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Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund receives $250,000 in funding

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Coming to a town near you: real help for voice hearers

The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care is pleased to announce that its Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund has received $250,000 in funding for a 3-year project to bring Hearing Voices peer support groups to communities across the United States and to research the mechanisms by which these peer-support groups work.

The project will train more than 100 facilitators in 5 regions of the country and create a stronger regional and local infrastructure of Hearing Voices peer support groups across the US. People who hear voices, see visions, or experience other unusual perceptions, thoughts, or actions have long been diagnosed as psychotic and given a poor prognosis. Medications provide only partial help and their benefits typically diminish over time while destructive physical and psychological side effects become increasingly problematic.

For the past 25 years, the Hearing Voices Network (HVN), an international collaboration of professionals, people with lived experience, and their families and friends has worked to develop an alternative approach to coping with voices, visions, and other extreme states that is empowering and useful and does not start from the assumption of chronic illness (see www.hearing-voices.org, www.hearingvoicesusa.org, www.intervoiceonline.org). A large scientific literature now provides support for key aspects of this approach, and the hundreds of peer-support groups that have developed in 30 countries on 5 continents are enabling voice hearers – even those who have been chronically disabled – to learn to cope more effectively or to rid themselves of the negative effects of their voices.

The US lags far behind other countries in offering this important new approach, and the new funding provides crucial support as more and more mental health organizations across the country seek training to start their own hearing voices peer-support groups. An open competition will be launched in April to choose the 5 project regions, with participants selected using a rigorous model in which mental health professionals and voice hearers collaborate in an intensive shared learning experience that itself illustrates HVN’s concepts and methods.

Equally crucial to the project is an ongoing research component that will allow identification of the distinctive components of hearing voices peer-support groups and better explain what enables them to provide such an effective and positive alternative for people diagnosed with psychosis. “This effort promises to be a movement that will measurably advance mental wellness and recovery for people in distress, their families and the community across the nation,” said Gina Nikkel, President and CEO of the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care. “Hearing voices can be truly terrifying for the person experiencing them and for their loved ones. Hearing Voices Network support groups transform the fear into understanding and then empowerment.”

The Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund is jointly administered by Gail A. Hornstein, Professor of Psychology, Mount Holyoke College, and Jacqui Dillon, National Chair, Hearing Voices Network, England. Their more than 10-year collaboration models the kind of engaged research and advocacy that the project seeks to foster. More background on the project administrators can be found here. Read their recent article on hearing voices groups here.

Key partners in the project include Mount Holyoke College and the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community, based in Holyoke, MA, which has pioneered the training of HVN facilitators in the US as part of its broader mission to “create conditions that can support healing and growth for individuals and the community as a whole.”

Out Now: New Edition of Bestselling Book – Models of Madness

Models of Madness

Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis

Second Edition

Edited by John Read, University of Liverpool, UK

and Jacqui Dillon, National Chair, Hearing Voices Network, UK

 “Truly, a revolution is occuring in our understanding of severe mental illness…This volume will serve as an inspiration, not only to established clinicians and researchers, but to the young people who will develop better services for people with psychosis in the future.” 

– Prof Richard Bentall, From the Foreword.

 

The publication is very timely given the international debate about this month’s publication of DSM-5, the latest and most controversial version of psychiatry’s diagnostic ‘bible’. Our book documents all the evidence showing that these diagnoses are unscientific and a major cause of the stigma faced by people who receive these labels. It also presents the research demonstrating the urgent need for a fundamental paradigm shift towards evidence-based, effective and humane mental health services.”

– Prof John Read, Lead Editor

Are hallucinations and delusions really symptoms of an illness called ‘schizophrenia’? Are mental health problems really caused by chemical imbalances and genetic predispositions? Are psychiatric drugs as effective and safe as the drug companies claim? Is madness preventable?

This second edition of Models of Madness challenges the simplistic, pessimistic and often damaging theories and treatments of the ‘medical model’ of madness. Psychiatric diagnoses and medications are based on the false premise that human misery and distress are casued by chemical imbalances and genetic predispositions, and ignore the social causes of psychosis and what psychiatrists call ‘schizophrenia’. This edition updates the now extensive body of research showing that hallucinations and delusions etc. are best understood as reactions to adverse life events and that psychological and social approaches to helping are more effective and far safer than psychiatric drugs and electroshock treatment. A new final chapter discusses why such a damaging ideology has come to dominate mental health and, most importantly, how to change that.  

 Models of Madness is divided into three sections:

  1. Section One provides a history of madness, including examples of violence against the ‘mentally ill’, before critiquing the theories and treatments of contemporary biological psychiatry and documenting the corrupting influence of drug companies
  2. Section Two summarises the research showing that hallucinations, delusions etc. are primarily caused by adverse life events (eg. parental loss, bullying, abuse and neglect in childhood, poverty, etc.) and can be understood using psychological models ranging from cognitive to psychodynamic
  3. Section Three presents the evidence for a range of effective psychological and social approaches to treatment, from cognitive and family therapy to primary prevention.

This book brings together thirty-seven contributors from ten countries and a wide range of scientific disciplines. It provides an evidence-based, optimistic antidote to the pessimism of biological psychiatry.

Models of Madness will be essential reading for all involved in mental health, including service users, family members, service managers, policy makers, nurses, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, counsellors, psychoanalysts, social workers, occupational therapists, and art therapists.

Download flyer to receive 20% discount from Routledge!

Models of Madness Flyer

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415579537/

 

 

Exciting new Hearing Voices Research & Development Fund in USA

Hearing Voices Research & Development Fund

http://femhc.org/Giving.aspx#Hearing_Voices_Research__Development_Fund

The Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund has been established to advance the development of the Hearing Voices Approach in the U.S. The Project was created by Gail A. Hornstein, Professor of Psychology at Mount Holyoke College, and Jacqui Dillon, National Chair of the Hearing Voices Network in England, who have been working together for 10 years to bring new approaches to understanding and coping with voice hearing.

Background
People who hear voices, see visions, or experience other extreme states often end up being diagnosed as psychotic (usually with schizophrenia) and a poor prognosis. The medications which have routinely been prescribed for such patients since the 1950s are effective for some but not for others, and even when they do work, their benefits typically diminish over time, while destructive physical and psychological side effects become increasingly problematic. Hearing voices in particular remains a challenge for many, many patients even after they have been tried on every possible medication over many years, and continues to be seen by many psychiatrists as a “treatment-resistant” symptom.

Hearing Voices Approach
For the past 25 years, the Hearing Voices Network – an international collaboration of professionals, people with lived experience, and their families and friends – has been working to develop an alternative approach to coping with voices, visions, and other extreme states that is empowering and useful and does not start from the assumption that people who have these experiences suffer from a chronic illness. A large body of research data, published in major professional journals, now provides support for key aspects of this approach (see references below), and the hundreds of peer-support groups that have developed in 20 countries around the world are enabling voice hearers – even those who have been chronically disabled – to learn to cope more effectively or rid themselves of the negative effects of their voices. These groups are now starting to spread across the US, but the lack of a systematic program for training potential facilitators and others interested in incorporating HVN’s work into their research or teaching is holding the United States back from being able to offer this effective, community-based psychosocial alternative to the current risky practice of large-dose, long-term treatment with (usually multiple) medications.

Hearing voices peer-support groups offer a safe place for people to share their experiences of voices, visions, tactile sensations and other unusual experiences and perceptions. People meet together to help and support each other, to exchange information, and to learn from one another’s coping strategies. Groups also offer an opportunity for people to accept and “live with voices” in a way that enables them to regain some control over their lives.

The situation in the US stands in striking contrast to that of other countries. For example, England (a country with a population of 60 million) has 180 hearing voices groups, and Denmark (a country of 5 million) has several dozen, whereas the US, with its population of over 300 million, currently has only about 15. The fund will support the development of HVN groups across the US by providing a systematic program of training that will create a network of hearing voices peer-support groups in key centers in each region of the country. Participants will be selected using a rigorous model in which mental health professionals and voice hearers collaborate in an intensive shared learning experience that equips them to apply HVN’s concepts and methods to the creation of positive alternatives for people diagnosed with psychosis.

Hearing Voices Research
The fund will also support a research study to provide the kinds of basic phenomenological descriptions of the voice hearing experience that have become increasingly essential to other research in this area.

Even though more and more researchers have become interested in investigating the complexities of voice hearing in and of itself (as opposed to treating it simply as one of a number of so-called “positive symptoms” of schizophrenia), the lack of a clear identification of the defining characteristics and significance of the experience for voice hearers makes it difficult to compare results across different studies. In addition, as colleagues from HVN have highlighted in their work (see references below), there is no evidence for the standard assumption that patients who hallucinate cannot articulate the triggers, contextual variability, or meaning of their experiences. The few phenomenological studies that have been conducted thus far demonstrate clearly that understanding the subjective experience of voice hearers themselves is essential to the ultimate effectiveness of any intervention designed to help them.

The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care

We are a group of scientists, psychiatrists, researchers, public policy analysts, users and providers of mental health services, philanthropists, and community members that formed The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care to find and promote the best ways to achieve long-term recovery and help people with mental health challenges to thrive.

The Foundation was established in response to nationwide interest in Robert Whitaker’s book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, and the desire to examine existing research, create support for new innovative research and programs, and sponsor symposia to build a new paradigm of care that focuses on long-term recovery and wellness. 

Strong evidence demonstrates that our 25-year long over-reliance on a purely medical model has not advanced mental health recovery. The number of individuals diagnosed with “chronic mental illness”, disabling enough to place them on the Social Security roles has tripled since 1987.

The Foundation has established a Scientific Advisory Committee and Community Advisory Committee to guide our activities of mental health reform.

For More Information:
www.hearing-voices.org
www.intervoiceonline.org
www.hearingvoicesusa.org
www.gailhornstein.com
www.jacquidillon.org

Selected References
Beavan, V. (2011). Towards a definition of “hearing voices”: A phenomenological approach. Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches, 3, 63-73.

Dillon, J. (2006, November). Collective voices. Open Mind.

Dillon, J. and E. Longden (2012) Hearing voices groups: Creating safe spaces to share taboo experiences. In M. Romme and S. Escher (eds.), Psychosis as a personal crisis: An experience-based approach. London: Routledge.

Honig, A., M. Romme, B. Ensink, S. Escher, M. Pennings and M. Devries (1998). Auditory hallucinations: A comparison between patients and non-patients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 186, 646-651.

Hornstein, G.A. (2009). Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness. New York: Rodale Books. (UK edition, with a new introduction, PCCS Books, 2012)

Johns, L.C., J. Y. Nazroo, P. Bebbington and E. Kuipers (2002). Occurrence of hallucinatory experiences in a community sample and ethnic variations. British Journal of Psychiatry, 180, 174-78.

Lakeman, R. (2002). Making sense of the voices. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 38, 523-531.

Martin, P.J. (2000). Hearing voices and listening to those that hear them. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 7, 135-141.

Romme, M. and S. Escher (1989). Hearing voices. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 15, no. 2, 209-216.

Romme, M. and S. Escher (eds.). (1993; 2nd ed. 1998). Accepting Voices. London: MIND Publications.

Romme, M. and S. Escher (1996). Empowering people who hear voices. In G. Haddock and P. Slade (eds.), Cognitive Behavioral Interventions with Psychotic Disorders. London: Routledge, pp.137-150.

Romme, M. and S. Escher (2000). Making Sense of Voices: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals Working with Voice-Hearers. London: MIND Publications.

Romme, M. and S. Escher (2005). Trauma and hearing voices. In W. Larkin and A. Morrison (eds.) Trauma and Psychosis: New Directions for Theory and Therapy. London: Routledge.

Romme, M., S. Escher, J. Dillon, D. Corstens and M. Morris (eds.). (2009). Living with Voices: 50 Stories of Recovery. Ross-on-Wye, UK: PCCS Books.

Romme, M., A. Honig, E.O. Noorthoorn and S. Escher (1992). Coping with voices: An emancipatory approach. British Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 99-103.

Sayer, J., S. Ritter and K. Gournay (2000). Beliefs about voices and their effects on coping strategies. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 31, 1199-1205.

Demedicalising Misery: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Human Condition.

Demedicalising Misery: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Human Condition. Co-edited with Mark Rapley  and Joanna Moncrieff. Published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Thomas Szasz (1960) suggested that the myth of ‘mental illness’ functions to ‘render more palatable the bitter pill of moral conflict in human relations’. The medicalization of distress enables the mental health professions to manage the human suffering that they are confronted with, and also the suspicion that there is little that they can do to help. But the medicalization of misery and madness renders people unable to comprehend their experiences in ordinary, meaningful terms. In this collection we restore to everyday discourse a way of understanding distress that, unlike contemporary psychiatry and psychology, recognises and respects the essential humanness of the human condition. De-medicalizing Misery is a shorthand term for this project. The book resists the psychiatrization and psychologization of human experience, and seeks to place what are essentially moral and political – not medical – matters back at the centre of our understanding of human suffering.

Notes on Contributors
Preface; R.Dallos
Carving Nature at its Joints? DSM and the Medicalization of Everyday Life; M.Rapley, J.Moncrieff & J.Dillon
Dualisms and the Myth of Mental Illness; P.Thomas & P.Bracken
Making the World Go Away, and How Psychology and Psychiatry Benefit; M.Boyle
Cultural Diversity and Racism: An Historical Perspective; S.Fernando
The Social Context of Paranoia; D.J.Harper
From ‘Bad Character’ to BPD: The Medicalization of ‘Personality Disorder’; J.Bourne
Medicalizing Masculinity; S.Timimi
Can Traumatic Events Traumatise People? Trauma, Madness and ‘Psychosis’; L.Johnstone
Children Who Witness Violence at Home; A.Vetere
Discourses of Acceptance and Resistance: Speaking Out About Psychiatry; E.Speed
The Personal Is the Political; J.Dillon
‘I’m Just, You Know, Joe Bloggs’: The Management of Parental Responsibility for First-Episode Psychosis; C.Coulter & M.Rapley
The Myth of the Antidepressant: An Historical Analysis; J.Moncrieff
Antidepressants and the Placebo Response; I.Kirsch
Why Were Doctors so Slow to Recognise Antidepressant Discontinuation Problems?; D.Double
Toxic Psychology; C.Newnes
Psychotherapy: Illusion With No Future?; D.Smail
The Psychologization of Torture; N.Patel
What Is To Be Done?; J.Moncrieff, J.Dillon & M.Rapley
Figure: Papers Using Term ‘Antidepressant’ On Medline 1957-1965
Index

‘Despite longstanding awareness of the limitations of the medical model when applied to difficulties of human behavior and adjustment, the fields of psychiatry and psychology continue to accede to the pressures of medicine and the drug industry in their conceptualization of these human realities. Ironically, however, this medical model, eager as it is to fit so much of people’s experience into diagnostic categories, is a social construction. This book represents a significant effort to de-mystify, de-medicalize, and reclaim important aspects of the human condition.’ – Kenneth D. Keith, Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of San Diego, USA

 

De-Medicalizing Misery has assembled an impressive cast of leading mental health experts. Together they challenge the simplistic and pessimistic biological model of human distress that has, with eager support from the pharmaceutical industry, dominated the mental health field for far too long. This evidence-based, humane and optimistic book not only explains where biological psychiatry went wrong, it spells out the alternatives.’ – John Read, University of Auckland, New Zealand and Editor of ‘Models of Madness’

 

  ‘The psychiatrist or psychologist is expected to do something for every patient sitting in front of him or her, but how robust is the intellectual basis of psychiatric science when psychiatric ‘diseases’ are merely symptom clusters – clustered by us, not by nature? We are in indeed in the age of the medicalization of everyday life, when Lord Layard, economist and architect of the IAPT programme, can write in the BMJ that ‘mental illness’ has taken over from unemployment as our greatest social problem. But what is the test of ‘mental illness’? In DeMedicalizing Misery the authors examine some of the domains lamentably absent from orthodox psychiatry and psychology training programmes, with their medical model focus, and in so doing raise the IQ of the whole debate. And not just for clinicians.’ – Dr Derek Summerfield, Consultant Psychiatrist & Senior Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, UK.
 

Authors: MARK RAPLEY is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, UK. He is the author of The Social Construction of Intellectual Disability, Quality of Life Research and, with Susan Hansen and Alec McHoul, Beyond Help: A Consumers’ Guide to Psychology.
 
JOANNA MONCRIEFF is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mental Health Sciences at University College London, UK and a Practising Consultant Psychiatrist at the North East London Foundation Trust. She has spent her academic career re-evaluating the nature and efficacy of psychiatric drugs and exploring the history and politics of psychiatry. She is the co-chair of the Critical Psychiatry Network, and has campaigned against the dominance of the biomedical approach to psychiatry, the extension of psychiatric coercion and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry, in alliance with service user groups. She is the author of The Myth of the Chemical Cure (Palgrave Macmillan), A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs, and numerous papers and book chapters.
 
JACQUI DILLON is the National Chair of the Hearing Voices Network, UK, and a Director of Intervoice – the International Network for Training, Education and Research into Hearing Voices. She is a campaigner, international speaker and trainer specialising in hearing voices, psychosis, dissociation and trauma. She is the co-editor of Living with Voices: An Anthology of 50 Voice Hearers’ Stories of Recovery. She has published numerous articles and papers, is on the editorial board of the journal Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches and is a member of the collective for Asylum, The Magazine for Democratic Psychiatry.


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.

Race & Mental Health

Race & Mental Health

On The Web

The Afiya Trustwww.afiya-trust.org
The Afiya Trust is a national charity that works to reduce inequalities in health and social care provision for people from racialised communities.

Black Mental Health UKwww.blackmentalhealth.org.uk
Black Mental Health UK’s focus is on empowering African Caribbean communities to improve the Black service user experience and reduce the over representation of Black people at the coercive end of psychiatric care.

Suman Fernando, Psychiatrist, Academic and Writerwww.sumanfernando.com
This site provides information on issues around ‘race’ and ‘culture’ in relation to mental health in western multi-ethnic societies, social and mental health care in low and middle income (‘third world’) countries, racism in psychiatry, and the ethics of mental health practice in a multi-ethnic society.

In Print

Bhui, K. (2002). Racism and Mental Health: Prejudice and Suffering. Jessica Kingsley; New edition.

Blofeld, J., Sallah, D., Sashidaran, S., Stone, R. & Struthers, J. (2003) Independent Enquiry into the Death of David Bennett: An independent enquiry set up under HSG(94)27. Norfolk, Suffolk & Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority

Fanon, F. (2001). The Wretched of the Earth. Penguin Modern Classics. New Edition.

Fanon, F. (2008). Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press; New edition.

Fernando, S. (2010) Mental Health, Race and Culture. (third edition) Palgrave Macmillan.

Fernando, S. (1995) Mental Health in a Multi Ethnic Society: A Mutli Disciplinary Handbook. Routledge.

Lipsedge, L. and Littlewood, R. (1997). Aliens and Alienists: Ethnic Minorities and Psychiatry. Routledge; third edition.

Said, E. (2003). Orientalism. Penguin Books; 25th Anniversary Ed with 1995 Afterword.

Dissociation

Dissociation

On The Web

International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociationwww.isst-d.org
ISSTD seeks to advance clinical, scientific, and societal understanding about the prevalence and consequences of chronic trauma and dissociation.

Mosaic Mindswww.mosaicminds.org
Online resource centre compiled by survivors of dissociative identify disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). Includes: ‘keeping safe’, ‘reading room’, ‘interactive community forums’, ‘books’ and links section

PODSwww.pods-online.org.uk

PODS (Positive Outcomes for Dissociative Survivors) works to make recovery from dissociative disorders a reality through:

  • training
  • informing
  • supporting

The Pottergate Centrewww.dissociation.co.uk
The Centre offers a wide range of services to professionals, to clients who may have a dissociative disorder and to the public at large.

Sidran Traumatic Stress Institutewww.sidran.org
International not for profit organisation aimed at supporting people to recovery form the effects of trauma (including dissociative disorders). Includes a comprehensive resource section.

Trauma and Abuse Groupwww.tag-uk.net
TAG promotes education and raises awareness in the field of dissociation, attachment, trauma and abuse recovery.

In Print

Case, J.F. (1991). The Flock: the Autobiography of a Multiple Personality. Abacus.

Castelli, J. (2000). Looking Inside: Life Lessons From a Multiple Personality in Pictures and Words. Castelli Studios Publishing.

Gil, Eliana. (1990). United We Stand: A Book for People with Multiple Personalities. Launch Press.

Mayer, R. (1988). Through Divided Minds: Probing the Mysteries of Multiple Personalities. A Doctors Story. Avon

Mollon, P. (1996). Multiple Selves, Multiple Voices: Working with Trauma, Violation and Dissociation. Wiley.

Moskowitz, A., Schafer, I. & Dorahy, M. (Eds.) (2009). Psychosis, trauma and dissociation: Emerging perspectives on severe psychopathology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Rheta Schreiber, F. (1973). Sybil: The True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Separate Personalities. Penguin Books.

Ross, C. (1994). The Osiris Complex: Case-Studies in Multiple Personality. University of Toronto Press.

Sinason, V. (2002). Attachment, Trauma and multiplicity: Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Brunner-Routledge.

Stout, M. (2001). The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness – Tales of Multiple Personality in Everyday Life.

Abuse, Trauma, Healing & Recovery

Abuse, Trauma, Healing & Recovery

On The Web

Alice Millerwww.alice-miller.com
Website of pioneering psychotherapist Alice Miller

Recovered Memory projecthttp://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/about/
Case Archives, Commentary, and Scholarly Resources

David Baldwin’s Trauma Information Pageswww.trauma-pages.com
Providing information for clinicians and researchers in the traumatic-stress field

The European Society for Trauma and Dissociationwww.estd.org
Promoting an increase in the knowledge of Trauma, Dissociation and all disorders related to chronic traumatisation.

International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociationwww.isst-d.org
Seeking to advance clinical, scientific, and societal understanding about the prevalence and consequences of chronic trauma and dissociation

Jim Hopper’s Information Pageswww.jimhopper.com
Providing scholarly knowledge and resources, in language and formats accessible to any interested and motivated person – young or old, highly educated or not.

The Lantern Projectwww.lanternproject.org.uk
Formerly known as “Victims No Longer”, the Lantern Project offers a website supporting victims of childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, racial abuse and bullying.

Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torturewww.torturecare.org.uk
A charity that is dedicated soley to the treatment of torture survivors, including: advocacy, counselling & physical therapies.

One in Four UKwww.oneinfour.org.uk
One in Four offers a voice to and support for people who have experienced sexual abuse and sexual violence.

Rape Crisis (England and Wales)www.rapecrisis.org.uk
Provides co-ordination and support to affiliated member groups and campaigns and lobbies to raise awareness of the issues of sexual violence in the wider community and with local, regional and national government.

The Recovery Practice  – http://www.therecoverypractice.org.uk/

The Recovery Practice aims to help make mental health and well being possible for all people and to contribute to the understanding of mental health problems. Julian Turner has had over twenty years counselling practice and has worked extensively with people who have experienced emotional distress. He works in the Leeds area.

Respondwww.respond.org.uk
Works with children and adults with learning disabilities who have experienced abuse or trauma, as well as those who have abused others, through psychotherapy, advocacy, campaigning and other support.

Sidran Traumatic Stress Institutewww.sidran.org
International not for profit organisation aimed at supporting people to recovery form the effects of trauma (including dissociative disorders).

Support Linewww.supportline.org.uk/problems/child_abuse_survivors.php
Provides guidance and resources for adult survivors of childhood abuse.

Trauma and Abuse Groupwww.tag-uk.net
TAG promotes education and raises awareness in the field of dissociation, attachment, trauma and abuse recovery.

Trauma and Abuse Support Centrewww.tasc-online.org.uk
Provides a UK web-based resource for survivors of the whole spectrum of child sexual abuse (including extreme and ritual abuse) and for anyone involved in supporting them.

Women’s Aidwww.womensaid.org.uk
A national charity working to support women and children affected by domestic violence. Site includes finding help locally and a survivors handbook.

Bass, E. and Davis, L. (1988). The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. Cedar Press.

Bloom, S. (1997). Creating Sanctuary: Towards the Evolution of Safe Communities. London: Routledge.

Blume, S. (1990). Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and its After-effects in Women. John Wiley and Sons.

Brison, S.J. (2002). Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self. Princeton University Press.

Davis, L. (1991). Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child. HarperPerennial.

Davoine, F. and Gaudilliere, J-M. (2004). History Beyond Trauma. Other Press LLC.

Dolan, Y. (2000). Beyond Survival: Living Well is the Best Revenge. BT Press: London.

Fraser, S. My Father’s House: A Memoir of Incest and of Healing. Virago Press.

Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books.

Levine, P. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma – The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences. New York: North Atlantic Books.

Levine, P. (2008). Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body. Boulder, CO: Sounds True Inc.

Mackinnon, M. (1991). Each Small Step: Breaking the Chains of Abuse and Addiction. Gynergy Books.

Maltz, W. (1992). The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse. Qill: HarperCollins Publishers.

Perry, B. (2008). The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach us About Loss, Love and Healing. New York: Basic Books.

Rothschild, B. (2000). The Body Remembers: The psychophysiology of trauma and trauma treatment. London: W. W. Norton & Co.

Rothschild, B. (2010). 8 Keys to Safe Trauma Therapy: Take Charge Strategies to Empower Your Healing. W. W. Norton & Co.

Sebold, A. (2003). Lucky. Picador.

Spring, J. (1987). Cry Hard and Swim: The Story of An Incest Survivor. Virago Press.

Tal, K. (1996). Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. Cambridge University Press.

Venable Raine, N. (2000). After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back. Virago Press Ltd; New edition.

Warner, S. (2000). Understanding Child Sexual Abuse: Making the Tactics Visible. Handsell Publishing.

Pages

Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund receives $250,000 in funding

FEMHC_Logo_horizontal(1)

Coming to a town near you: real help for voice hearers

The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care is pleased to announce that its Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund has received $250,000 in funding for a 3-year project to bring Hearing Voices peer support groups to communities across the United States and to research the mechanisms by which these peer-support groups work.

The project will train more than 100 facilitators in 5 regions of the country and create a stronger regional and local infrastructure of Hearing Voices peer support groups across the US. People who hear voices, see visions, or experience other unusual perceptions, thoughts, or actions have long been diagnosed as psychotic and given a poor prognosis. Medications provide only partial help and their benefits typically diminish over time while destructive physical and psychological side effects become increasingly problematic.

For the past 25 years, the Hearing Voices Network (HVN), an international collaboration of professionals, people with lived experience, and their families and friends has worked to develop an alternative approach to coping with voices, visions, and other extreme states that is empowering and useful and does not start from the assumption of chronic illness (see www.hearing-voices.org, www.hearingvoicesusa.org, www.intervoiceonline.org). A large scientific literature now provides support for key aspects of this approach, and the hundreds of peer-support groups that have developed in 30 countries on 5 continents are enabling voice hearers – even those who have been chronically disabled – to learn to cope more effectively or to rid themselves of the negative effects of their voices.

The US lags far behind other countries in offering this important new approach, and the new funding provides crucial support as more and more mental health organizations across the country seek training to start their own hearing voices peer-support groups. An open competition will be launched in April to choose the 5 project regions, with participants selected using a rigorous model in which mental health professionals and voice hearers collaborate in an intensive shared learning experience that itself illustrates HVN’s concepts and methods.

Equally crucial to the project is an ongoing research component that will allow identification of the distinctive components of hearing voices peer-support groups and better explain what enables them to provide such an effective and positive alternative for people diagnosed with psychosis. “This effort promises to be a movement that will measurably advance mental wellness and recovery for people in distress, their families and the community across the nation,” said Gina Nikkel, President and CEO of the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care. “Hearing voices can be truly terrifying for the person experiencing them and for their loved ones. Hearing Voices Network support groups transform the fear into understanding and then empowerment.”

The Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund is jointly administered by Gail A. Hornstein, Professor of Psychology, Mount Holyoke College, and Jacqui Dillon, National Chair, Hearing Voices Network, England. Their more than 10-year collaboration models the kind of engaged research and advocacy that the project seeks to foster. More background on the project administrators can be found here. Read their recent article on hearing voices groups here.

Key partners in the project include Mount Holyoke College and the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community, based in Holyoke, MA, which has pioneered the training of HVN facilitators in the US as part of its broader mission to “create conditions that can support healing and growth for individuals and the community as a whole.”

Out Now: New Edition of Bestselling Book – Models of Madness

Models of Madness

Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis

Second Edition

Edited by John Read, University of Liverpool, UK

and Jacqui Dillon, National Chair, Hearing Voices Network, UK

 “Truly, a revolution is occuring in our understanding of severe mental illness…This volume will serve as an inspiration, not only to established clinicians and researchers, but to the young people who will develop better services for people with psychosis in the future.” 

– Prof Richard Bentall, From the Foreword.

 

The publication is very timely given the international debate about this month’s publication of DSM-5, the latest and most controversial version of psychiatry’s diagnostic ‘bible’. Our book documents all the evidence showing that these diagnoses are unscientific and a major cause of the stigma faced by people who receive these labels. It also presents the research demonstrating the urgent need for a fundamental paradigm shift towards evidence-based, effective and humane mental health services.”

– Prof John Read, Lead Editor

Are hallucinations and delusions really symptoms of an illness called ‘schizophrenia’? Are mental health problems really caused by chemical imbalances and genetic predispositions? Are psychiatric drugs as effective and safe as the drug companies claim? Is madness preventable?

This second edition of Models of Madness challenges the simplistic, pessimistic and often damaging theories and treatments of the ‘medical model’ of madness. Psychiatric diagnoses and medications are based on the false premise that human misery and distress are casued by chemical imbalances and genetic predispositions, and ignore the social causes of psychosis and what psychiatrists call ‘schizophrenia’. This edition updates the now extensive body of research showing that hallucinations and delusions etc. are best understood as reactions to adverse life events and that psychological and social approaches to helping are more effective and far safer than psychiatric drugs and electroshock treatment. A new final chapter discusses why such a damaging ideology has come to dominate mental health and, most importantly, how to change that.  

 Models of Madness is divided into three sections:

  1. Section One provides a history of madness, including examples of violence against the ‘mentally ill’, before critiquing the theories and treatments of contemporary biological psychiatry and documenting the corrupting influence of drug companies
  2. Section Two summarises the research showing that hallucinations, delusions etc. are primarily caused by adverse life events (eg. parental loss, bullying, abuse and neglect in childhood, poverty, etc.) and can be understood using psychological models ranging from cognitive to psychodynamic
  3. Section Three presents the evidence for a range of effective psychological and social approaches to treatment, from cognitive and family therapy to primary prevention.

This book brings together thirty-seven contributors from ten countries and a wide range of scientific disciplines. It provides an evidence-based, optimistic antidote to the pessimism of biological psychiatry.

Models of Madness will be essential reading for all involved in mental health, including service users, family members, service managers, policy makers, nurses, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, counsellors, psychoanalysts, social workers, occupational therapists, and art therapists.

Download flyer to receive 20% discount from Routledge!

Models of Madness Flyer

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415579537/

 

 

Exciting new Hearing Voices Research & Development Fund in USA

Hearing Voices Research & Development Fund

http://femhc.org/Giving.aspx#Hearing_Voices_Research__Development_Fund

The Hearing Voices Research and Development Fund has been established to advance the development of the Hearing Voices Approach in the U.S. The Project was created by Gail A. Hornstein, Professor of Psychology at Mount Holyoke College, and Jacqui Dillon, National Chair of the Hearing Voices Network in England, who have been working together for 10 years to bring new approaches to understanding and coping with voice hearing.

Background
People who hear voices, see visions, or experience other extreme states often end up being diagnosed as psychotic (usually with schizophrenia) and a poor prognosis. The medications which have routinely been prescribed for such patients since the 1950s are effective for some but not for others, and even when they do work, their benefits typically diminish over time, while destructive physical and psychological side effects become increasingly problematic. Hearing voices in particular remains a challenge for many, many patients even after they have been tried on every possible medication over many years, and continues to be seen by many psychiatrists as a “treatment-resistant” symptom.

Hearing Voices Approach
For the past 25 years, the Hearing Voices Network – an international collaboration of professionals, people with lived experience, and their families and friends – has been working to develop an alternative approach to coping with voices, visions, and other extreme states that is empowering and useful and does not start from the assumption that people who have these experiences suffer from a chronic illness. A large body of research data, published in major professional journals, now provides support for key aspects of this approach (see references below), and the hundreds of peer-support groups that have developed in 20 countries around the world are enabling voice hearers – even those who have been chronically disabled – to learn to cope more effectively or rid themselves of the negative effects of their voices. These groups are now starting to spread across the US, but the lack of a systematic program for training potential facilitators and others interested in incorporating HVN’s work into their research or teaching is holding the United States back from being able to offer this effective, community-based psychosocial alternative to the current risky practice of large-dose, long-term treatment with (usually multiple) medications.

Hearing voices peer-support groups offer a safe place for people to share their experiences of voices, visions, tactile sensations and other unusual experiences and perceptions. People meet together to help and support each other, to exchange information, and to learn from one another’s coping strategies. Groups also offer an opportunity for people to accept and “live with voices” in a way that enables them to regain some control over their lives.

The situation in the US stands in striking contrast to that of other countries. For example, England (a country with a population of 60 million) has 180 hearing voices groups, and Denmark (a country of 5 million) has several dozen, whereas the US, with its population of over 300 million, currently has only about 15. The fund will support the development of HVN groups across the US by providing a systematic program of training that will create a network of hearing voices peer-support groups in key centers in each region of the country. Participants will be selected using a rigorous model in which mental health professionals and voice hearers collaborate in an intensive shared learning experience that equips them to apply HVN’s concepts and methods to the creation of positive alternatives for people diagnosed with psychosis.

Hearing Voices Research
The fund will also support a research study to provide the kinds of basic phenomenological descriptions of the voice hearing experience that have become increasingly essential to other research in this area.

Even though more and more researchers have become interested in investigating the complexities of voice hearing in and of itself (as opposed to treating it simply as one of a number of so-called “positive symptoms” of schizophrenia), the lack of a clear identification of the defining characteristics and significance of the experience for voice hearers makes it difficult to compare results across different studies. In addition, as colleagues from HVN have highlighted in their work (see references below), there is no evidence for the standard assumption that patients who hallucinate cannot articulate the triggers, contextual variability, or meaning of their experiences. The few phenomenological studies that have been conducted thus far demonstrate clearly that understanding the subjective experience of voice hearers themselves is essential to the ultimate effectiveness of any intervention designed to help them.

The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care

We are a group of scientists, psychiatrists, researchers, public policy analysts, users and providers of mental health services, philanthropists, and community members that formed The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care to find and promote the best ways to achieve long-term recovery and help people with mental health challenges to thrive.

The Foundation was established in response to nationwide interest in Robert Whitaker’s book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, and the desire to examine existing research, create support for new innovative research and programs, and sponsor symposia to build a new paradigm of care that focuses on long-term recovery and wellness. 

Strong evidence demonstrates that our 25-year long over-reliance on a purely medical model has not advanced mental health recovery. The number of individuals diagnosed with “chronic mental illness”, disabling enough to place them on the Social Security roles has tripled since 1987.

The Foundation has established a Scientific Advisory Committee and Community Advisory Committee to guide our activities of mental health reform.

For More Information:
www.hearing-voices.org
www.intervoiceonline.org
www.hearingvoicesusa.org
www.gailhornstein.com
www.jacquidillon.org

Selected References
Beavan, V. (2011). Towards a definition of “hearing voices”: A phenomenological approach. Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches, 3, 63-73.

Dillon, J. (2006, November). Collective voices. Open Mind.

Dillon, J. and E. Longden (2012) Hearing voices groups: Creating safe spaces to share taboo experiences. In M. Romme and S. Escher (eds.), Psychosis as a personal crisis: An experience-based approach. London: Routledge.

Honig, A., M. Romme, B. Ensink, S. Escher, M. Pennings and M. Devries (1998). Auditory hallucinations: A comparison between patients and non-patients. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 186, 646-651.

Hornstein, G.A. (2009). Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness. New York: Rodale Books. (UK edition, with a new introduction, PCCS Books, 2012)

Johns, L.C., J. Y. Nazroo, P. Bebbington and E. Kuipers (2002). Occurrence of hallucinatory experiences in a community sample and ethnic variations. British Journal of Psychiatry, 180, 174-78.

Lakeman, R. (2002). Making sense of the voices. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 38, 523-531.

Martin, P.J. (2000). Hearing voices and listening to those that hear them. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 7, 135-141.

Romme, M. and S. Escher (1989). Hearing voices. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 15, no. 2, 209-216.

Romme, M. and S. Escher (eds.). (1993; 2nd ed. 1998). Accepting Voices. London: MIND Publications.

Romme, M. and S. Escher (1996). Empowering people who hear voices. In G. Haddock and P. Slade (eds.), Cognitive Behavioral Interventions with Psychotic Disorders. London: Routledge, pp.137-150.

Romme, M. and S. Escher (2000). Making Sense of Voices: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals Working with Voice-Hearers. London: MIND Publications.

Romme, M. and S. Escher (2005). Trauma and hearing voices. In W. Larkin and A. Morrison (eds.) Trauma and Psychosis: New Directions for Theory and Therapy. London: Routledge.

Romme, M., S. Escher, J. Dillon, D. Corstens and M. Morris (eds.). (2009). Living with Voices: 50 Stories of Recovery. Ross-on-Wye, UK: PCCS Books.

Romme, M., A. Honig, E.O. Noorthoorn and S. Escher (1992). Coping with voices: An emancipatory approach. British Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 99-103.

Sayer, J., S. Ritter and K. Gournay (2000). Beliefs about voices and their effects on coping strategies. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 31, 1199-1205.

Demedicalising Misery: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Human Condition.

Demedicalising Misery: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Human Condition. Co-edited with Mark Rapley  and Joanna Moncrieff. Published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Thomas Szasz (1960) suggested that the myth of ‘mental illness’ functions to ‘render more palatable the bitter pill of moral conflict in human relations’. The medicalization of distress enables the mental health professions to manage the human suffering that they are confronted with, and also the suspicion that there is little that they can do to help. But the medicalization of misery and madness renders people unable to comprehend their experiences in ordinary, meaningful terms. In this collection we restore to everyday discourse a way of understanding distress that, unlike contemporary psychiatry and psychology, recognises and respects the essential humanness of the human condition. De-medicalizing Misery is a shorthand term for this project. The book resists the psychiatrization and psychologization of human experience, and seeks to place what are essentially moral and political – not medical – matters back at the centre of our understanding of human suffering.

Notes on Contributors
Preface; R.Dallos
Carving Nature at its Joints? DSM and the Medicalization of Everyday Life; M.Rapley, J.Moncrieff & J.Dillon
Dualisms and the Myth of Mental Illness; P.Thomas & P.Bracken
Making the World Go Away, and How Psychology and Psychiatry Benefit; M.Boyle
Cultural Diversity and Racism: An Historical Perspective; S.Fernando
The Social Context of Paranoia; D.J.Harper
From ‘Bad Character’ to BPD: The Medicalization of ‘Personality Disorder’; J.Bourne
Medicalizing Masculinity; S.Timimi
Can Traumatic Events Traumatise People? Trauma, Madness and ‘Psychosis’; L.Johnstone
Children Who Witness Violence at Home; A.Vetere
Discourses of Acceptance and Resistance: Speaking Out About Psychiatry; E.Speed
The Personal Is the Political; J.Dillon
‘I’m Just, You Know, Joe Bloggs’: The Management of Parental Responsibility for First-Episode Psychosis; C.Coulter & M.Rapley
The Myth of the Antidepressant: An Historical Analysis; J.Moncrieff
Antidepressants and the Placebo Response; I.Kirsch
Why Were Doctors so Slow to Recognise Antidepressant Discontinuation Problems?; D.Double
Toxic Psychology; C.Newnes
Psychotherapy: Illusion With No Future?; D.Smail
The Psychologization of Torture; N.Patel
What Is To Be Done?; J.Moncrieff, J.Dillon & M.Rapley
Figure: Papers Using Term ‘Antidepressant’ On Medline 1957-1965
Index

‘Despite longstanding awareness of the limitations of the medical model when applied to difficulties of human behavior and adjustment, the fields of psychiatry and psychology continue to accede to the pressures of medicine and the drug industry in their conceptualization of these human realities. Ironically, however, this medical model, eager as it is to fit so much of people’s experience into diagnostic categories, is a social construction. This book represents a significant effort to de-mystify, de-medicalize, and reclaim important aspects of the human condition.’ – Kenneth D. Keith, Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of San Diego, USA

 

De-Medicalizing Misery has assembled an impressive cast of leading mental health experts. Together they challenge the simplistic and pessimistic biological model of human distress that has, with eager support from the pharmaceutical industry, dominated the mental health field for far too long. This evidence-based, humane and optimistic book not only explains where biological psychiatry went wrong, it spells out the alternatives.’ – John Read, University of Auckland, New Zealand and Editor of ‘Models of Madness’

 

  ‘The psychiatrist or psychologist is expected to do something for every patient sitting in front of him or her, but how robust is the intellectual basis of psychiatric science when psychiatric ‘diseases’ are merely symptom clusters – clustered by us, not by nature? We are in indeed in the age of the medicalization of everyday life, when Lord Layard, economist and architect of the IAPT programme, can write in the BMJ that ‘mental illness’ has taken over from unemployment as our greatest social problem. But what is the test of ‘mental illness’? In DeMedicalizing Misery the authors examine some of the domains lamentably absent from orthodox psychiatry and psychology training programmes, with their medical model focus, and in so doing raise the IQ of the whole debate. And not just for clinicians.’ – Dr Derek Summerfield, Consultant Psychiatrist & Senior Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, UK.
 

Authors: MARK RAPLEY is Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, UK. He is the author of The Social Construction of Intellectual Disability, Quality of Life Research and, with Susan Hansen and Alec McHoul, Beyond Help: A Consumers’ Guide to Psychology.
 
JOANNA MONCRIEFF is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mental Health Sciences at University College London, UK and a Practising Consultant Psychiatrist at the North East London Foundation Trust. She has spent her academic career re-evaluating the nature and efficacy of psychiatric drugs and exploring the history and politics of psychiatry. She is the co-chair of the Critical Psychiatry Network, and has campaigned against the dominance of the biomedical approach to psychiatry, the extension of psychiatric coercion and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry, in alliance with service user groups. She is the author of The Myth of the Chemical Cure (Palgrave Macmillan), A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs, and numerous papers and book chapters.
 
JACQUI DILLON is the National Chair of the Hearing Voices Network, UK, and a Director of Intervoice – the International Network for Training, Education and Research into Hearing Voices. She is a campaigner, international speaker and trainer specialising in hearing voices, psychosis, dissociation and trauma. She is the co-editor of Living with Voices: An Anthology of 50 Voice Hearers’ Stories of Recovery. She has published numerous articles and papers, is on the editorial board of the journal Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches and is a member of the collective for Asylum, The Magazine for Democratic Psychiatry.


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.

Race & Mental Health

Race & Mental Health

On The Web

The Afiya Trustwww.afiya-trust.org
The Afiya Trust is a national charity that works to reduce inequalities in health and social care provision for people from racialised communities.

Black Mental Health UKwww.blackmentalhealth.org.uk
Black Mental Health UK’s focus is on empowering African Caribbean communities to improve the Black service user experience and reduce the over representation of Black people at the coercive end of psychiatric care.

Suman Fernando, Psychiatrist, Academic and Writerwww.sumanfernando.com
This site provides information on issues around ‘race’ and ‘culture’ in relation to mental health in western multi-ethnic societies, social and mental health care in low and middle income (‘third world’) countries, racism in psychiatry, and the ethics of mental health practice in a multi-ethnic society.

In Print

Bhui, K. (2002). Racism and Mental Health: Prejudice and Suffering. Jessica Kingsley; New edition.

Blofeld, J., Sallah, D., Sashidaran, S., Stone, R. & Struthers, J. (2003) Independent Enquiry into the Death of David Bennett: An independent enquiry set up under HSG(94)27. Norfolk, Suffolk & Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority

Fanon, F. (2001). The Wretched of the Earth. Penguin Modern Classics. New Edition.

Fanon, F. (2008). Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press; New edition.

Fernando, S. (2010) Mental Health, Race and Culture. (third edition) Palgrave Macmillan.

Fernando, S. (1995) Mental Health in a Multi Ethnic Society: A Mutli Disciplinary Handbook. Routledge.

Lipsedge, L. and Littlewood, R. (1997). Aliens and Alienists: Ethnic Minorities and Psychiatry. Routledge; third edition.

Said, E. (2003). Orientalism. Penguin Books; 25th Anniversary Ed with 1995 Afterword.

Dissociation

Dissociation

On The Web

International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociationwww.isst-d.org
ISSTD seeks to advance clinical, scientific, and societal understanding about the prevalence and consequences of chronic trauma and dissociation.

Mosaic Mindswww.mosaicminds.org
Online resource centre compiled by survivors of dissociative identify disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). Includes: ‘keeping safe’, ‘reading room’, ‘interactive community forums’, ‘books’ and links section

PODSwww.pods-online.org.uk

PODS (Positive Outcomes for Dissociative Survivors) works to make recovery from dissociative disorders a reality through:

  • training
  • informing
  • supporting

The Pottergate Centrewww.dissociation.co.uk
The Centre offers a wide range of services to professionals, to clients who may have a dissociative disorder and to the public at large.

Sidran Traumatic Stress Institutewww.sidran.org
International not for profit organisation aimed at supporting people to recovery form the effects of trauma (including dissociative disorders). Includes a comprehensive resource section.

Trauma and Abuse Groupwww.tag-uk.net
TAG promotes education and raises awareness in the field of dissociation, attachment, trauma and abuse recovery.

In Print

Case, J.F. (1991). The Flock: the Autobiography of a Multiple Personality. Abacus.

Castelli, J. (2000). Looking Inside: Life Lessons From a Multiple Personality in Pictures and Words. Castelli Studios Publishing.

Gil, Eliana. (1990). United We Stand: A Book for People with Multiple Personalities. Launch Press.

Mayer, R. (1988). Through Divided Minds: Probing the Mysteries of Multiple Personalities. A Doctors Story. Avon

Mollon, P. (1996). Multiple Selves, Multiple Voices: Working with Trauma, Violation and Dissociation. Wiley.

Moskowitz, A., Schafer, I. & Dorahy, M. (Eds.) (2009). Psychosis, trauma and dissociation: Emerging perspectives on severe psychopathology. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Rheta Schreiber, F. (1973). Sybil: The True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Separate Personalities. Penguin Books.

Ross, C. (1994). The Osiris Complex: Case-Studies in Multiple Personality. University of Toronto Press.

Sinason, V. (2002). Attachment, Trauma and multiplicity: Working with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Brunner-Routledge.

Stout, M. (2001). The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness – Tales of Multiple Personality in Everyday Life.

Abuse, Trauma, Healing & Recovery

Abuse, Trauma, Healing & Recovery

On The Web

Alice Millerwww.alice-miller.com
Website of pioneering psychotherapist Alice Miller

Recovered Memory projecthttp://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/about/
Case Archives, Commentary, and Scholarly Resources

David Baldwin’s Trauma Information Pageswww.trauma-pages.com
Providing information for clinicians and researchers in the traumatic-stress field

The European Society for Trauma and Dissociationwww.estd.org
Promoting an increase in the knowledge of Trauma, Dissociation and all disorders related to chronic traumatisation.

International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociationwww.isst-d.org
Seeking to advance clinical, scientific, and societal understanding about the prevalence and consequences of chronic trauma and dissociation

Jim Hopper’s Information Pageswww.jimhopper.com
Providing scholarly knowledge and resources, in language and formats accessible to any interested and motivated person – young or old, highly educated or not.

The Lantern Projectwww.lanternproject.org.uk
Formerly known as “Victims No Longer”, the Lantern Project offers a website supporting victims of childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, racial abuse and bullying.

Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torturewww.torturecare.org.uk
A charity that is dedicated soley to the treatment of torture survivors, including: advocacy, counselling & physical therapies.

One in Four UKwww.oneinfour.org.uk
One in Four offers a voice to and support for people who have experienced sexual abuse and sexual violence.

Rape Crisis (England and Wales)www.rapecrisis.org.uk
Provides co-ordination and support to affiliated member groups and campaigns and lobbies to raise awareness of the issues of sexual violence in the wider community and with local, regional and national government.

The Recovery Practice  – http://www.therecoverypractice.org.uk/

The Recovery Practice aims to help make mental health and well being possible for all people and to contribute to the understanding of mental health problems. Julian Turner has had over twenty years counselling practice and has worked extensively with people who have experienced emotional distress. He works in the Leeds area.

Respondwww.respond.org.uk
Works with children and adults with learning disabilities who have experienced abuse or trauma, as well as those who have abused others, through psychotherapy, advocacy, campaigning and other support.

Sidran Traumatic Stress Institutewww.sidran.org
International not for profit organisation aimed at supporting people to recovery form the effects of trauma (including dissociative disorders).

Support Linewww.supportline.org.uk/problems/child_abuse_survivors.php
Provides guidance and resources for adult survivors of childhood abuse.

Trauma and Abuse Groupwww.tag-uk.net
TAG promotes education and raises awareness in the field of dissociation, attachment, trauma and abuse recovery.

Trauma and Abuse Support Centrewww.tasc-online.org.uk
Provides a UK web-based resource for survivors of the whole spectrum of child sexual abuse (including extreme and ritual abuse) and for anyone involved in supporting them.

Women’s Aidwww.womensaid.org.uk
A national charity working to support women and children affected by domestic violence. Site includes finding help locally and a survivors handbook.

Bass, E. and Davis, L. (1988). The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse. Cedar Press.

Bloom, S. (1997). Creating Sanctuary: Towards the Evolution of Safe Communities. London: Routledge.

Blume, S. (1990). Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and its After-effects in Women. John Wiley and Sons.

Brison, S.J. (2002). Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self. Princeton University Press.

Davis, L. (1991). Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child. HarperPerennial.

Davoine, F. and Gaudilliere, J-M. (2004). History Beyond Trauma. Other Press LLC.

Dolan, Y. (2000). Beyond Survival: Living Well is the Best Revenge. BT Press: London.

Fraser, S. My Father’s House: A Memoir of Incest and of Healing. Virago Press.

Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books.

Levine, P. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma – The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences. New York: North Atlantic Books.

Levine, P. (2008). Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body. Boulder, CO: Sounds True Inc.

Mackinnon, M. (1991). Each Small Step: Breaking the Chains of Abuse and Addiction. Gynergy Books.

Maltz, W. (1992). The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse. Qill: HarperCollins Publishers.

Perry, B. (2008). The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach us About Loss, Love and Healing. New York: Basic Books.

Rothschild, B. (2000). The Body Remembers: The psychophysiology of trauma and trauma treatment. London: W. W. Norton & Co.

Rothschild, B. (2010). 8 Keys to Safe Trauma Therapy: Take Charge Strategies to Empower Your Healing. W. W. Norton & Co.

Sebold, A. (2003). Lucky. Picador.

Spring, J. (1987). Cry Hard and Swim: The Story of An Incest Survivor. Virago Press.

Tal, K. (1996). Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. Cambridge University Press.

Venable Raine, N. (2000). After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back. Virago Press Ltd; New edition.

Warner, S. (2000). Understanding Child Sexual Abuse: Making the Tactics Visible. Handsell Publishing.