Bay Area Radical Mental Health Colletive Support Group

One of the topics addressed by peer support groups is how people who have experienced mental (cognitive)/emotional problems can help others struggling with similar problems. People are diagnosed by psychiatrists as "mentally ill" based on a criteria of visible symptoms. The underlying cause for why someone is exhibiting these symptoms is never sought, instead the psychiatrists depend on pharmaceutical products to alleviate the symptoms. Since the initial cause of the emotional/cognitive problems are never sought by modern psychiatry, then psychiatry cannot offer a long term cure, only addiction to pharmaceutical products that alleviate the symptoms, often only temporarily..

If people begin to talk about thier personal/social situations amongst a group of peers who don't examine them like an insect under microscope, than there is a possibility of the initial cause of the emotional/cognitive disturbance being addressed and resolved. Some therapists who avoid pharmaceutical quick-fix solutions may be asked to attend group sessions to provide some guidance, however, the understanding is that the people who experience the labeling process of mentally ill be given the chance to organize and mederate the groups with the non-heirarchal approach..

" The decisions about the program are made through a democratic membership process. Self-help groups are totally voluntary. Besides being based on the self-determination of the group, they are grounded in the self-determination of the individual: freedom of choice. Participation in the service is completely voluntary and clients can participate in parts of the services without being required to participate in others. Self-help groups strive to share power, responsibility and skills. They seek as much as possible a non hierarchical relationship of equals. The distinctions between staff and clients, treater and treated, are minimized or eliminated. Self-help groups, instead of seeing people as diagnosis and labels, see whole human beings with real life needs. Thus most self-help programs provide a range of social, rehabilitative, and survival services.

The underlying philosophy of peer support is that the best helpers are those who have experienced similar problems. In client-run programs, people with mental health problems see others like themselves in positions of responsibility, as role models, and thus gain confidence in themselves. By exercising control over their own lives and services, clients build capacity for self-reliance and independence.

Client–run services are of many kinds. The most popular client run model is the drop-in center, which provides an open, non threatening setting for support and socialization activities. Many drop-in centers have grown to provide advocacy services, such as housing services, vocational services, assistance with Social Security and food stamps, referral services to appropriate mental health and social services. Client-run programs can also be club houses, anti-stigma campaigns, job training classes, and patients rights advocacy programs, to name a few."

above from California Network of Mental Health Clients;

http://www.californiaclients.org/main/frameset.htm

List of peer support drop in centers throughout CA;

http://www.californiaclients.org/main/resources/client-run_groups.htm

What people also notice is that peer support drop in centers provide emotional support to people suffering from various "mental" ailments without the dangerous and uncomfortable side effects of pharmaceutical products. Also peer support drop in centers can help difficult to reach individuals who have a healthy fear of psychiatrists and their mindbending pharma products for a fraction of the price. The salary paid to one psychiatrist can dwarf the entire year's operating budget of a peer drop-in-center. Not to mention the great expense of pharma products incurred by people and taxpayers. Regardless, drop-in-centers in most communities are poorly funded and/or non-existant. However, pharmaceutical corporations like Eli Lilly enjoy the financial and political support of some extremely powerful individuals..

There is a great deal more to be said about the current Bush regime's push for national mental health screening where everyone in the US is screened for "mental illness". Is it any coincidence that two members of the Bush regime are financially invested in pharmaceutical corporations? Donald Rumsfeld the former CEO of Serle Pharma and GW Bush a shareholder of Eli Lilly. Both Bush and Rumsfeld would profit substantially if the screening would indicate over 50% of the US population suffers from depression and an anti-depressent pharmaceutical like Prozac would be the panacea to all our problems..

"Olanzapine (trade name Zyprexa), one of the atypical antipsychotic drugs recommended as a first line drug in the Texas algorithm, grossed $4.28bn (£2.35bn; 3.56bn) worldwide in 2003 and is Eli Lilly's top selling drug. A 2003 New York Times article by Gardiner Harris reported that 70% of olanzapine sales are paid for by government agencies, such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Eli Lilly, manufacturer of olanzapine, has multiple ties to the Bush administration. George Bush Sr was a member of Lilly's board of directors and Bush Jr appointed Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, to a seat on the Homeland Security Council. Lilly made $1.6m in political contributions in 2000—82% of which went to Bush and the Republican Party."

http://narpa.org/screening.htm

Not to mention the many side effects that one needs a magnifying glass to read on the pamphlet included with the psychiatric prescription. Those only the ones that pharma corps admits to, tardif dyskenisia, liver malfunction, apathy, to name a few. Other side effects are far worse. In certain cases other pharma products (vaccines) by Eli Lilly have shown to result in other diagnosed conditions including autism..

"Oddest among them was an amendment protecting the pharmaceutical corporate giant Eli Lilly from any and all lawsuits pertaining to their manufacture of thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative for childhood vaccines produced by Lilly for 40 years that has been connected to the development of autism in children. Thousands of families seeking redress for the neurological disorders their children suffer have been sent packing, because Lilly has a contract with the U.S. government to provide vaccines against biological weapons. One hopes thimerosal is not included in the processing this time around."

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/09/10/washington_under_the_pharma_lilly.htm

How ironic that this "National Mental Health Screening" from the same Bush regime interested in revoking the civil liberties of US citizens by Karl Rove's roving wiretaps, engaging in torture of Iraqi/Afgani civilians at illegal detention camps like Abu-Graib and temporarily suspending the US Constitution under Patriot Act/Homeland Security police state surveillence. That's enough to make just about every US resident paranoid and depressed. Maybe Bush and Rumsfeld will only be satisfied when US citizens and colonized people around the world are locked in their gated communites and their minds locked down with some pharmaceutical tranquilizer/mood enhancers like Zyprexa/Prozac..

NOT!!

We will not allow the Bush regime to further erode the civil liberties of people in the US and other nations. The Bush regime are war criminals and need to be put on trial for genocide and illegal invasion of a sovereign nation based on deceit directed toward the US people. This and other aspects of their deadly reign in DC needs to be brought before an international war crimes tribunal..

lunamoth

i think they spelled "school" wrong.