Posts

Experts call for ban on schizophrenia ‘label’

Published in: Daily Mail, 9 October, 2006

Schizophrenia should be abolished as a concept because it is unscientific, stigmatising, and does not address the root causes of serious mental illness, a group of experts said today.

The diagnosis, which emerged in the 19th century, is flawed and harmful, they claimed. It not only grouped together patients with widely ranging symptoms, but offered no explanation for their illnesses.

Once given a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a person was labelled an incurable social misfit and placed at the mercy of a psychiatric system that mostly benefited the drug industry.

A new campaign called CASL (Campaign for the Abolition of the Schizophrenic Label) is said to be gaining increasing support from both patients groups and professionals.

It wants patients to be assessed according to their individual experiences and histories rather than blanket-categorised as “schizophrenic”.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-409472/Experts-ban-schizophrenia-label.html#ixzz1H2oOhJEG

Your Feedback

If you have heard me speak at a training event or conference, I’d love to get your feedback too. Just add your comments to the bottom of this post.

With thanks, Jacqui

Ritual Abuse

Ritual Abuse

On The Web

End Ritual Abusewww.endritualabuse.org
This site provides articles, resources, and links to information and support.

Extreme Abuse Surveywww.extreme-abuse-survey.net
Results, findings, questionnaires and presentations. More than 750 pages of documentation.

Mind Justicewww.mindjustice.org
An extensive and well-organized site on with articles, source material, and position papers on mind control, torture, and non-lethal weapons

Ritual Abuse, Ritual Crime and Healingwww.ra-info.org
Information for Survivor’s, Therapists and Others.

Ritual Abuse Network Scotlandwww.rans.org.uk
An informative and useful resource for anyone connected with ritual abuse anywhere in the world, be they survivors, counsellors, or just a concerned friend.

Ritual Abuse and Satanic Ritual Abuse Evidence and Journal Articles – http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Satanic_Ritual_Abuse_Evidence_and_Journal_Articles

S.M.A.R.T. (Stop Mind Control and Ritual Abuse Today): www.ritualabuse.us
Many articles, transcripts of speeches, information on up-coming conferences, plus all back issues of the newsletter.

Survivorshipwww.survivorship.org
For survivors of ritual abuse, mind control and torture and their allies.

In Print

Morris, M. (1982). If I Should Die Before I Wake. Black Swan Books.

Noblitt, R. and Perskin Noblitt, P. (2008). Ritual Abuse in the Twenty First Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations. Robert. D. Reed Publishers.

Ross, C. (1995). Satanic Ritual Abuse: Principals of Treatment. University of Toronto Press.

Ryder, D. (1992). Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse: Recognizing and Recovering from the Hidden Trauma. Compcare Publishers.

Scott, S. (2001). The Politics and Experience of Ritual Abuse: Beyond Belief. Open University Press.

Sinason, V. (1994). Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. Routledge.

Smith, M. (1993). Ritual Abuse. What It Is, Why It Happens, How to Help. Harper: San Francisco.

Critical & Alternative Perspectives

Critical & Alternative Perspectives

On The Web

The Campaign to Abolish the Schizophrenia Labelwww.caslcampaign.co
CASL is calling for the label of schizophrenia to be abolished on the grounds that it is outdated, unscientific, stigmatising and presents a barrier to effective and appropriate support to individuals diagnosed with the label.

Coming off Psychiatric Medicationwww.comingoff.com
Information about coming off psychiatric medication.

The Critical Psychiatry Networkwww.critpsynet.freeuk.com
The Critical Psychiatry Network provides a network to develop a critique of the contemporary psychiatric system.

The Freedom Centrewww.freedom-center.org
An American-based support and activism community for anyone experiencing mental health difficulties. Includes event lists, links and advice around medication.

The Fireweed Collective – http://theicarusproject.net
Support network started in the U.S. for people ‘navigating the space between brilliance and madness’

The International Critical Psychiatry Networkwww.criticalpsychiatry.net
Created by medical doctors as a forum (primarily for medical doctors) to discuss, critique, and publicise opinions, practices, literature, and events that support critical thinking and alternative approaches to psychiatry.

International Network Toward Alternatives and Recoveryhttp://intar.org/
Gathers prominent survivors, professionals, family members, and advocates from around the world to work together for new clinical and social practices towards emotional distress and what is often labeled as psychosis.

Peter Lehmann Publishingwww.peter-lehmann-publishing.com
Publishes excellent books available in English on alternative approaches to mental health problems.

Mad Pride www.ctono.freeserve.co.uk
The all new website of this energetic mental health surivivors organisation. Includes details of future gigs & events, the origins of Mad Pride and their ‘Stop The Suicides’ campaign

MindFreedom Internationalwww.mindfreedom.org

MindFreedom International unites 100 grassroots groups and thousands of members to win campaigns for human rights of people diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities.

National Service User Networkwww.nsun.org.uk
Aims to create a network which will engage and support the wide diversity of mental health service users and survivors across England in order to strengthen the user voice.

PCCS Bookswww.pccs-books.co.uk
Publisher of counselling and psychotherapy books and journals. Committed to reflexive, radical and critical contemporary psychology theory and practice

Soteria Networkwww.soterianetwork.org.uk
Soteria is a network of people in the UK promoting the development of drug-free and minimum medication therapeutic environments for people experiencing ‘psychosis’ or extreme states.

The Spiritual Crisis Networkwww.spiritualcrisisnetwork.org.uk
A UK based network set up to improve access to approaches that view psychosis as a spiritual crisis or spiritual emergence ideas.

World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatryhttp://wnusp.rafus.dk/
WNUSP is an international organization of users and survivors of psychiatry.

In Print

Asylum Magazinewww.asylumonline.net/subscribe.htm
Asylum magazine is a forum for free debate, open to anyone with an interest in psychiatry or mental health. We especially welcome contributions from service users or ex-users (or survivors), carers, and frontline psychiatric or mental health workers (anonymously, if you wish). The magazine is not-for-profit and run by a collective of unpaid volunteers.

Appignanesi, L. (2008) Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present. Virago Press.

Barker, P. Campbell, P. Davidson, B. (1999). From the Ashes of Experience. Whurr Publishers.

Bentall, R. (ed.) (1990). Reconstructing Schizophrenia. Hove: Routledge.

Bentall, R. (2003). Madness Explained: Psychosis and Human Nature. London: Penguin.

Bentall, R. (2009). Doctoring The Mind: Why Psychiatric Treatments Fail. London: Penguin.

Boyle, M. (1990). Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion? London, Routledge.

Bracken, P. and Thomas, P. (2005). Postpsychiatry: Mental Health in a Postmodern World. Oxford: Open University Press.

Breggin, P. (1991) Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock and Biochemical Theories of the New Psychiatry. Flamingo; (Reissue) edition (2010)

Breggin, P. (2008). Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry. New York: Springer.

Chesler, P. (1972). Women and Madness. New York: Avon.

Cohen, C. and Timimi, S. (2008). Liberatory Psychiatry: Philosophy, Politics and Mental Health. Cambridge University Press.

Coleman, R. (2004). Recovery: An Alien Concept (2nd Edition). Fife: P&P Press Ltd.

Frame, J. (2008). An Angel At My Table. Sydney: Vintage.

Foucault, M. (1965). Madness and Civilization. New York: Vintage.

Greenberg, J. (1964). I Never Promised You A Rose Garden. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Grof, S. (1985). Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. State University of New York Press.

Grof, S. (1988). The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration. State University of New York Press.

Hammersley, P., Langshaw, B., Bullimore, P., Dillon, J., Romme, M. and Escher, S. (2008). Schizophrenia at the tipping point. Mental Health Practice, 12(1), 14 – 19.

Hornstein, G.A. To Redeem One Person Is To Redeem The World: The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichman. Free Press.

Hornstein, G.A. (2009). Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness. Rodale Press.

Johnson, B. (2005). Emotional Health. Trust Consent Publishing.

Johnson, B. (2005). Unsafe at Any Dose. Trust Consent Publishing.

Johnstone, L. (2000). Users and Abusers of Psychiatry. Hove: Routledge.

Joseph, J. (2003). The Gene Illusion. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

Joseph, J. (2006). The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, And the Fruitless Search for Genes. New York: Algora.

Laing, R. (1959). The Divided Self. London: Tavistock.

Laing, R. and Esterson, A. (1964). Sanity, Madness and the Family. London: Penguin.

Laing, R. (1967). The Politics of Experience. London: Penguin.

Millett, K. (1990). The Loony-bin Trip. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Moncrieff, J. (2009). The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment. Palgrave Macmillan.

Mosher, L. et al. (2004) Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance. Philadelphia: Xlibris.

Newnes, C. et al. (eds) (1999). This is Madness. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

Newnes, C. et al. (eds) (2001). This is Madness Too. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

Nightsky, O. (1999). The Bridge Between Two Worlds. A Shaman’s View of Schizophrenia and Acute Sensitivity. Keepwell (NZ) Ltd.

Rapley, M. Moncrieff, J. Dillon, J. (2011). Demedicalising Misery: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Human Condition. Palgrave Macmillan.

Read, J. and Reynolds, J. (1996). Speaking Our Minds: An Anthology. Palgrave Macmillan.

Read, J. (2009). Psychiatric drugs: Key Issues and Service User Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan.

Read, J. Bentall, R. and Mosher, L. (2004). Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia. Routledge; New edition.

Smith, K. and Sweeney, M. (1997). Beyond Bedlam. Anvil Press Poetry.

Stastny, P. and Lehmann, P. (Eds). (2007). Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry. Shrewsbury (UK): Lehmann Publications.

Szasz, T. (1988). Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry. Syracuse University Press.

Thomas, P. (1997). The Dialectics of Schizophrenia. New York: Free Association Press.

Tart, C.T. (1969). Altered States of Consciousness. HarperCollins.

Ussher, J. (1991). Women’s Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness? University of Massachusetts Press.

Watters, E. (2010). Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche. Free Press: Simon & Schuster.

Whitaker. R. (2002). Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. Cambridge, MA: Perseus.

Whitaker, R. (2010) Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. Crown Publishing Group (NY).

Conferences

Jacqui giving a presentation

Conferences:

I am an experienced and accomplished public speaker. I have spoken at numerous national and international conferences and events for both statutory and non-government organisations.

I have been a keynote speaker at a variety of events on a diverse range of subjects. My specialist areas of expertise are:

  • Personal experiences of ‘madness’ and recovery
  • Hearing voices and ‘psychosis’
  • Critiquing biomedical approaches to madness and distress
  • Trauma and abuse
  • Ritual abuse
  • Dissociation and multiplicity

Affiliations

HVN LogoNational Hearing Voices Network

Role: Chair

The Hearing Voices Network exists to: raise awareness of voice hearing, visions, tactile sensations and other sensory experiences; To give men women and children who have these experiences an opportunity to talk freely about this together; To support anyone with these experiences seeking to understand, learn and grow from them in their own way.


University of East London

Role: Honorary Lecturer in Clinical Psychology

UEL’s Clinical Psychology programme is characterised by a distinctive approach to its subject matter. As well as providing teaching on the major approaches to clinical psychology theory and practice, it examines the assumptions which inform scientific activity and the problems in applying philosophies and methods from the natural sciences to human behaviour.


Durham University

Role: Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health

The school’s hallmark is innovation at local and international levels and we seek to make a difference in the quality of care provided to people. Our research themes cut across boundaries and include clinical topics, particularly around earlier diagnosis and intervention, care pathways across organisational boundaries, health policy and economics and the medical humanities.


Birmingham City University

Role: Visiting Research Fellow

The Centre for Community Mental Health (CCMH) is a training, education and research unit. It is part of the Centre for Health and Social Care Research, a Centre of Research Excellence based at the Faculty of Health. We are part of an international network of expertise in mental health practice and service innovation, and work to improve mental health services and promote opportunities for people with severe and enduring mental health problems.


Mad in AmericaMad in America

Role: Foreign Correspondent

The site is designed to serve as a resource and a community for those interested in rethinking psychiatric care in the United States and abroad. We want to provide readers with news, stories of recovery, access to source documents, and the informed writings of bloggers that will further this enterprise. The bloggers on this site include people with lived experience, peer specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, program managers, social activists, attorneys, and journalists.


Psychosis Journal CoverPsychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches

Role: Member of the Editorial board of the Journal

This journal fills an important gap in mental health literature, namely research focused on the psychological treatments of psychosis (e.g. cognitive-behavior therapy, psychodynamic therapy, family therapy etc.) and the psycho-social causes of psychosis (e.g. poverty, drug abuse, child abuse and neglect, distressed families, urban living, discrimination, rape, war combat etc.).


Beside Mental Health Community Project

Role: Patron

Beside is a Tower Hamlets–based charity working with people who have recurrent or long term mental health difficulties. Our aim is to enable our members to rediscover their inner resources and develop strategies to support their mental health and wellbeing.


St Mungo’s

Role: Member of Expert Group of Rebuilding Shattered Lives – St Mungo’s. 

Rebuilding Shattered Lives is a campaign launched by St Mungo’s to raise awareness, showcase good practice and drive innovation on the issues faced by homeless and vulnerable women. St Mungo’s opens doors for homeless people. Mainly based in London and the South, we provide emergency shelter emergency, support towards recovery and help to prevent rough sleeping. We run over 100 projects and help thousands of homeless people make life changes every year.

 

 

Biography

Jacqui Dillon was born and bred in East London where she still lives. She is a respected campaigner, writer, international speaker and trainer specialising in hearing voices, ‘psychosis’, dissociation, trauma, abuse, healing and recovery. Jacqui has worked within mental health services for more than 15 years, in a variety of settings, including community, acute, low, medium and high secure settings, prisons, colleges and universities.

Jacqui is the national Chair of the Hearing Voices Network in England and a key figure in the Hearing Voices Movement internationally. She is Honorary Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health at Durham University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Community Mental Health, Birmingham City University.

Along with Professor Marius Romme and Dr Sandra Escher she is the co-editor of Living with Voices, an anthology of 50 voice hearers’ stories of recovery. She is also co-editor of Demedicalising Misery: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Human Condition and Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis (2nd Edition). Jacqui has published numerous articles and papers and is on the editorial board of the journal Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches.

Jacqui’s experiences of surviving childhood abuse and subsequent experiences of using psychiatric services inform her work and she is an outspoken advocate and campaigner for trauma informed approaches to madness and distress. She was nominated for Mind Champion of the Year Award 2009 for her outstanding contribution to increasing understanding of mental health.

Jacqui is proud to be a part of a collective voice demanding a radical shift in the way we make sense of and respond to experiences currently defined as psychiatric illnesses. Alongside her work which she is passionate about, Jacqui enjoys swimming, dancing, laughing and spending time with the people she loves, especially her children.

 

Bad Science

The CASL campaign is driven by two central factors:

  • The concept of schizophrenia is unscientific and has outlived any usefulness it may once have claimed.
  • The label schizophrenia is extremely damaging to those to whom it is applied.

 The idea that schizophrenia can be viewed as a specific, genetically determined, biologically driven brain disease has been based on bad science and social control since its inception. English scientists have proven that the concept of schizophrenia is invalid. Indeed, few scientists represent themselves as happy with the illness model, and increasingly it is only seen to serve the interests of the pharmaceutical industry’s voracious appetite for control of human experience. It is also harmful because the diagnostic process makes it impossible to make sense of the problems that lie at the root of people’s distress. The scandal is that in the 21st century intelligent human beings are deemed to be ‘lacking insight’ for questioning a label proven to lack scientific validity.

Pages

Experts call for ban on schizophrenia ‘label’

Published in: Daily Mail, 9 October, 2006

Schizophrenia should be abolished as a concept because it is unscientific, stigmatising, and does not address the root causes of serious mental illness, a group of experts said today.

The diagnosis, which emerged in the 19th century, is flawed and harmful, they claimed. It not only grouped together patients with widely ranging symptoms, but offered no explanation for their illnesses.

Once given a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a person was labelled an incurable social misfit and placed at the mercy of a psychiatric system that mostly benefited the drug industry.

A new campaign called CASL (Campaign for the Abolition of the Schizophrenic Label) is said to be gaining increasing support from both patients groups and professionals.

It wants patients to be assessed according to their individual experiences and histories rather than blanket-categorised as “schizophrenic”.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-409472/Experts-ban-schizophrenia-label.html#ixzz1H2oOhJEG

Your Feedback

If you have heard me speak at a training event or conference, I’d love to get your feedback too. Just add your comments to the bottom of this post.

With thanks, Jacqui

Ritual Abuse

Ritual Abuse

On The Web

End Ritual Abusewww.endritualabuse.org
This site provides articles, resources, and links to information and support.

Extreme Abuse Surveywww.extreme-abuse-survey.net
Results, findings, questionnaires and presentations. More than 750 pages of documentation.

Mind Justicewww.mindjustice.org
An extensive and well-organized site on with articles, source material, and position papers on mind control, torture, and non-lethal weapons

Ritual Abuse, Ritual Crime and Healingwww.ra-info.org
Information for Survivor’s, Therapists and Others.

Ritual Abuse Network Scotlandwww.rans.org.uk
An informative and useful resource for anyone connected with ritual abuse anywhere in the world, be they survivors, counsellors, or just a concerned friend.

Ritual Abuse and Satanic Ritual Abuse Evidence and Journal Articles – http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Satanic_Ritual_Abuse_Evidence_and_Journal_Articles

S.M.A.R.T. (Stop Mind Control and Ritual Abuse Today): www.ritualabuse.us
Many articles, transcripts of speeches, information on up-coming conferences, plus all back issues of the newsletter.

Survivorshipwww.survivorship.org
For survivors of ritual abuse, mind control and torture and their allies.

In Print

Morris, M. (1982). If I Should Die Before I Wake. Black Swan Books.

Noblitt, R. and Perskin Noblitt, P. (2008). Ritual Abuse in the Twenty First Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations. Robert. D. Reed Publishers.

Ross, C. (1995). Satanic Ritual Abuse: Principals of Treatment. University of Toronto Press.

Ryder, D. (1992). Breaking the Circle of Satanic Ritual Abuse: Recognizing and Recovering from the Hidden Trauma. Compcare Publishers.

Scott, S. (2001). The Politics and Experience of Ritual Abuse: Beyond Belief. Open University Press.

Sinason, V. (1994). Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse. Routledge.

Smith, M. (1993). Ritual Abuse. What It Is, Why It Happens, How to Help. Harper: San Francisco.

Critical & Alternative Perspectives

Critical & Alternative Perspectives

On The Web

The Campaign to Abolish the Schizophrenia Labelwww.caslcampaign.co
CASL is calling for the label of schizophrenia to be abolished on the grounds that it is outdated, unscientific, stigmatising and presents a barrier to effective and appropriate support to individuals diagnosed with the label.

Coming off Psychiatric Medicationwww.comingoff.com
Information about coming off psychiatric medication.

The Critical Psychiatry Networkwww.critpsynet.freeuk.com
The Critical Psychiatry Network provides a network to develop a critique of the contemporary psychiatric system.

The Freedom Centrewww.freedom-center.org
An American-based support and activism community for anyone experiencing mental health difficulties. Includes event lists, links and advice around medication.

The Fireweed Collective – http://theicarusproject.net
Support network started in the U.S. for people ‘navigating the space between brilliance and madness’

The International Critical Psychiatry Networkwww.criticalpsychiatry.net
Created by medical doctors as a forum (primarily for medical doctors) to discuss, critique, and publicise opinions, practices, literature, and events that support critical thinking and alternative approaches to psychiatry.

International Network Toward Alternatives and Recoveryhttp://intar.org/
Gathers prominent survivors, professionals, family members, and advocates from around the world to work together for new clinical and social practices towards emotional distress and what is often labeled as psychosis.

Peter Lehmann Publishingwww.peter-lehmann-publishing.com
Publishes excellent books available in English on alternative approaches to mental health problems.

Mad Pride www.ctono.freeserve.co.uk
The all new website of this energetic mental health surivivors organisation. Includes details of future gigs & events, the origins of Mad Pride and their ‘Stop The Suicides’ campaign

MindFreedom Internationalwww.mindfreedom.org

MindFreedom International unites 100 grassroots groups and thousands of members to win campaigns for human rights of people diagnosed with psychiatric disabilities.

National Service User Networkwww.nsun.org.uk
Aims to create a network which will engage and support the wide diversity of mental health service users and survivors across England in order to strengthen the user voice.

PCCS Bookswww.pccs-books.co.uk
Publisher of counselling and psychotherapy books and journals. Committed to reflexive, radical and critical contemporary psychology theory and practice

Soteria Networkwww.soterianetwork.org.uk
Soteria is a network of people in the UK promoting the development of drug-free and minimum medication therapeutic environments for people experiencing ‘psychosis’ or extreme states.

The Spiritual Crisis Networkwww.spiritualcrisisnetwork.org.uk
A UK based network set up to improve access to approaches that view psychosis as a spiritual crisis or spiritual emergence ideas.

World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatryhttp://wnusp.rafus.dk/
WNUSP is an international organization of users and survivors of psychiatry.

In Print

Asylum Magazinewww.asylumonline.net/subscribe.htm
Asylum magazine is a forum for free debate, open to anyone with an interest in psychiatry or mental health. We especially welcome contributions from service users or ex-users (or survivors), carers, and frontline psychiatric or mental health workers (anonymously, if you wish). The magazine is not-for-profit and run by a collective of unpaid volunteers.

Appignanesi, L. (2008) Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present. Virago Press.

Barker, P. Campbell, P. Davidson, B. (1999). From the Ashes of Experience. Whurr Publishers.

Bentall, R. (ed.) (1990). Reconstructing Schizophrenia. Hove: Routledge.

Bentall, R. (2003). Madness Explained: Psychosis and Human Nature. London: Penguin.

Bentall, R. (2009). Doctoring The Mind: Why Psychiatric Treatments Fail. London: Penguin.

Boyle, M. (1990). Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion? London, Routledge.

Bracken, P. and Thomas, P. (2005). Postpsychiatry: Mental Health in a Postmodern World. Oxford: Open University Press.

Breggin, P. (1991) Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock and Biochemical Theories of the New Psychiatry. Flamingo; (Reissue) edition (2010)

Breggin, P. (2008). Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry. New York: Springer.

Chesler, P. (1972). Women and Madness. New York: Avon.

Cohen, C. and Timimi, S. (2008). Liberatory Psychiatry: Philosophy, Politics and Mental Health. Cambridge University Press.

Coleman, R. (2004). Recovery: An Alien Concept (2nd Edition). Fife: P&P Press Ltd.

Frame, J. (2008). An Angel At My Table. Sydney: Vintage.

Foucault, M. (1965). Madness and Civilization. New York: Vintage.

Greenberg, J. (1964). I Never Promised You A Rose Garden. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Grof, S. (1985). Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy. State University of New York Press.

Grof, S. (1988). The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration. State University of New York Press.

Hammersley, P., Langshaw, B., Bullimore, P., Dillon, J., Romme, M. and Escher, S. (2008). Schizophrenia at the tipping point. Mental Health Practice, 12(1), 14 – 19.

Hornstein, G.A. To Redeem One Person Is To Redeem The World: The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichman. Free Press.

Hornstein, G.A. (2009). Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness. Rodale Press.

Johnson, B. (2005). Emotional Health. Trust Consent Publishing.

Johnson, B. (2005). Unsafe at Any Dose. Trust Consent Publishing.

Johnstone, L. (2000). Users and Abusers of Psychiatry. Hove: Routledge.

Joseph, J. (2003). The Gene Illusion. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

Joseph, J. (2006). The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, And the Fruitless Search for Genes. New York: Algora.

Laing, R. (1959). The Divided Self. London: Tavistock.

Laing, R. and Esterson, A. (1964). Sanity, Madness and the Family. London: Penguin.

Laing, R. (1967). The Politics of Experience. London: Penguin.

Millett, K. (1990). The Loony-bin Trip. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Moncrieff, J. (2009). The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment. Palgrave Macmillan.

Mosher, L. et al. (2004) Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance. Philadelphia: Xlibris.

Newnes, C. et al. (eds) (1999). This is Madness. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

Newnes, C. et al. (eds) (2001). This is Madness Too. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

Nightsky, O. (1999). The Bridge Between Two Worlds. A Shaman’s View of Schizophrenia and Acute Sensitivity. Keepwell (NZ) Ltd.

Rapley, M. Moncrieff, J. Dillon, J. (2011). Demedicalising Misery: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Human Condition. Palgrave Macmillan.

Read, J. and Reynolds, J. (1996). Speaking Our Minds: An Anthology. Palgrave Macmillan.

Read, J. (2009). Psychiatric drugs: Key Issues and Service User Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan.

Read, J. Bentall, R. and Mosher, L. (2004). Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia. Routledge; New edition.

Smith, K. and Sweeney, M. (1997). Beyond Bedlam. Anvil Press Poetry.

Stastny, P. and Lehmann, P. (Eds). (2007). Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry. Shrewsbury (UK): Lehmann Publications.

Szasz, T. (1988). Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry. Syracuse University Press.

Thomas, P. (1997). The Dialectics of Schizophrenia. New York: Free Association Press.

Tart, C.T. (1969). Altered States of Consciousness. HarperCollins.

Ussher, J. (1991). Women’s Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness? University of Massachusetts Press.

Watters, E. (2010). Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche. Free Press: Simon & Schuster.

Whitaker. R. (2002). Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. Cambridge, MA: Perseus.

Whitaker, R. (2010) Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. Crown Publishing Group (NY).

Conferences

Jacqui giving a presentation

Conferences:

I am an experienced and accomplished public speaker. I have spoken at numerous national and international conferences and events for both statutory and non-government organisations.

I have been a keynote speaker at a variety of events on a diverse range of subjects. My specialist areas of expertise are:

  • Personal experiences of ‘madness’ and recovery
  • Hearing voices and ‘psychosis’
  • Critiquing biomedical approaches to madness and distress
  • Trauma and abuse
  • Ritual abuse
  • Dissociation and multiplicity

Affiliations

HVN LogoNational Hearing Voices Network

Role: Chair

The Hearing Voices Network exists to: raise awareness of voice hearing, visions, tactile sensations and other sensory experiences; To give men women and children who have these experiences an opportunity to talk freely about this together; To support anyone with these experiences seeking to understand, learn and grow from them in their own way.


University of East London

Role: Honorary Lecturer in Clinical Psychology

UEL’s Clinical Psychology programme is characterised by a distinctive approach to its subject matter. As well as providing teaching on the major approaches to clinical psychology theory and practice, it examines the assumptions which inform scientific activity and the problems in applying philosophies and methods from the natural sciences to human behaviour.


Durham University

Role: Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health

The school’s hallmark is innovation at local and international levels and we seek to make a difference in the quality of care provided to people. Our research themes cut across boundaries and include clinical topics, particularly around earlier diagnosis and intervention, care pathways across organisational boundaries, health policy and economics and the medical humanities.


Birmingham City University

Role: Visiting Research Fellow

The Centre for Community Mental Health (CCMH) is a training, education and research unit. It is part of the Centre for Health and Social Care Research, a Centre of Research Excellence based at the Faculty of Health. We are part of an international network of expertise in mental health practice and service innovation, and work to improve mental health services and promote opportunities for people with severe and enduring mental health problems.


Mad in AmericaMad in America

Role: Foreign Correspondent

The site is designed to serve as a resource and a community for those interested in rethinking psychiatric care in the United States and abroad. We want to provide readers with news, stories of recovery, access to source documents, and the informed writings of bloggers that will further this enterprise. The bloggers on this site include people with lived experience, peer specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, program managers, social activists, attorneys, and journalists.


Psychosis Journal CoverPsychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches

Role: Member of the Editorial board of the Journal

This journal fills an important gap in mental health literature, namely research focused on the psychological treatments of psychosis (e.g. cognitive-behavior therapy, psychodynamic therapy, family therapy etc.) and the psycho-social causes of psychosis (e.g. poverty, drug abuse, child abuse and neglect, distressed families, urban living, discrimination, rape, war combat etc.).


Beside Mental Health Community Project

Role: Patron

Beside is a Tower Hamlets–based charity working with people who have recurrent or long term mental health difficulties. Our aim is to enable our members to rediscover their inner resources and develop strategies to support their mental health and wellbeing.


St Mungo’s

Role: Member of Expert Group of Rebuilding Shattered Lives – St Mungo’s. 

Rebuilding Shattered Lives is a campaign launched by St Mungo’s to raise awareness, showcase good practice and drive innovation on the issues faced by homeless and vulnerable women. St Mungo’s opens doors for homeless people. Mainly based in London and the South, we provide emergency shelter emergency, support towards recovery and help to prevent rough sleeping. We run over 100 projects and help thousands of homeless people make life changes every year.

 

 

Biography

Jacqui Dillon was born and bred in East London where she still lives. She is a respected campaigner, writer, international speaker and trainer specialising in hearing voices, ‘psychosis’, dissociation, trauma, abuse, healing and recovery. Jacqui has worked within mental health services for more than 15 years, in a variety of settings, including community, acute, low, medium and high secure settings, prisons, colleges and universities.

Jacqui is the national Chair of the Hearing Voices Network in England and a key figure in the Hearing Voices Movement internationally. She is Honorary Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health at Durham University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Community Mental Health, Birmingham City University.

Along with Professor Marius Romme and Dr Sandra Escher she is the co-editor of Living with Voices, an anthology of 50 voice hearers’ stories of recovery. She is also co-editor of Demedicalising Misery: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Human Condition and Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis (2nd Edition). Jacqui has published numerous articles and papers and is on the editorial board of the journal Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches.

Jacqui’s experiences of surviving childhood abuse and subsequent experiences of using psychiatric services inform her work and she is an outspoken advocate and campaigner for trauma informed approaches to madness and distress. She was nominated for Mind Champion of the Year Award 2009 for her outstanding contribution to increasing understanding of mental health.

Jacqui is proud to be a part of a collective voice demanding a radical shift in the way we make sense of and respond to experiences currently defined as psychiatric illnesses. Alongside her work which she is passionate about, Jacqui enjoys swimming, dancing, laughing and spending time with the people she loves, especially her children.

 

Bad Science

The CASL campaign is driven by two central factors:

  • The concept of schizophrenia is unscientific and has outlived any usefulness it may once have claimed.
  • The label schizophrenia is extremely damaging to those to whom it is applied.

 The idea that schizophrenia can be viewed as a specific, genetically determined, biologically driven brain disease has been based on bad science and social control since its inception. English scientists have proven that the concept of schizophrenia is invalid. Indeed, few scientists represent themselves as happy with the illness model, and increasingly it is only seen to serve the interests of the pharmaceutical industry’s voracious appetite for control of human experience. It is also harmful because the diagnostic process makes it impossible to make sense of the problems that lie at the root of people’s distress. The scandal is that in the 21st century intelligent human beings are deemed to be ‘lacking insight’ for questioning a label proven to lack scientific validity.