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A highly skilled, empathic teacher

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I have employed Jacqui Dillon on a number of occasions, both as a trainer of mental health-care workers, and as a workshop facilitator with professional and service-user participation.

Jacqui is a highly skilled, empathic teacher who through her work and experience is an inspiration and motivator to all, promoting innovation and much-needed change in the way we approach psychiatry today.

Trevor Eyles
Developmental Consultant, Social Psychiatric Services
Aarhus Kommune, Denmark

Challenging and inspiring

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We have used Jacqui on our undergraduate and master’s Social Work courses for the last few years as well as on our AMHP training courses. Jacqui presents an articulate and powerful view of mental illness which is both challenging and inspiring to our students and staff. Feedback from students is overwhelmingly positive, many stating it is the highlight of their course, and that Jacqui’s message is one that will stay with them for life. I personally feel that anyone with any contact with mental health issues should attend Jacqui’s training, and that if more people accepted her views, the lives of people diagnosed with mental illness could be vastly improved.

Robert Goemans, Professional Social Work Lead, Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust & Lecturer, University of Lincoln.

Resources

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Please use the above links to browse some resources I hope you’ll find useful. These include organisations, websites, journals and books.

DVD Resource of the Month

Healing Homes:  An Alternative, Swedish Model for Healing Psychosis by Daniel Mackler

http://www.iraresoul.com/dvd2.html

 Healing Homes, a feature-length documentary film directed by Daniel Mackler, chronicles the work of the Family Care Foundation in Gothenburg, Sweden — a program which, in this era of multi-drug cocktails and psychiatric diagnoses-for-life, helps people recover from psychosis without medication.

The organization, backed by over twenty years of experience, places people who have been failed by traditional psychiatry in host families — predominately farm families in the Swedish countryside — as a start for a whole new life journey.

Host families are chosen not for any psychiatric expertise, rather, for their compassion, stability, and desire to give back.  People live with these families for upwards of a year or two and become an integral part of a functioning family system.  Staff members offer clients intensive psychotherapy and provide host families with intensive supervision.

The Family Care Foundation eschews the use of diagnosis, works within a framework of striving to help people come safely off psychiatric medication, and provides their services, which operate within the context of Swedish socialized medicine, for free.

Healing Homes weaves together interviews with clients, farm families, and staff members to create both a powerful vision of medication-free recovery and an eye-opening critique of the medical model of psychiatry.

Print Resource of the Month

The Body Remembers:The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment

Rothschild, B (2000). W. W. Norton & Co.

Traumatised people hold a memory of that trauma in their brains and bodies. This is the first book to link this phenomenon of somatic memory and the impact of trauma on the body. Reducing the chasm between scentific theory and clinical practice, Rothschild presents techniques for addressing the memory in the body.

Conferences

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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

Work

/by

The following is an overview of the services I offer. All of my work is covered by Professional Indemnity Insurance. Please see the above sections for more details.

Training:Jacqui at a conference

The training I offer is based on extensive personal and professional experience, knowledge and skills. All training is experiential enabling participants to develop a deeper understanding and greater insight by exploring experiences from both a subjective and objective perspective. All training is bespoke so it can be tailored to meet the needs of your organisation

Consultancy:

I can offer my unique perspective of working with and making sense of profound distress and extreme states of mind and the impact it has on individuals, teams and organizations. I also have extensive experience in working collaboratively, creatively and in partnership with disempowered and disenfranchised individuals and groups to bring about sustained and lasting improved positive outcomes. I have provided coaching and mentoring, supervision and consultancy to individuals, teams and organisations.

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.

The Personal is Political

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Telling Stories Book CoverTelling Stories? explores the contemporary state of affairs in the understanding and treatment of psychosis. An inclusive approach to mental distress requires that in order to truly understand psychosis we must begin by listening to those who know this from the inside out; the voices and narrative of those who have been condemned as “unanalysable” and mad.

Far from being fantastical, the complex stories that are being articulated communicate painful truths and the myriad ways in which the human psyche survives overwhelming trauma. This book is the culmination of an integrated and creative alliance between those on the cutting edge, experientially, in research, diagnosis, and treatment; this multidisciplinary dialogue proposes a new relational and attachment orientated paradigm for the 21st century. In contrast to the containment model that is currently favoured, this advocates listening and talking therapies, and the healing power of a loving relationship, offering those with psychosis the possibility of more nourishing engagement with the world.

Survival Techniques

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Being proud of my experiences and being able to share them with others, challenges the stigma of having what are considered to be mental health problems, and means becoming a part of a collective voice to improve mental health services for all. This is both empowering and liberating, in itself.

Reclaiming Experience

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Many of us who have received psychiatric treatment have found that it’s ‘blame the individual and blame the brain’ emphasis, has limited the way we can think about ourselves and our potentials. We are expected to be the silent recipients of treatment for disorders, and often, medication is the only option.  No-one asks, what do you think would help? – Our own expertise and wisdom about our lives is denied or ignored. Like naughty children we are told what to do, and then given contradictory opinions – that the only way to get better is to take medication, but that actually, we wilI never really get better anyway.

The bad brain emphasis in contemporary mental health ideology is that distress and confusion are best explained as unhealthy conditions, products of brain and cognitive faults. For example, personality disorder diagnosis implies that the chaos we can experience is due to a character fault and schizophrenia is presented as a terrible disease that we are passive victims of. We have progressed from blaming the behaviour of the child who is bullied and withdraws to blaming his brain and mind. Our attempts to find meaningful ways to live in an often distressing and confusing world, are not understood as creative, human responses to be valued and shared. Instead, the individual is pathologised, labelled and medicated.

Pages

A highly skilled, empathic teacher

/0 Comments/in /by

I have employed Jacqui Dillon on a number of occasions, both as a trainer of mental health-care workers, and as a workshop facilitator with professional and service-user participation.

Jacqui is a highly skilled, empathic teacher who through her work and experience is an inspiration and motivator to all, promoting innovation and much-needed change in the way we approach psychiatry today.

Trevor Eyles
Developmental Consultant, Social Psychiatric Services
Aarhus Kommune, Denmark

Challenging and inspiring

/0 Comments/in /by

We have used Jacqui on our undergraduate and master’s Social Work courses for the last few years as well as on our AMHP training courses. Jacqui presents an articulate and powerful view of mental illness which is both challenging and inspiring to our students and staff. Feedback from students is overwhelmingly positive, many stating it is the highlight of their course, and that Jacqui’s message is one that will stay with them for life. I personally feel that anyone with any contact with mental health issues should attend Jacqui’s training, and that if more people accepted her views, the lives of people diagnosed with mental illness could be vastly improved.

Robert Goemans, Professional Social Work Lead, Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust & Lecturer, University of Lincoln.

Resources

/by

Please use the above links to browse some resources I hope you’ll find useful. These include organisations, websites, journals and books.

DVD Resource of the Month

Healing Homes:  An Alternative, Swedish Model for Healing Psychosis by Daniel Mackler

http://www.iraresoul.com/dvd2.html

 Healing Homes, a feature-length documentary film directed by Daniel Mackler, chronicles the work of the Family Care Foundation in Gothenburg, Sweden — a program which, in this era of multi-drug cocktails and psychiatric diagnoses-for-life, helps people recover from psychosis without medication.

The organization, backed by over twenty years of experience, places people who have been failed by traditional psychiatry in host families — predominately farm families in the Swedish countryside — as a start for a whole new life journey.

Host families are chosen not for any psychiatric expertise, rather, for their compassion, stability, and desire to give back.  People live with these families for upwards of a year or two and become an integral part of a functioning family system.  Staff members offer clients intensive psychotherapy and provide host families with intensive supervision.

The Family Care Foundation eschews the use of diagnosis, works within a framework of striving to help people come safely off psychiatric medication, and provides their services, which operate within the context of Swedish socialized medicine, for free.

Healing Homes weaves together interviews with clients, farm families, and staff members to create both a powerful vision of medication-free recovery and an eye-opening critique of the medical model of psychiatry.

Print Resource of the Month

The Body Remembers:The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment

Rothschild, B (2000). W. W. Norton & Co.

Traumatised people hold a memory of that trauma in their brains and bodies. This is the first book to link this phenomenon of somatic memory and the impact of trauma on the body. Reducing the chasm between scentific theory and clinical practice, Rothschild presents techniques for addressing the memory in the body.

Conferences

/by

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

Work

/by

The following is an overview of the services I offer. All of my work is covered by Professional Indemnity Insurance. Please see the above sections for more details.

Training:Jacqui at a conference

The training I offer is based on extensive personal and professional experience, knowledge and skills. All training is experiential enabling participants to develop a deeper understanding and greater insight by exploring experiences from both a subjective and objective perspective. All training is bespoke so it can be tailored to meet the needs of your organisation

Consultancy:

I can offer my unique perspective of working with and making sense of profound distress and extreme states of mind and the impact it has on individuals, teams and organizations. I also have extensive experience in working collaboratively, creatively and in partnership with disempowered and disenfranchised individuals and groups to bring about sustained and lasting improved positive outcomes. I have provided coaching and mentoring, supervision and consultancy to individuals, teams and organisations.

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.

The Personal is Political

/0 Comments/in , /by

Telling Stories Book CoverTelling Stories? explores the contemporary state of affairs in the understanding and treatment of psychosis. An inclusive approach to mental distress requires that in order to truly understand psychosis we must begin by listening to those who know this from the inside out; the voices and narrative of those who have been condemned as “unanalysable” and mad.

Far from being fantastical, the complex stories that are being articulated communicate painful truths and the myriad ways in which the human psyche survives overwhelming trauma. This book is the culmination of an integrated and creative alliance between those on the cutting edge, experientially, in research, diagnosis, and treatment; this multidisciplinary dialogue proposes a new relational and attachment orientated paradigm for the 21st century. In contrast to the containment model that is currently favoured, this advocates listening and talking therapies, and the healing power of a loving relationship, offering those with psychosis the possibility of more nourishing engagement with the world.

Survival Techniques

/1 Comment/in , /by

Being proud of my experiences and being able to share them with others, challenges the stigma of having what are considered to be mental health problems, and means becoming a part of a collective voice to improve mental health services for all. This is both empowering and liberating, in itself.

Reclaiming Experience

/0 Comments/in , /by

Many of us who have received psychiatric treatment have found that it’s ‘blame the individual and blame the brain’ emphasis, has limited the way we can think about ourselves and our potentials. We are expected to be the silent recipients of treatment for disorders, and often, medication is the only option.  No-one asks, what do you think would help? – Our own expertise and wisdom about our lives is denied or ignored. Like naughty children we are told what to do, and then given contradictory opinions – that the only way to get better is to take medication, but that actually, we wilI never really get better anyway.

The bad brain emphasis in contemporary mental health ideology is that distress and confusion are best explained as unhealthy conditions, products of brain and cognitive faults. For example, personality disorder diagnosis implies that the chaos we can experience is due to a character fault and schizophrenia is presented as a terrible disease that we are passive victims of. We have progressed from blaming the behaviour of the child who is bullied and withdraws to blaming his brain and mind. Our attempts to find meaningful ways to live in an often distressing and confusing world, are not understood as creative, human responses to be valued and shared. Instead, the individual is pathologised, labelled and medicated.