due to lack of awareness, difficulty navigating the mental health care system, and sometimes strict eligibility criteria. Additionally, community providers like outpatient therapists, high school and college counselors, and behavioral health clinicians embedded in pediatric and primary care offices often report a lack of sufficient knowledge and confidence in talking with families about psychosis. The Massachusetts Psychosis Access and Triage Hub (M-PATH) was created to support young people and their families with accessing specialized treatment programs; this includes care coordination, psychoeducation, and family partner and young adult peer mentor services. M-PATH also offers outreach, consultation, and education to community providers in order to help them provide psychosis-informed care. We will discuss the development and launch of this program, its successes and challenges thus far in its first 2 years of existence, and its plans for future growth and expansion.

Speakers
avatar for Beth Broussard, MPH, CHES

Beth Broussard, MPH, CHES

Emory University, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Beth Broussard, MPH, CHES, is an Associate Academic Research Scientist at Emory University School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She is the Director of Early Intervention for the Clinical and Research Program for Psychosis at Grady Health System. She... Read More →
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Emily Griner, MPH

Emory University, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Emily Griner, MPH, is a Clinical Research Coordinator at Emory University School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She assists with the execution and analysis of a variety of clinical and socio-behavioral research conducted within the Clinical and... Read More →
avatar for Melissa Uehling, MA

Melissa Uehling, MA

Emory University Department of Sociology
Melissa Uehling, MA is a 7th year MD/PhD student at Emory University and is currently completing a PhD in Sociology. She is interested in the Open Dialogue approach to psychosis treatment and other person-centered treatment models. Her dissertation research primarily focuses on subjectivity... Read More →
avatar for Jen Van Tiem, PhD

Jen Van Tiem, PhD

Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa, Department of Family Medicine
Jen has a PhD in applied anthropology from Teachers College, Columbia University. She has worked for the VA in Iowa City since January of 2017, and recently accepted a position as a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Carver College of Medicine... Read More →
avatar for Emily Gagen, PhD

Emily Gagen, PhD

Brookline Center for Community Mental Health / Harvard Medical School
Emily Gagen, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist at the Brookline Community Mental Health Center. She is the director of the Massachusetts Psychosis Access and Triage Hub (M-PATH) and is also a member of the team at the Center for Early Detection, Assessment, and Response to... Read More →
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Chris Okpor, BS, CPS-P, CTC, CTRS

Grady Behavioral Health/Pathways Behavioral Health Services
Chris Okpor, BS, CPS-P, CTC, CTRS, is a Family Peer Specialist in Project Arrow at Grady Behavioral Health and a director in Pathways Behavioral Health Services, Nigeria. He uses his own experience as someone who has taken care of a relation with a mental health condition, to help... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 9:45am - 11:15am EST
Union Room 119

9:45am EST

Psychoanalytic Legacies and Innovations (In-Person Only)
Sunday November 3, 2024 9:45am - 11:15am EST
Psychoanalytic Legacies (In-Person Only)
  • Lessons From the Lodge, Riggs, Sheppard Pratt, McLean, and Menninger - James E. Gorney, PhD
  • After 40+ Years of Analysis: New Beginnings in Treatment Leading to a Successful Outcome - Martin Cosgro, PhD

Lessons From the Lodge, Riggs, Sheppard Pratt, McLean, and Menninger - James E. Gorney, PhD
Dr. Ann-Louise Silver, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, a founder of ISPS, and the esteemed and revered past-President of ISPS-US ,long proposed writing a book to be entitled - "Lessons From the Lodge". This would have been a monument to her years of work at Chestnut Lodge treatment center in Rockville, Maryland. Her untimely death a few years ago thwarted the completion of this project. This presentation will memorialize Dr. Silver's intent through an account of long-term psycho-dynamic and psychoanalytic hospital based treatment settings for psychosis, which flourished during the last half of the Twentieth Century.These institutions provided a unique setting for clinical research, milieu treatment, and intensive psychotherapy in regard to extreme states. The unique therapeutic philosophy of patient care developed within these extended stay hospitals will be examined in detail. Numerous clinical examples will be provided to demonstrate the innovative and courageous approaches which arose here in regard to the therapeutic understanding and care of psychosis.

Within the context of currently prevalent managed-care, short-term hospitalization, and over utilization of anti-psychotic medication, it is now particularly important to commemorate lessons learned by the daring clinicians who worked within those noble past institutional settings. Consequently, key insights of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Harold Searles, Otto Will, and Ann-Louise Silver in regard to the treatment of psychosis will be explicated here via their own clinical accounts.

This model of humanistic, psycho-dynamic treatment for psychosis, trauma, and other extreme states developed within long-term milieus, provides an alternative, and antidote, to the current, broken mental health system now pervasive within the United States. Treatment wisdom, so painfully gained over so many years, has almost been forgotten. Ann-Louise Silver always encouraged us at ISPS to keep this humane, concerned, benevolent flame alive.

After 40+ Years of Analysis: New Beginnings in Treatment Leading to a Successful Outcome - Martin Cosgro, PhD
Effective psychodynamic/ psychoanalytic psychotherapy for psychosis has been around for a century and is still considered the treatment of choice by some, as the late Bertram Karon suggested. However, at times, this approach has led to limited progress and no resolution of underlying issues. This case presentation will demonstrate how 40+ years of “traditional” psychoanalysis was ineffective, and the modifications in a subsequent 3 year psychoanalytic therapy led to integration and significant improvements in all areas of life. Dealing with underlying trauma, the subsequent emotions and on-going object relations interpretations will be presented as the treatment components that appeared to be missing in the prior treatment and which led to a successful outcome.
Speakers
avatar for James E. Gorney, PhD

James E. Gorney, PhD

James E. Gorney, Ph.D. received his Doctorate from the University of Chicago. He completed a  post-doctoral fellowship and served on the supervisory staff at the Austen Riggs Center. He is a graduate of the William Alanson White Psychoanalytic Institute and has taught at New York... Read More →
avatar for Martin Cosgro, PhD

Martin Cosgro, PhD

Dr. Cosgro has worked with people struggling with psychotic experiences in out-patient, in-patient, prison, and residential settings for 31 years and has shared his work at national and international conferences.
Sunday November 3, 2024 9:45am - 11:15am EST
Union Room 613

11:15am EST

Break
Sunday November 3, 2024 11:15am - 11:30am EST
Sunday November 3, 2024 11:15am - 11:30am EST

11:30am EST

Breaking the Taboo on Group Corruption and Misconduct: Empowerment Or Burnout? (In-Person Only)
Sunday November 3, 2024 11:30am - 12:30pm EST
The shadow of groups and organizations - corruption, ethical misconduct, mistreatment, cooptation - is like a family taboo, growing worse with avoidance and silence. Workplace and community injustice create toxic stress that crushes idealism and inflicts crazymaking dilemmas on staff and activists, leading to group dysfunction, burnout, and failure. Early career activists and staff conform or leave, and innovations implode, while normalized misconduct incentivizes conformity and enables a corrupt status quo. The most vulnerable - BIPOC and LGBTQIA, trauma survivors, economically disadvantaged - are impacted most. What's the way forward?

Standing Together To Respond with Empowerment Against Misconduct (STREAM) is a simple model that breaks the silence in a trauma informed, empowered, and sustainable way. STREAM provides a simple community leadership roadmap for engaging group and organization ethics violations with sustainability and compassion. (This trauma-informed workshop will not name specific instances, but offer follow-up resources.)
Speakers
avatar for Will Hall, MA, DIplPW, Phd Candidate

Will Hall, MA, DIplPW, Phd Candidate

Maastricht University School for Mental Health and Neuroscience
Will Hall, MA, DiplPW, PhD Candidate Maastricht University, is a therapist and community development worker changing the social response to madness. A schizophrenia diagnosis survivor and longtime organizer with the psychiatric survivor movement, will is trained in Jungian psychology... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 11:30am - 12:30pm EST
Union Room 613

11:30am EST

Re-imagining the ‘Risk Assessment and Management’ of Psychosis in Mental Health Services from Lived Experience Perspectives (Hybrid)
Sunday November 3, 2024 11:30am - 12:30pm EST
Whilst international guidance suggests that service users should be involved in safety planning, service users report that they are unaware of, uninvolved in, and ill-equipped for risk assessment and management across all mental health service settings.

What dynamics are at play which explain why ‘mad and risky’ individuals (often labeled as having psychosis/schizophrenia) are not truly heard in professional risk assessment practice in mental health services?
This presentation will begin by briefly describing a critical ethnography that was conducted on one acute psychiatric inpatient unit in the UK. Key findings were that, whilst individuals were wanting to share their ‘experiential knowledge’ of their inner world, they were uninvolved in risk-discussions largely because processes of gathering ‘clinical knowledge’ (e.g., observations and documentation) of risk were hidden from them.

Two ethnographic case studies will illuminate dynamics as to how experiential knowledge is downplayed, dismissed, and marginalised (epistemic injustice) in risk assessment and management of psychosis – via the dismissal of unique fears/threats (as ‘mere delusions’) and via other ‘unacceptable’ expressions of testimony. Other examples will be given from my own lived experience of being risk assessed, which shed further light on these dynamics.

To truly reimagine psychosis services and systems, these knowledge/power/attitudinal dynamics must be transparently addressed. I will argue that clinicians need: to critically examine the naïve positivistic assumptions underpinning their own knowledge regime in assessing risk; to realise the biases, subjectivities, and emotional value-judgements embedded in their own risk practice; to understand that the Mad can only truly be heard when their testimony and meaning-making are understood as knowledge; and to unpack what co-production means, to ascertain what is actually achievable in the context of producing collaborative safety plans within these current dynamics.
Speakers
avatar for Andrew Grundy, PhD

Andrew Grundy, PhD

University College London
Dr Andrew Grundy is a Senior Lived Experience Research Fellow, and Deputy Director and Lived Experience Researcher Lead at the Policy Research Unit for Mental Health, University College London, UK. He is also a Lived Experience Researcher in the School of Health Sciences, University... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 11:30am - 12:30pm EST
Union Ballroom

11:30am EST

Systemic Reforms for Sustainable Change in Psychosis Care: The Crucial Role of DRG 885 (Virtual Only)
Sunday November 3, 2024 11:30am - 12:30pm EST
Diagnosis-Related Group 885 (DRG 885) is significant and pivotal in the healthcare system, particularly for classifying inpatient hospital cases involving psychosis. The causation for psychosis can range from being sleep deprived, a mental health misdiagnosis to a physical injury that manifests symptoms related to mental health As a component of the Medicare Severity-Diagnosis Related Group (MS-DRG) system, DRG 885 is extensively relied upon and utilized for billing and reimbursement. This ensures hospitals are compensated. Medicare and Medicaid are major payers for hospital services in the United States of America. As one with lived experience, a psychosis diagnosis is a gateway that leads to inpatient psychiatric care, whether needed or not. DRG 885 remains a leading cause of psychiatric admissions, underscoring its importance in the prospective payment and healthcare reimbursement landscape in psychiatric care. This is problematic, as it can create systemic fraud through the overuse of psychosis, shifting patient-centered care to a medical mode conflated payer-centered model. DRG 885 is an overused classification, reflecting the high prevalence of inpatient admissions for psychosis. It plays a crucial role in clinical reporting and analysis enabling healthcare organizations to monitor the quality of care, manage resource allocation, and improve clinical outcomes. Hospitals track DRG codes to analyze trends and enhance the efficiency of psychiatric services, and used to manipulate the judicial system. Medicare & Medicaid data consistently show DRG 885 among the top four used DRGs. In 2008, DRG 885 was recodified from the longstanding psychosis DRG 430 in use since 1983. Over the past 20-years psychosis remains in the top four for hospitalizations, demonstrating excessive use and the need for system reform. In conclusion, DRG 885 is essential for funding inpatient psychiatric care, whether needed or not. The widespread excessive use of psychosis signifies the substantial need for comprehensive system reform.
Speakers
avatar for Carolyn Green, BS

Carolyn Green, BS

BS, Environmental Science, Education minor, University of Washington
Carolyn Green holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science, with a minor in Education, from the University of Washington. Carolyn is a Healthcare Solutionist, author, speaker, and an inventor.
Sunday November 3, 2024 11:30am - 12:30pm EST
Virtual only (Zoom)

11:30am EST

Training Track: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (In-Person Only)
Sunday November 3, 2024 11:30am - 12:30pm EST
Psychotherapy training rarely addresses work with individuals diagnosed with psychosis, and often actively discourages trainees from pursuing long-term, relationship-based or in-depth work with people who carry this diagnosis.  This two-session workshop aims to address the questions and concerns of students and early career professionals who are interested in learning more about psychological approaches to psychosis by combining an open forum for discussion with a walk-through of clinical transcripts that can form the basis for commentary that can reveal the richness and efficacy of this often life-giving work.
Speakers
avatar for Nancy Burke, PhD, ABPP

Nancy Burke, PhD, ABPP

ISPS-US Vice President, Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis
Nancy Burke is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Evanston IL.  She is the Vice President of ISPS-US, a Core Faculty member and Past-President of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, Co-Convener of the 606  Project, Co-Chair of Expanded Mental Health Services of Chicago NFP... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 11:30am - 12:30pm EST
Union Room 119

12:30pm EST

Lunch
Sunday November 3, 2024 12:30pm - 1:30pm EST
A catered lunch will be provided in the Union Ballroom (main conference space) for all attendees
Sunday November 3, 2024 12:30pm - 1:30pm EST
Union Ballroom

12:45pm EST

ISPS Advocacy Discussion with Al Galves (In-Person Only)
Sunday November 3, 2024 12:45pm - 1:30pm EST
Join Al Galves, PhD, member of the ISPS-US Advocacy Committee and president of MindFreedom International for a discussion on advocacy topics. Pick up your lunch and then join us in the ballroom alcove (which will be signposted for this discussion.)

Al will give a brief presentation and facilitate a discussion on the following questions:

  • What do we want to do to expand the understanding and use of Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis?
  • Where are the key strategic places and times in which our intervention can make a difference?
  • Who are our allies?
  • What are some of the obstacles that need to be overcome?

Speakers
avatar for Al Galves, PhD

Al Galves, PhD

Al Galves is a psychologist.  He is President of MindFreedom International and a Past Executive Director of the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry.  He is the author of Harness Your Dark Side: Mastering Jealousy, Rage, Frustration and Other Negative Emotions... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 12:45pm - 1:30pm EST
Union Ballroom

1:30pm EST

Family Narratives and Systemic Insights (In-Person Only)
Sunday November 3, 2024 1:30pm - 3:00pm EST
Family Narratives and Systemic Insights - 3 x 30 minute sessions
  • Remembering Rachel a sisters perspective - Deborah Kasdan
  •  Family Fragments: Pressure and Proximity in First-Episode Psychosis - Cassandra B. Seltman, LCSW, PhD
  •  Straight From The Cuckoo's Nest: A Patient's & A Caregiver's Perspective - Perri Bach, BS, Ethan Back, AS

Remembering Rachel a sisters perspective - Deborah Kasdan
A personal account of the impact of the impact of failed psychiatric treatment on my sister Rachel, myself and our entire family of six, as recounted in my book, "Roll Back the World: a sister's memoir."

Rachel was healthy and vibrant during her gap year working on a kibbutz in Israel but when she returned to the U.S. her behavior was erratic and disorganized. She was unable to care for herself and our parents were unable to care for her. In 1965 at 23 years of age, Rachel was institutionalized with a diagnosis of schizophrenia; I was just starting college and was unable to process what was happening to her. My brother started college the next year. We had no family meetings or therapy to help and support us. Our parents wanted to keep Rachel safe, but we wanted her to be free. Our parents filed a Federal law suit to keep her in the hospital because she was assaulted and raped in boarding houses where she was discharged. Her siblings' attempt to free her from the hospital backfired and Rachel ended up on her own two thousand miles from home. She lived on the streets and in three state hospitals for years until a social worker was stunned by the quality of her poetry and got her into an outpatient program. Eventually, the staff found an ideal home for her and she found acceptance and respect in a synagogue. I explore my own feelings of shame and guilt, my inability to help her as I wished to, or share these feelings --until finally, in publishing the memoir about us, I brought them to light. This personal history suggests the need to include adult siblings in decision-making and help families deal with the host of conflicts that arise around hospitalization and treatment of a loved one.

Family Fragments: Pressure and Proximity in First-Episode Psychosis - Cassandra B. Seltman, LCSW, PhD
This presentation will explore the value of assuming a conceptual position that decenters the identified patient in families with a member with schizophrenia. Instead, a systemic view of the family is taken, as subject to pressures from without and within, and utilizing observable processes for the management and discharge of tension. It attempts the difficult balance of thinking dynamically without sacrificing scientific rigor, considering the social without discounting the biological, and exploring the functionality of the family without collapsing into blame, reductive cause-and-effect thinking, and the search to prioritize one true origin. When treating family members as discrete units around an identified patient, information about the dynamic processes at work in the family system is lost. Core concepts of Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory (developed primarily from the 1950s through the late 1980s) will be utilized to study the interaction between family dynamics and the prodrome and first-episode of psychosis. Under these considerations, the goal of treatment is not to suppress or destroy a single pathogenic element, but to make adjustments to the distribution and discharge of tension in the context of the emotional family system, requiring and inciting modifications in all relations. Ultimately, the complexity of family systems research beckons us to move beyond the current pessimistic paradigm of family treatments as opportunities for families to assist the individual at the center of concern with coping skills and medication compliance. In addition, it requires further engagement with the intricate correspondence of individual, familial, and societal entanglements which most often occur below the level of conscious awareness. In its wake lies the imperative for an integrated approach and echoes the clarion call for interventions that consider the many fractal dimensions of the experience of being part of a family.

Straight From The Cuckoo's Nest: A Patient's & A Caregiver's Perspective - Perri Bach, BS, Ethan Back, AS
Ethan has written a memoir of his experiences suffering 5 psychotic breaks after a brain tumor at 17 years old and will read an excerpt from his memoir. The excerpt will be from the introduction and a little of a chapter. Before showing a video, he will end with how he got better, by trusting his Drs, taking his medications, and becoming sober. He will show a video on YouTube with Ian Gold in it, who wrote the forward to Ethan’s book, and who also coined the term “The Truman Show Delusion” in his own book he co-authored with his brother called “Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness”. The TSD is a staple of Ethan’s illness. Last, Perri will offer a caretaker’s perspective, offering what one should do if this happened to your family member or friend: the message will be to not give up on them. She will offer her own educated opinion on what the US could do to better the fates of those suffering from like illnesses on the streets. This presentation will offer hope to those suffering out there, as Ethan is Sober off alcohol and smoking weed and hasn’t had a break since spring 2020, 4 years ago. Then the floor will open for questions/comments.
Speakers
avatar for Deborah Kasdan

Deborah Kasdan

I grew up primarily in the Midwest before moving to the East Coast, where my husband and I brought up our two daughters. After retiring from a thirty-five-year career writing about business and technology, the last 14 of them with IBM, I took creative writing workshops to help me... Read More →
avatar for Cassandra B. Seltman, LCSW, PhD

Cassandra B. Seltman, LCSW, PhD

Graduate Center
Cassandra B. Seltman is a writer and psychoanalyst in private practice in NYC. She teaches diagnostics, supervises, and conducts research on first-episode psychosis. Selected publications can be found in The LA Review of Books, DIVISION/Review, Public Seminar, and Modern Psychoan... Read More →
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Perri Bach, BS

Perri Bach is a retired mother of 3. She is a California girl and grew up medically minded. She now spends her retired years with family surrounding her in Bend, Oregon.
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Ethan Bach, AS

Ethan Bach has had five psychotic breaks in his life where The Truman Show Delusion was at the forefront. He managed to get his degree in creative writing and now can tell his tale. He also lives in Bend Oregon surrounded by family.
Sunday November 3, 2024 1:30pm - 3:00pm EST
Union Room 613

1:30pm EST

Integrating Psychoanalytic Theory (Virtual Only)
Sunday November 3, 2024 1:30pm - 3:00pm EST
Integrating Psychoanalytic Theory - 2 x 45 minute sessions
  • Archetypes of Home and Homelessness: Social Displacement,  Alteric Spaces, and the Trauma of the Unhoused - Claude Barbre, MDiv, PhD, LP
  • Alfred Adler's Understanding of Extreme States - Thomas Federn, MDiv, MS

Archetypes of Home and Homelessness: Social Displacement,  Alteric Spaces, and the Trauma of the Unhoused - Claude Barbre, MDiv, PhD, LP
Archetypes are often defined as universal, inherited ideas, patterns of thought, or images that are present in the collective unconscious of all human beings—literal, symbolic, and psychic. In essence, archetypes are the deepest paradigms of psychic functions, reflecting the perspective we have of ourselves and the world. As James Hillman notes, “all ways of speaking of archetypes are translations from one metaphor to another… and these perspectives offer the advantage of organizing into clusters of constellations a host of metaphors and events from different areas of life” (Hillman, 1989). In this presentation we will explore the archetypes of home and homelessness, and the social complexes that occur in response to these collective primordial images. The archetype of home as a container, or a place to which one can belong, also suggests a “narrative reality” (Hill, 2010) that describes how we attach to a place, a person, an object, a nation, a group, a culture or an ideal” (Bright, 2014). As Bright notes, “home is a word weighted with affect and associated with rootedness, attachment, belonging, shelter, refuge, comfort, and identity” (Bright, 2014). Conversely, a severed connection to home creates emotional and psychological implications. Homelessness symbolizes a state of disconnection, both externally and internally. As Lee says, “Homelessness ranges from temporarily unsheltered individuals between jobs or homes to chronically unhoused individuals who spend years without stable housing” (Lee, 2023) Hence, traumatic and psychological distress (e.g. Enreiss, or “tears in the psyche”) accompany conditions of homelessness, as found in the etymological meaning of the word “uncanny” that literally means “homelessness at home.” In this presentation we will explore the psychological and spiritual implications of home and homelessness, particularly the archetypal images of the Outcast, Stranger, and Scapegoat that reflect the power of personified images of alteric spaces and homelessness.

Alfred Adler's Understanding of Extreme States - Thomas Federn, MDiv, MS
Alfred Adler (1870 to1937) was one of the first four individuals to meet regularly with Sigmund Freud to discuss Freud’s ideas. These meetings began in 1902. Eventually, in 1911, because he disagreed with too many of them for comfort, he and some likeminded fellow members left what by then had become the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and founded what became known as the second of the three psychological schools of Vienna, the Society for Individual Psychology. Like those of Freud, Adler’s ideas ended up being disseminated throughout the entire world.

Adler believed that all the emotional difficulties of a person stemmed from feelings of inferiority acquired during early childhood. In order to compensate for these at times devastating negative feelings, a person engaged in what Adler called “masculine protest,“ a socioeconomic term which refers to the unfortunately still very prevalent inferior position of women in society. Adler believed that the goal of all psychotherapy was to help the individual overcome their need to be superior to others and to replace this need with a sense of community that involved a feeling of self-worth grounded in belonging to one’s own family and community. In order to achieve this end psychotherapy needed the help of both of these to motivate the person to abandon their “masculine protest” against their feelings of inferiority. Last but certainly not least, Adler believed that the individual was not just an aggregate of individual mental and emotional actions but a unified whole. Hence the name of the school of individual psychology.

My presentation will be comprised of three parts. First a brief one, placing Adler in his historical context. Then a longer summary of his basic ideas and finally then an even longer description of how to apply these ideas when one assists persons experiencing extreme states.

Speakers
TF

Thomas Federn, MDiv, MS

I was born in 1950.  Both of my parents were Holocaust survivors.  My father spent seven years in two Nazi concentration camps, while my mother was persecuted in her native Austria because of her Jewish roots.  I was married in 1979.  My wife and I have one son, born in 1984 and... Read More →
avatar for Claude Barbre, MDiv, PhD, LP

Claude Barbre, MDiv, PhD, LP

The Chicago School and the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis
Claude Barbre, M.S., M.Div., Ph.D., L.P., is Distinguished Full Professor, Clinical Psychology Psy.D. Department, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Dr. Barbre is Course Lead Coordinator of the Psychodynamic Orientation at The Chicago School, a faculty member of the Child... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 1:30pm - 3:00pm EST
Virtual only (Zoom)

1:30pm EST

Meaningful Lived Experience Involvement across Mental Health Systems (Hybrid)
Sunday November 3, 2024 1:30pm - 3:00pm EST
The integration of lived experience within mental health systems has gained recognition as a crucial element in enhancing service delivery and outcomes. This panel will explore the multifaceted dimensions of meaningful involvement of individuals with lived experience (peers) in mental health systems, emphasizing the co-production of services, training, and research. Drawing from qualitative research and panel members' expertise we will examine best practices and barriers to effective involvement. Central to our analysis is the concept of "meaningful involvement," which transcends tokenistic inclusion, advocating for active and sustained participation that influences decision-making processes.

We investigate various models of engagement, including peer support roles, advisory boards, and co-researcher positions, highlighting successful implementations across different mental health settings. We seek to discuss how meaningful involvement contributes to a more empathetic and person-centered approach in mental health services, fostering trust and improving all elements of services. Key factors for success include robust training programs for peers, institutional commitment to culture change, and the creation of supportive infrastructures that value lived experience as essential expertise. However, myriad challenges persist, such as stigma, power imbalances, and the sustainability of peer roles within traditional hierarchies. We provide recommendations to address these challenges thorough different lenses, with a panel with four lived experience experts and one clinical expert. The panel seeks to underscore the necessity of embracing lived experience as a cornerstone in the evolution of mental health systems.

By systematically incorporating the voices of those who have navigated mental health challenges, we can co-create more responsive, effective, and humane systems of care. The perspectives gleaned from this panel aim to inform practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and individuals with lived experience in committed to fostering inclusive and transformative mental health services.
Speakers
avatar for Shannon Pagdon, BA

Shannon Pagdon, BA

University of Pittsburgh
Shannon Pagdon, BA (she/they), is a joint masters/doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Forensic Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and is a former Research Coordinator for EPINET New York State Psychiatric... Read More →
KS

Katherine Sanford, BA

University of California, Davis
Katie Sanford (she/her) is an individual living with schizoaffective disorder. She is the lead of the Lived Experience Integration Team on the EPI-CAL California Early Psychosis Network project based out of UC Davis. Katie also has over 10 years of mental health advocacy experience... Read More →
BD

Brandon Daniels

Brandon Daniels is a non binary, Afro-Caribbean American 28 year old who holds the position of a psychiatric survivor, justice impacted individual, peer support specialist, organizer and educator. He is a graduate of Howie the Harp Advocacy Center, a certified peer specialist, and... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 1:30pm - 3:00pm EST
Union Ballroom

1:30pm EST

Reimagining Crisis Care (In-person only)
Sunday November 3, 2024 1:30pm - 3:00pm EST
Crisis - 2 x 45 minute sessions
  • Crisis Response: From Critique to Action - Brian Nuckols and panelists TBC
  •  Anti-Carceral Crisis Care: Cultivating Agency and Self-Determination for those Experiencing Altered States - Jessie Roth, Noah Gokul, Jazmine Russell
Crisis Response: From Critique to Action - Brian Nuckols and panelists TBC
The presentation develops a critical theory of psychiatric crisis response, addressing three fundamental levels: theoretical foundations, methodological choices for intervention, and measurement, evaluation, and outcome research. This critical theory establishes a comprehensive framework to critically examine current practices in crisis response and proposes an interdisciplinary and community-based approach to theory, intervention, and measurement. At the theoretical level, the presentation integrates critical perspectives from psychology, sociology, anthropology, theology, medicine, public health, and urban design, exploring the historical and socio-political contexts that shape current psychiatric crisis response systems. Methodologically, it advocates for approaches that have been ignored or erased by hegemonic psychiatric models, emphasizing creativity and experimental forms of narrative research to capture diverse experiences and perspectives on emotional crisis. For measurement and evaluation, the presentation proposes new metrics and evaluation criteria that reflect the complexity and holistic nature of psychiatric crises. A mixed-methods research approach combining quantitative and qualitative methods is suggested to provide a comprehensive evaluation, focusing on outcomes that are meaningful to service users and their communities. From this critical perspective the, the presentation proposes a swarm of movement-building interventions. The swarm, while ultimately uncontainable to any one objective, will stimulate itself through organizing an interdisciplinary consortium comprising service users, peers, and professionals from diverse fields such as art, psychotherapy, theology, medicine, sociology, anthropology, public health, and urban design. The consortium will collaboratively design, implement, and evaluate alternative community responses to emotional crises.

 Anti-Carceral Crisis Care: Cultivating Agency and Self-Determination for those Experiencing Altered States. Jessie Roth, Noah Gokul, Jazmine Russell

Mental health services for those experiencing psychosis in the United States are largely rooted in coercion and control. Driven by individual provider fear and the system's emphasis on liability, mainstream responses often involve stripping people of their rights and agency. A common example is forced psychiatric commitment, which is expanding rapidly across the country as we speak. Not only are involuntary services an ineffective solution for people experiencing trauma and systemic oppression – research demonstrates that they actively perpetuate cycles of violence. They also disproportionately affect multiply marginalized community members, including the poor and unhoused, BIPOC, and disabled communities.

Lived experience wisdom can help challenge outdated assumptions about care for those experiencing psychosis and altered states, and has the potential to guide us into a more liberatory future. Unfortunately, this knowledge is often silenced in education, service delivery, and policy contexts. This session will weave together diverse lived experience perspectives on psychosis, such as firsthand experience with altered states, working in the system as a peer specialist, and witnessing psychiatric harm as a family member and trauma survivor. The presentation will be rooted in lineages of activism across movements that have birthed countless anti-carceral approaches to crisis care that cultivate agency and self-determination.

Through a brief presentation and interactive conversation with the audience, presenters will challenge dominant narratives that bolster coercive care approaches (e.g. people experiencing psychosis lack “insight” into their condition, also known as “anosognosia”), explore what becomes possible when crisis is redefined as an opportunity, and introduce a plethora of trauma-informed care approaches that exist within and outside the system. Participants will leave with new skills and strategies for “being with” and caring for those experiencing psychosis in ways that divest from the mental health industrial complex.
Speakers
avatar for Jazmine Russell

Jazmine Russell

Institute for the Development of Human Arts
Jazmine Russell (she/her) is the co-founder of the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA), a transformative mental health educator, trauma survivor, and host of "Depth Work: A Holistic Mental Health Podcast." She is an interdisciplinary scholar of Mad Studies, Critical... Read More →
avatar for Jessie Roth

Jessie Roth

Institute for the Development of Human Arts
Jessie Roth (she/her) is a writer, activist, and organizer with a decade of experience at the intersections of mental health and social justice. She is the Director and a longtime member of the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA), where she has led the development of... Read More →
avatar for Brian Nuckols

Brian Nuckols

Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Brian Nuckols is a street therapist and communist organizer. His major interest is the use of empathy as a weapon against self hatred and social conformity. He organizes with Our Streets Collective in Pittsburgh and helps operate the free mental health clinic and street therapy initiative... Read More →
avatar for Noah Gokul

Noah Gokul

Institute for the Development of Human Arts
Noah Gokul (they/them) is a Queer multidisciplinary artist and educator here to create liberated worlds through art, storytelling, and sound. They are the Program Manager of the Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA), where they lead the Transformative Mental Health Core... Read More →
Sunday November 3, 2024 1:30pm - 3:00pm EST
Union Room 119

3:30pm EST

Final Plenary Session (Details TBA) (Hybrid)
Sunday November 3, 2024 3:30pm - 4:30pm EST
Details coming soon
Sunday November 3, 2024 3:30pm - 4:30pm EST
Union Ballroom
 
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New Beginnings: Reimagining Psychosis Services & Systems in the US
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