Self-Help Twelve Hours Ahead

Last week the Clearinghouse hosted several guests from Hong Kong. We’re a pretty closed office, doing the majority of our work by phone, mail and email, running around in our own little worlds or talking with people on the other side of the country that we rarely get to see in person. So it was especially exciting for us to have visitors, and even more interesting to be able to discuss all sorts of issues from such different perspectives.

Christine, Ivy and Yauwai are all social workers with the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation. They run a clearinghouse there and offer trainings on leadership, self-help and other issues of mutual interest. In an effort to learn more about the consumer movement in the US, they decided to travel all the way here and see things first hand in a tour of several clearinghouses and services on the East Coast.

Some of the differences between the US and Hong Kong are much too complex to have really understood in one afternoon, like exactly how our respective mental health systems work. I’d like to try and really explain that to another American in one afternoon! But, one of the most interesting topics we were able to reflect on was how differences in the history of civil rights and mental health treatment affect how we look at services and recovery today.

Many consumers in the US are weary of the lip service given to recovery and self-help by the professional mental health community. Self-help and consumer-driven services should be initiated, implemented and governed by consumers, right? Why? One important reason is trust.

According to our visitors, Hong Kong has never really had a significant consumer movement; At least not one purely in opposition to the establishment. So, when social workers study self-help, create programs and present them to consumers, they are accepted and adopted pretty easily. Consumers eventually take over the leadership and functioning of the groups and programs, and the professionals seem to have no problem giving up control and oversight.

Maybe the two sides trust each other just a little more? Or maybe they don’t think about themselves as two opposing sides at all? Is it really possible to have that much cooperation in a society that doesn’t even question forced treatment? I have to admit that I don’t fully understand how it works or why, but I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to meet with them and I hope they learned something new from us as well.


Posted by J. Melinn

Take This, Tom Cruise! (Nanny-nanny-foo-foo!)

New Jersey just passed a law that requires doctors to screen new mothers for postpartum depression. According to the Associated Press, the law is the first of its kind, and passed partly because of strong support from former Gov. Richard Codey, who is now a state senator, and his wife, Mary Jo, who suffered from the condition. Also under the law, doctors will educate expectant mothers and their families about the disorder and treatments, including medication, counseling and support groups.

I’m so glad the Clearinghouse’s mother organization, the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, or MHASP, passed on Tom Cruise and decided instead to honor the Codeys with the 2006 Bell of Hope Award on May 24 in Philadelphia. As stated in the MHASP press release, the couple were chosen because their work has shone a national spotlight on mental health issues—especially postpartum depression—and their advocacy has helped counter stigma and raise awareness of the importance of mental health. Also, Governor Codey left a legacy of helping to create decent, affordable housing for people with mental illnesses in New Jersey that will hopefully inspire other states to follow the state’s lead.

Gotta love progress.

Posted by Daniele Sadres

Please Pass This on to Anyone You Know Who Likes to Beat Homeless People to Death and/or Set Them on Fire

A homeless man who earns his soup—which he insists on paying for at the local soup kitchen—by rummaging through Santa Ana, California’s garbage bins for recyclable cans, found a wallet full of money and credit cards a couple of weeks ago and turned it in at a nearby shop where he figured the owner might have worked, the Associated Press Reported. According to the story, the wallet found its way to the owner, who had accidentally thrown away the wallet containing $900 she had saved for a visit to her native Thailand.

The woman reportedly gave the man $100 reward and some words of praise. “He has a very good heart,” she said. “If someone else found it, the money would be gone.”

I read this story at Happynews.com, which is a great place to visit when you feel like reading news but the regular stuff is depressing you. As washingtonpost.com said of the site: “The Happynews glass is always at least half-full, and sometimes it bubbles right over.”

Posted by Daniele Sadres

Acclaimed One-Man Production of "Man of La Mancha" Returns to the Stage

Dean Patrick Carvin will be performing his acclaimed production of “[One] Man of La Mancha” on Monday, May 15, at 3 p.m. at the University Lutheran Church, 38th and Chestnut streets, in Philadelphia. His performance will be followed by a candlelight buffet dinner in the church’s Hospitality Room at 5:30. Following dinner, at 7 p.m., Carvin will perform “Manic: Portrait of a Bi-Polar,” a favorite of the Philly Fringe Festival.

I know that the majority of those who are reading this are not in the Philadelphia area. However, if you are interested in the theater and in efforts to fight discrimination and stigma, you might find Dean’s work noteworthy.
Here’s what Philadelphia’s City Paper (http://www.citypaper.net/) said about “Manic”: “In this appropriately titled show, one-man star Dean Patrick Carvin delivers an impressive array of characterizations with skillful and cohesive transitions to an ‘audience’ of imagined psychiatric evaluators. . . . [Y]ou’ll emerge with a new look at your own unexamined life.”
“[One] Man of La Mancha” has earned Dean standing ovations as well as critical acclaim in local papers. For example, the LaSalle Collegian praised his “exhilarating performance,” adding: “Carvin gives a seemingly effortless performance of all sixteen characters included in the original musical. He injects a great deal of humor into his performance through his portrayals of females and his impromptu ad-libs.” Another reviewer noted that he “was able to capture his audience with laughter while generating insight into [mental] illness.”
Fifteen years ago, Dean Carvin founded Two-Face Productions, a theater company of people who have mental illnesses and their friends. “Two-Face Productions has enlightened audiences throughout the Delaware Valley about the plight of people who have mental illnesses, and helped to lessen the public’s fears and misunderstandings about mental illness,” he said. He named the company after his own diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

Dean is celebrating his 25th anniversary of being diagnosed with what actress Patty Duke has called “the most desired of the mental illnesses” with a day of education and entertainment. In coordination with Mental Health Month (May), he is proclaiming his marathon ‘Mental Health Consumers Enrich Our Lives’ Day. “Mayor Street’s Office is considering making this official,” Carvin said.
Active in local theater since 1976, Carvin has at least 50 shows, including half a dozen solo pieces, to his credit. Fourteen years ago, at the Shubin theater, he performed a solo interpretation of Thornton Wilder’s rarely seen classic “The Long Christmas Dinner” – portraying 90 years of one family’s Christmases – to favorable reviews. He also directed a full ensemble cast for the Old Academy Players (where Grace Kelly got her start) in East Falls. “Two-Face Productions did this on a shoestring, dressing 11 characters in period costumes spanning the years from 1850 to 1940, when the play takes place, with the help of the Arden and Wilma theaters’ costume archives,” he said. In December 2001, Dean directed the Wilder play with a cast of people who, like himself, have mental illnesses, at Project Transition (a residence for people with mental illnesses in Warrington, Penn.).
A portion of the proceeds from this one-day-only event will be donated to the Immediate Seating Program, a free ticket exchange for those who receive the services of ActionAIDS (http://www.actionaids.org/).

Tickets for “[One] Man of La Mancha” are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. The buffet dinner costs an additional $9. Ticket prices for “Manic: Portrait of a Bi-Polar” are $10 for those who acknowledge that they are diagnosed with a mental illness, $20 for those who do not have a mental illness.

For more information, you can write to Dean at dean.carvin@yahoo.com. If you are interested in advance tickets or dinner reservations, you can contact Tootsie Iovine, 215-313-8421. Tickets may also be purchased at Tootsie’s Salad Express in the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia.

Posted by Susan Rogers

Sniff, Sniff, (blows nose).

You—sniff again—absolutely have to check out this very loving blog by a mother in India whose daughter has schizophrenia. I found it at Schizophrenia.com, which has a list of blogs about a quarter down the page on the left column. You’ll also find a link to this guide to creating your own schizophrenia Web journal.

Posted by Daniele Sadres

Eek!onomics: Why Massachusetts’ New Healthcare Law Scares the Heck Out of Me (and Makes Me Want to Floss More Often)

Massachusetts just became the first state to require residents to carry health insurance or face tax penalties. The law is comparable to laws that require drivers to carry car insurance, only, in this case, the poorest people would be covered by Medicaid, and the almost-poorest people would have access to state-subsidized insurance with cost assessed according to a person’s income level. Governor Mitt Romney rejected a requirement that businesses with more than ten workers insure employees or face a $295 per person annual penalty, but the legislature is expected to override the governor’s veto and restore the requirement.

The healthcare law is ambitious but terrible. The $295 may penalize small businesses while letting big businesses—like Walmart—off the hook for not insuring its workers. Also, the fine is so low that it provides incentive for other large companies to discontinue health coverage. Certainly $295 a year is much less than the cost of insuring an employee, so why would a large business pass up the bargain?

This adds up to a lot of people seeking low-cost insurance to avoid the pricey tax penalty, which would equal half the cost of the cheapest plan available to an individual taxpayer. Many consumers who work and don’t receive disability payments or qualify for Medicaid have low-paying jobs and might not be able to afford independent coverage—even with the cost based on a sliding scale. And, if they do purchase the cheap insurance, they’ll likely get what they pay for.

The biggest issue I have with this law, however, is that it doesn’t adequately address the challenges for people with pre-existing conditions. Under the law, insurance will be available to everyone at prices deemed affordable by the government. So you can’t be turned down for insurance because you’re already sick, but that doesn’t mean the insurance has to immediately and/or indefinitely cover adequate treatment for that sickness. What are the chances an insurance company will sign on to pay $500/month for your psych meds alone and charge you less than that in premiums? As things are now, the best way to get a deal like that is to get a job that offers health insurance. Then you get automatically get the group rate and coverage for any pre-existing conditions. But woe are the consumers in Massachusetts now, for I see a lot of bankruptcies, lost jobs, hospitalizations and disability applications in their futures. Not to mention tons of paperwork.

On the positive side, however, the poorest consumers may get a financial boost out this thing. From the Tooth Fairy. In addition to the $295 per employee penalty for businesses, Governor Romney line-item vetoed a provision that would have given dental and vision coverage to Medicaid recipients. That means consumers with dental problems—in many instances caused by medication side effects like dry mouth—have one treatment option.

“The only thing they’ll do is pull out your teeth,” explained Evelyn Kaufman, an activist who has volunteered for fourteen years with Massachusetts consumer advocacy group M-Power. She’s been following this particular issue very closely. “It’s about dignity,” she said, adding that being toothless and unable to see can perpetuate stereotypes about people with mental illness and affect a consumer’s prospects for getting a job.

I’m inclined to agree.

Posted by Daniele Sadres

About Stigma

I encountered the following article on MSN’s homepage yesterday and was very heartened to see such a comprehensive article on the stigma surrounding mental illness. I was especially happy to see this article, not in a journal devoted to recovery, but at a website people of all walks of life visit each day.

This article has insight on stigma and brings up some great points. It is an article I think our blog-readers would appreciate.

http://health.msn.com/centers/mentalhealth/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100107779>1=7850

Posted by Christa Andrade

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

A few weeks ago when I saw a trailer for the upcoming documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston I knew that it would be perfect material for the Clearinghouse blog. No matter what the film portrayed it would necessarily include footage of Daniel’s performances, plenty of his art and music, and would have to address his bipolar disorder. Like a lot of other documentaries about artists and musicians, mental illness was going to play a key role in this life story. I was very curious to see how Daniel, his life and his illness were portrayed in the film. I also really wanted to advertise it, regardless of my opinion of the film, just to support Daniel Johnston’s art and music, of which I’ve been a fan for some time.

The film opened March 31st and will be showing around the country. I’m not sure how wide of a release it will have, but you can check here to see where it’s playing. And there hasn’t been a lack of media coverage either. If you’d like to read a some reviews of the film, take a look at the reviews section of the film’s official website, or even check the New York Times or the Village Voice.

At first I tried to approach the film as a stigma buster, was it a good or bad portrayal of a person with a mental illness? But I found quickly that it’s much more complex than that and can’t quickly be categorized as positive or negative. Some things in this film are stigmatizing or disturbing, unnecessarily magnifying just how violent and out of control Daniel was at times. But many of the interviews show people in Daniel’s life as supportive and encouraging. In fact, everyone except his own family speaks with an enormous amount of respect for his art, his music and his undying urge to continue to create, and even they seem to come around in the end. One of the highlights of the film was learning about negotiations for a fairly large record contract that included unprecedented accommodations for his illness. It is unfortunate that the deal was never signed, could it have made that possible for other musicians?




An important criticism of the film however, is that not nearly enough commentary and footage with the present day Daniel Johnston was included. How does he feel about all that’s gone on in his life? How does he reflect on his success, or the very public nature of his hospitalizations and mental illness? So far I’ve only seen one article that addresses this, a very thoughtful piece on Pitchfork a highly visible music website. I would have liked to hear more from Daniel.

I found this film very different from other documentaries to which its been compared. Other than the filmmaking style, I wouldn’t make many comparisons to those of the past few years that depict mental illness as a main theme. I think this one shares a lot more with films about music history and biographies of bands, particularly last year’s Dig, which followed two bands along very different paths. As a film about the struggles of a musician and artist trying to just be a musician and an artist despite major difficulties, this one is really worth seeing.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

The official Daniel Johnston website


We’d love to read your comments too. Have you seen the film? What did you think?



posted by Jennifer Melinn