Posts

New Foreign Correspondent for Mad in America

I am thrilled to have been invited to become a foreign correspondent for the Mad in America web site – see: http://www.madinamerica.com/

I will be writing about the important and innovative work of the Hearing Voices Movement alongside many eminent colleagues, critical thinkers and activists working together to bring about an essential revolution in the world of mental health.

You can read my first post here: http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/01/the-hearing-voices-movement-beyond-critiquing-the-status-quo/

About Mad in America:

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. While their opinions naturally vary, they share a belief that our current system of psychiatric care needs to be vastly improved, and, many would argue, transformed.

We also want to provide readers with the opportunity to add their voices to this discussion. We encourage readers to leave comments (see comment policy below), and to submit recovery stories and op-ed submissions. We encourage our readers to visit our forums to further this communal discussion.

Finally, we are commissioning original journalism, both in video and print, that explore on-going efforts to remake care in the U.S. and abroad, and also investigate the problems and deficiencies with the current drug-based paradigm of care.

We welcome feedback and comments on how we can improve this website, and continue to build an online community that can be a societal force for change.

Our Legal Organization

When we started this initiative, we investigated whether it would be better to operate as a non-profit organization, or as a C corporation. We chose the latter, as it provided us with a quicker and easier way to obtain initial funding from “investors” for creating the website and supporting its development. The president of the C Corp is Robert Whitaker. The other board members are Louisa Putnam, Kermit Cole, Laura Delano, and Matthew Cohen.

For on-going revenue to sustain this initiative, we are entirely dependent on support from our readers. We do not host advertisements and do not sell data about our readers to anyone.

Policy for Posting Comments

Please see our guidelines for posting comments on this site.

Support

Mad In America is supported entirely by user donations. Please click here to join in support of our mission.

Book Me

Please contact me if you would like to book me for conferences, training or consultancy work – or to explore how these might benefit your organisation.

Organisations I have worked with in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, UK and USA include:

  • Aarhus Kommune (Denmark)
  • Advocates, Inc. Framingham (USA)
  • Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust
  • Asylum Associates
  • Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust
  • Beside Mental Health Community Project
  • Building Bridges Trust (New Zealand)
  • Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust
  • Camden and Islington Providers Forum
  • Care Services Improvement Services
  • Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Trust
  • Chester Mind
  • City & Hackney Mind
  • Community Service Volunteers
  • Core Arts
  • Critical Voices Network (Ireland)
  • Dansk Selskab for Psykosocial Rehabilitering (Denmark)
  • Down & Lisburn Mental Health Trust (Ireland)
  • Division of Clinical Psychology
  • Durham University
  • Enfield Council
  • Equinox Care
  • Family Care Foundation (Sweden)
  • Family Tree
  • Family Welfare Association
  • Foundation Excellence in Mental Health (USA)
  • Freedom Centre, Northampton, Massachusetts, (USA)
  • Freud’s Friends
  • Gateway Community Health, Wodonga (Australia)
  • Goldsmiths University
  • Hampshire Social Services
  • Hearing Voices Network
  • Hellenic Hearing Voices Network (Greece)
  • Hertfordshire County Council
  • HM Prison Birmingham
  • Institute of Psychiatry
  • Intervoice
  • IGPB (Netherlands)
  • ISPS (New Zealand)
  • ISPS (UK)
  • Islington Mind
  • Lambeth Mind
  • Lancaster University
  • Leeds Mind
  • Lincoln University
  • London Borough of Sutton
  • London Cyrenians Housing Ltd.
  • London Development Centre
  • London Metropolitan University
  • London South Bank University
  • Loughborough University
  • Mad in America (USA)
  • The Market Place Leeds
  • Mental Health Media
  • Middlesbrough Mind
  • Mind in Camden
  • Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, (USA)
  • National Mind
  • Network for Change
  • Newham NHS Trust
  • Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
  • Northampton Social Services
  • Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
  • Notting Hill Housing Association
  • National Survivor User Network
  • One Housing Group
  • Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
  • Prahran Mission (Australia)
  • Psykovision (Denmark)
  • Rampton Hospital, Nottingham Healthcare NHS Trust
  • Rethink
  • Richmond Fellowship (Australia)
  • Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council
  • Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
  • Royal College Of Psychiatry
  • Schizophrenia Ireland
  • SHIP Leeds
  • Shropshire Council
  • Social Care Institute for Excellence
  • South Staffordshire and Shropshire NHS Foundation Trust
  • Spring Lake Ranch (USA)
  • St James House
  • St Mungo’s
  • Sutton Mental Health Foundation
  • Thames Reach
  • Tiger Aspect Films
  • Tigerlily Films
  • Together
  • Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
  • University College Cork (Ireland)
  • University College London
  • University of Auckland (New Zealand)
  • University of East London
  • University of Essex
  • University of Greenwich
  • University of Manchester
  • University of Savonna (Italy)
  • University Of Surrey
  • Voice Collective
  • Voices of the Heart (USA)
  • Voices Vic (Australia)
  • Western Mass Recovery Learning Community (USA)
  • Westminster Mind
  • Wolverhampton Social Services
  • Working to Recovery

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.

 

Pages

New Foreign Correspondent for Mad in America

I am thrilled to have been invited to become a foreign correspondent for the Mad in America web site – see: http://www.madinamerica.com/

I will be writing about the important and innovative work of the Hearing Voices Movement alongside many eminent colleagues, critical thinkers and activists working together to bring about an essential revolution in the world of mental health.

You can read my first post here: http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/01/the-hearing-voices-movement-beyond-critiquing-the-status-quo/

About Mad in America:

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. While their opinions naturally vary, they share a belief that our current system of psychiatric care needs to be vastly improved, and, many would argue, transformed.

We also want to provide readers with the opportunity to add their voices to this discussion. We encourage readers to leave comments (see comment policy below), and to submit recovery stories and op-ed submissions. We encourage our readers to visit our forums to further this communal discussion.

Finally, we are commissioning original journalism, both in video and print, that explore on-going efforts to remake care in the U.S. and abroad, and also investigate the problems and deficiencies with the current drug-based paradigm of care.

We welcome feedback and comments on how we can improve this website, and continue to build an online community that can be a societal force for change.

Our Legal Organization

When we started this initiative, we investigated whether it would be better to operate as a non-profit organization, or as a C corporation. We chose the latter, as it provided us with a quicker and easier way to obtain initial funding from “investors” for creating the website and supporting its development. The president of the C Corp is Robert Whitaker. The other board members are Louisa Putnam, Kermit Cole, Laura Delano, and Matthew Cohen.

For on-going revenue to sustain this initiative, we are entirely dependent on support from our readers. We do not host advertisements and do not sell data about our readers to anyone.

Policy for Posting Comments

Please see our guidelines for posting comments on this site.

Support

Mad In America is supported entirely by user donations. Please click here to join in support of our mission.

Book Me

Please contact me if you would like to book me for conferences, training or consultancy work – or to explore how these might benefit your organisation.

Organisations I have worked with in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, UK and USA include:

  • Aarhus Kommune (Denmark)
  • Advocates, Inc. Framingham (USA)
  • Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust
  • Asylum Associates
  • Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust
  • Beside Mental Health Community Project
  • Building Bridges Trust (New Zealand)
  • Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust
  • Camden and Islington Providers Forum
  • Care Services Improvement Services
  • Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Trust
  • Chester Mind
  • City & Hackney Mind
  • Community Service Volunteers
  • Core Arts
  • Critical Voices Network (Ireland)
  • Dansk Selskab for Psykosocial Rehabilitering (Denmark)
  • Down & Lisburn Mental Health Trust (Ireland)
  • Division of Clinical Psychology
  • Durham University
  • Enfield Council
  • Equinox Care
  • Family Care Foundation (Sweden)
  • Family Tree
  • Family Welfare Association
  • Foundation Excellence in Mental Health (USA)
  • Freedom Centre, Northampton, Massachusetts, (USA)
  • Freud’s Friends
  • Gateway Community Health, Wodonga (Australia)
  • Goldsmiths University
  • Hampshire Social Services
  • Hearing Voices Network
  • Hellenic Hearing Voices Network (Greece)
  • Hertfordshire County Council
  • HM Prison Birmingham
  • Institute of Psychiatry
  • Intervoice
  • IGPB (Netherlands)
  • ISPS (New Zealand)
  • ISPS (UK)
  • Islington Mind
  • Lambeth Mind
  • Lancaster University
  • Leeds Mind
  • Lincoln University
  • London Borough of Sutton
  • London Cyrenians Housing Ltd.
  • London Development Centre
  • London Metropolitan University
  • London South Bank University
  • Loughborough University
  • Mad in America (USA)
  • The Market Place Leeds
  • Mental Health Media
  • Middlesbrough Mind
  • Mind in Camden
  • Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, (USA)
  • National Mind
  • Network for Change
  • Newham NHS Trust
  • Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
  • Northampton Social Services
  • Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
  • Notting Hill Housing Association
  • National Survivor User Network
  • One Housing Group
  • Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
  • Prahran Mission (Australia)
  • Psykovision (Denmark)
  • Rampton Hospital, Nottingham Healthcare NHS Trust
  • Rethink
  • Richmond Fellowship (Australia)
  • Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council
  • Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
  • Royal College Of Psychiatry
  • Schizophrenia Ireland
  • SHIP Leeds
  • Shropshire Council
  • Social Care Institute for Excellence
  • South Staffordshire and Shropshire NHS Foundation Trust
  • Spring Lake Ranch (USA)
  • St James House
  • St Mungo’s
  • Sutton Mental Health Foundation
  • Thames Reach
  • Tiger Aspect Films
  • Tigerlily Films
  • Together
  • Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
  • University College Cork (Ireland)
  • University College London
  • University of Auckland (New Zealand)
  • University of East London
  • University of Essex
  • University of Greenwich
  • University of Manchester
  • University of Savonna (Italy)
  • University Of Surrey
  • Voice Collective
  • Voices of the Heart (USA)
  • Voices Vic (Australia)
  • Western Mass Recovery Learning Community (USA)
  • Westminster Mind
  • Wolverhampton Social Services
  • Working to Recovery

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.