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ISPS-US 23rd Annual Conference | November 1-3, 2024 | University of Pittsburgh & Duquesne University | Pittsburgh, PA & Hybrid Online | Preliminary Schedule
Union Room 119 clear filter
Saturday, November 2
 

9:45am EDT

Training Track: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (In-Person Only)
Saturday November 2, 2024 9:45am - 11:15am EDT
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 →
Saturday November 2, 2024 9:45am - 11:15am EDT
Union Room 119

11:30am EDT

Psychoanalytic Practice (In-Person Only)
Saturday November 2, 2024 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Psychoanalytic Practice (2 x 30 minute presentations)
  • Counter-transference Hopelessness and Hate and the Burnout of FEP Clinicians - Irene Hurford, MD
  • Madness and the Real: Recentering the Unconscious in the Clinic of Psychosis - Elan Y. Cohen, PhD

Counter-transference Hopelessness and Hate and the Burnout of FEP Clinicians - Irene Hurford, MD
Working with young people experiencing early psychosis is deeply rewarding work. It is also difficult, draining, and at times heartbreaking. The rate of turnover of staff in CSC programs is unknown, but experientially it aligns with other community mental health (CMH) turnover rates, which are high (Herschell et al., 2020). Reasons given for turnover in CMH are myriad (Beidas et al., 2016; Yanchus et al., 2017). What is rarely mentioned in research publications is the sense of hopelessness that is often engendered in clinicians as they work with young people with psychosis. Some of this despair may be related to the social disparities that many of their clients face, including poverty, abuse, and homelessness, or to the difficulty of the work itself, because recovering from psychosis is non-linear, and sometimes unsuccessful. But some of it is related to counter-transference hate and hopelessness. While analytic clinicians in the 1950s-1970s wrote about these experiences fairly regularly (Searles, Harold F, 1963), as treatment turned medical and/or cognitive, the focus on the feelings engendered in the clinician by the work with psychotic people disappeared. In my experience, it is rarely discussed in supervision, and when brought up, is sometimes met with judgement from other clinicians. And yet these feelings are a critical part of deep work with psychotic individuals (Quagelli, Luca, 2019), an experiencing of the client’s own feelings of hopelessness and rage. But unmetabolized, these near-universal feelings in clinicians can lead to burnout and an ongoing exodus of clinicians from the CSC setting. I discuss these counter-transferential feelings in more depth using clinical examples, and relating it more broadly to the field, before discussing possible strategies to deal with counter-transference in the CSC workforce and ways to combat burnout and staff turnover.

Madness and the Real: Recentering the Unconscious in the Clinic of Psychosis - Elan Y. Cohen, PhD
This presentation problematizes classical assumptions about the relationship between dreams, madness, the unconscious, and reality. I critique an adaptationist psychoanalytic perspective that interprets psychosis as resulting from a defective ego, failing to regulate an excess of unconscious activity. I argue that the classical interpretation prioritizes ego functioning and emphasizes the subject’s adaptation to a defective social reality. In contrast, this presentation offers a psychoanalytic conceptualization of psychosis that aspires to liberate, approaching psychosis as a resistance to processes that efface subjectivity. As such, I advocate for a combined social and psychoanalytic approach to psychosis that recenters the unconscious, which I define as the psychic apparatus that buffers the subject from unmediated proximity to the Real. The presentation will review Freud’s two principles of mental functioning; Bion’s concepts of psychic metabolism, beta-elements and the alpha-function; and the Lacanian registers of the Real and the Symbolic. In each of these frameworks, psychosis can be understood as stemming from a traumatogenic reality that resists symbolization or alpha-betization. The presentation will highlight the utility of each of these frameworks in clinical practice.
Speakers
avatar for Elan Y Cohen, PhD

Elan Y Cohen, PhD

Adelphi University
Elan Y. Cohen is a clinical psychologist interested in social and psychoanalytic approaches to trauma and psychosis. Prior to graduate training, he worked as a recovery specialist in a crisis respite center and the Parachute NYC Open Dialogue mobile program. He is currently a postdoctoral... Read More →
avatar for Irene Hurford, MD

Irene Hurford, MD

Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia
Irene Hurford, M.D. is in private practice in Abington, PA. Prior to starting her practice in 2020, Dr. Hurford was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. She was the founder and clinical director for the Psychosis Education, Assessment... Read More →
Saturday November 2, 2024 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Union Room 119

1:30pm EDT

Hearing Voices Implementation (In-Person Only)
Saturday November 2, 2024 1:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
Hearing Voices Implementaiton - 2 x 45 minute sessions
  •  Veteran Voices and Visions: Adapting the Hearing Voices Approach to an Urban VA Healthcare System - Ippolytos Kalofonos MD PhD MPH, Erica Hua Fletcher, PhD, Carol Jahchan, PhD, Sahastri Hercules, Cindy Hadge
  •  Online Hearing Voices Groups in the NHS: A Feasibility Study - Alison Branitsky, Mres

Veteran Voices and Visions: Adapting the Hearing Voices Approach to an Urban VA Healthcare System - Ippolytos Kalofonos MD PhD MPH, Erica Hua Fletcher, PhD, Carol Jahchan, PhD, Sahastri Hercules, Cindy Hadge, Tim Laprade
The Veteran Voices and Visions (VVV) project is an adaptation of the Hearing Voices approach to the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Healthcare System that serves 1.4 million Veterans. The VA has officially adopted the recovery model and employs over 1400 peer specialists nationwide. The VVV project uses virtual support groups, co-facilitated by a clinician and a Veteran peer who is an “expert-by-experience,” to normalize experiences such as hearing voices and seeing visions. We are trying to build an evidence-base to get this approach recognized and available for use across the VA. Thus, VVV includes a research component to 1) study the adaptation of a Hearing Voices Facilitator training to the VA and 2) to understand how participating in VVV groups may help Veterans live with their voices and make meaning from their experiences. Our approach has involved multidisciplinary collaborations - including perspectives and contributions from Veterans who hear voices, Veteran peer support specialists, social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, social researchers, and national Hearing Voices leaders. Group members explore personal understandings and contexts of so-called “unusual” experiences commonly diagnosed as psychosis rather than privileging biomedical framings; we also encourage and support Veterans in engaging with their experiences as potentially meaningful rather than only interpreting them as symptoms of an illness to be eliminated. In VVV groups, Veterans share their stories, coping strategies, and worldviews, and often end up supporting each other in their ongoing life projects.

This panel brings together some of the participants of the project to share our perspectives and experiences, including researchers, clinicians, Veteran participants and facilitators, and trainers. We will explore some of the successes, challenges, lessons learned, possibilities, and contradictions of bringing this community-based, peer-driven approach into a large, bureaucratic health system.

Online Hearing Voices Groups in the NHS: A Feasibility Study - Alison Branitsky, Mres
Over the past 40 years, Hearing Voices Network Peer Support Groups (HVGs) have proliferated across the globe. HVGs are built on the ethos of self-determination and collective liberation, positing that voice hearing is a normal human experience and that individuals who hear voices are best positioned to determine how to understand and respond to their experiences. While HVGs exist widely in the community, they are also being run within statutory services, whose ethos are at times at odds with those of the Hearing Voices Network (HVN). This presentation will explore both preliminary findings and personal experiences of running the first feasibility trial of online HVGs within the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). The presentations will cover how the group was adapted to run in the NHS while maintaining the values of HVN; qualitative and quantitative outcomes of group participation; challenges and opportunities arising from the online medium; the practical and philosophical possibilities and contradictions that arise from implementing survivor-led initiatives into public healthcare systems; and considerations for implementing these groups in a US-context.
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 Ippolytos Kalofonos, MD, PhD, MPH

Ippolytos Kalofonos, MD, PhD, MPH

Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System
Ippolytos Kalofonos, MD PhD MPH is an assistant professor-in-residence in the UCLA Center for Social Medicine. He is a medical anthropologist and a practicing psychiatrist in the Greater Los Angeles Veteran Affairs Medical Center. He has been working on adapting the Hearing Voices... Read More →
avatar for Carol Jahchan, PhD

Carol Jahchan, PhD

Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System
I’m a licensed bicultural clinical psychologist with a specialization in the neuroscience of mental illness. I provide psychosocial rehabilitation services at the West LA VA Medical Center and have been involved in the Veteran Voices and Visions group as a facilitator for the past... Read More →
avatar for Sahastri Hercules

Sahastri Hercules

Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System
Sahastri (Sash) Hercules, US Army Veteran, voice hearer, and Co-Facilitator
avatar for Cindy Hadge

Cindy Hadge

Wildflower Alliance
Cindy Hadge, The Director of Collaborative Projects for The Wildflower Alliance, has provided Hearing Voices Network Training for over a decade. Cindy has had the pleasure of training and collaborating with the Veterans, Voices. Visions Project from its beginning.
avatar for Alison Branitsky, Mres

Alison Branitsky, Mres

University of Manchester/Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust
Alison Branitsky is a lived-experience researcher and mental health advocate whose work focuses on broadening our understanding of and approaches to responding to extreme mental distress. She currently is a PhD student at the University of Manchester in the UK.
Saturday November 2, 2024 1:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
Union Room 119

3:30pm EDT

Psychosis and the Reproductive Body (In-Person Only)
Saturday November 2, 2024 3:30pm - 5:00pm EDT
Psychosis and the Reproductive Body - 2 x 45 minute sessions
  • Reconceiving Peripartum Psychosis: Developmental, psychosocial, and phenomenological perspectives - Elizabeth Pienkos, PsyD, Marie Brown, PhD, Tate Hudson, MA, Brenda Froyen
  • Not Just Hot Flashes: Navigating Extreme States in the Menopausal Transition - Leah Harris, MA

Reconceiving Peripartum Psychosis: Developmental, psychosocial, and phenomenological perspectives  - 
Elizabeth Pienkos, PsyD, Marie Brown, PhD, Tate Hudson, MA, Brenda Froyen.

Peripartum psychosis is a largely underresearched condition, and interventions vary widely. In the U.S., it is primarily attributed to biological causes, and treated via medication, often in inpatient psychiatric settings. The narratives of women who face peripartum psychosis, however, reveal the significant role played by communication about idealized states of motherhood, and their conflict with women’s real experiences of motherhood, in the development of distress and ultimately psychiatric symptoms. In this panel, we will highlight these frequently unheard stories of psychosis and motherhood, and the potential for interventions to either enhance or disrupt attempts at integrating a wide range of experiences found in pregnancy and early motherhood. Presentations will offer reflections on: the experience of peripartum psychosis and encounters with medical and psychiatric institutions; phenomenology and its potential to illuminate two recent narratives of peripartum psychosis, Inferno (Cho, 2020) and Setting the wire (Townsend, 2019); multidisciplinary perspectives on peripartum psychosis that help to escape a purely biomedical vision of this condition, drawing specifically on a developmental (i.e., matrescence) and socio-political lens; the possibilities in feminist phenomenology to help unpack the progression of experiences reported by women with peripartum psychosis. From these talks, we hope to offer a range of ways to think about peripartum psychosis that can shape intervention to be more responsive to women’s lived experience.

Not Just Hot Flashes: Navigating Extreme States in the Menopausal Transition - Leah Harris, MA
The menopausal transition can be characterized by a wide range of embodied experiences, including new onset or intensification of voice-hearing and extreme states. Presenter + psychiatric survivor Leah Harris went through extreme states for the first time during this phase of life, and will share insights from documenting and researching this experience over the past five years. For example, there is a documented "second peak" in first onset of extreme states that occurs during the menopausal years of 45-55, as well as higher rates of psychiatric hospitalization and suicide. Yet there is little to nothing in the way of awareness and customized supports for people experiencing psychosis for the first time during midlife. This workshop will highlight holistic, de-pathologized, gender-inclusive, and social justice-based strategies for understanding and raising awareness about this complex, mysterious, and important facet of human experience. 
Speakers
avatar for Brenda Froyen

Brenda Froyen

Brenda Froyen is a Belgian author, mental health advocate, and educator. Known for her work in raising awareness about psychiatric care and mental health issues, she has written several books drawing from her personal experiences with mental health crises. Her writings and public... Read More →
avatar for Marie Brown, PhD

Marie Brown, PhD

ISPS-US Vice-President, NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Marie Brown, PhD,  is a clinical psychologist in New York City. She is the President of the US Chapter of the International Society for the Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis (ISPS-US) and a co-founder of Hearing Voices Network NYC. She is co-editor of Women & Psychosis... Read More →
avatar for Leah Harris, MA

Leah Harris, MA

Hearing Voices Network USA
Leah Harris, M.A. (she/they) is a mad + disabled psychiatric survivor of Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jewish heritage, who has written and advocated for over two decades for mad liberation, human rights, and anti-carceral mental health supports. Her writing and journalism have appeared... Read More →
avatar for Elizabeth Pienkos, PsyD

Elizabeth Pienkos, PsyD

Duquesne University
Dr. Liz Pienkos is a licensed clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Duquesne University. Her research focuses on the phenomenology of schizophrenia, using qualitative methods to explore the mechanisms and features of this and other psychiatric disorders. Her... Read More →
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Tate Hudson, MA

Duquesne University
Tate Hudson is a Ph.D. student in Clinical Psychology at Duquesne University. He is also a visual artist with a background in Continental Philosophy, exploring aspects of subjectivity, immanence, difference and multiplicity in the sociocultural milieu. He strives to blend his tripartite... Read More →
Saturday November 2, 2024 3:30pm - 5:00pm EDT
Union Room 119

5:30pm EDT

How to Discussion: Lived Experience Writing in Academia (In-Person only)
Saturday November 2, 2024 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
How to Discussion: Lived Experience Writing in Academia - Sirikanya Chiraroekmongkon, MD

Academia is a highly intimidating space, with much of its own technical language and nuances. A person with lived experience (including family members) outside of academia may find this space too foreign or unfamiliar and may struggle with feeling that their writing belong in this space. A person with lived experience (including family members) inside of academia may worry about sharing, with fears of vulnerability and potential repercussion.

This presentation invites all spectrum of feelings and nuances. It aims to walk through the internal and external steps into the undertaking and to create an open and safe environment for a discussion.
Speakers
avatar for Sirikanya Chiraroekmongkon, MD

Sirikanya Chiraroekmongkon, MD

SMH On-Call Psychiatrist, Asian Health Services
I am from Bangkok, Thailand, grew up in a single-parent household with my mom and older brother, and immigrated to the U.S. at age 10. As an adolescent, I witnessed my mom going through her first psychotic break and ended up being untreated and living in homeless shelters for a decade... Read More →
Saturday November 2, 2024 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
Union Room 119
 
Sunday, November 3
 

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

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

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
 
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New Beginnings: Reimagining Psychosis Services & Systems in the US
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