Drop the Disorder! Challenging the culture of psychiatric diagnosis

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Hearing Voices Network– If you hear voices, HVN can help – we are committed to helping people who hear voices. We offer information, support and understanding to people who hear voices and those who support them. The Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry– CEP exists to communicate evidence of the potentially harmful effects of psychiatric drugs to the people and institutions in the UK that can make a difference. I was a 26-year-old support worker sat face to face with a recently sectioned, police-escorted patient on a mental health ICU ward. As this patient looked me in the eye with what took considerable effort to fight the level of sedation they were under, they asked me… “What can you actually do for me, how can you help me, you look like a teenager, how can you help someone of my age, how can you understand what I’ve been through?” Dr Sarah Carr, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Service User Research Enterprise, King’s College London

Abandoning Psychotherapy After It Abandons You: Slam Poetry

There’s an intruder in our house! Counselling, psychotherapy and the biomedical model of emotional distress This unique contribution to the psychology literature remains accessible through compelling narratives, poetry and artwork. This is not just a book; it is a call to action to advocate for a paradigm shift in modern mental health care. It offers an alternative framework for understanding distress and promotes hope for recovery.This book is a revised and retitled second edition of A Straight Talking Introduction to Being a Mental Health Service User(2010). Jo will outline the challenge to psychiatric diagnosis and Jacqui will talk about how we can best support people without colluding with mainstream diagnostic frameworks. Thank you for this afternoon and for the passion you brought to it. It’s made me feel more hopeful that change is possible. It draws on the expertise of those with experiential knowledge of the mental health system to review the past, challenge the present and explore how we might fight for a future, better way of responding to mental crisis and distress that places the service user at the centre.

Drop the Disorder – And then what?! | Jacqui Dillon

This online workshop is aimed at people who reject the culture of psychiatric diagnosis and who want to further explore non-pathologising ways of supporting people who are experiencing emotional distress particularly when the distress has been or is at risk of being explained by society, services and many professionals as evidence of ‘mental illness.’ Jacqui Dillon is an activist, author, and speaker, and has lectured and published worldwide on trauma, abuse, hearing voices, psychosis, dissociation, and healing. She is a key figure in the international Hearing Voices Movement, has co-edited three books, published numerous articles and papers and is on the editorial board of the journal Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches. Jacqui is Honorary Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, Visiting Research Fellow at The Centre for Community Mental Health, Birmingham City University and a member of the Advisory Board, The Collaborating Centre for Values-Based Practice in Health and Social Care, St Catherine’s College, Oxford University. Jacqui’s survival of childhood abuse and subsequent experiences of using psychiatric services inform her work, and she is an outspoken advocate and campaigner for trauma informed approaches to madness and distress. Jacqui is part of a collective voice demanding a radical shift in the way we understand and respond to experiences currently defined as psychiatric illnesses. In 2017, Jacqui was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Psychology by the University of East London. Since going online in 2020 we've attracted thousands more people from around the world to our annual online festival, our poetry events and our ongoing workshops. This was just what our team needed to give us the confidence to challenge the damaging ways of responding to people that have sadly become so normal. We feel fired up and ready to make a difference. Mad in America– Mad in America’s mission is to serve as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care in the United States (and abroad).UK mental health services were in crisis when this book was first published. They are in even greater crisis now. This updated second edition offers a cohesive basis for collective change to the individualising and medicalising of ‘mental health’. This book represents a mission… a move away from biomedical entrapment to a caring mental health system built on the values of liberation and humanity.’ Thank you, Jacqui, totally mind blowing! Really made me think and lots of practical skills I can use in my work. Anyone who wants to deal with the epidemic of distress and despair in our society should engage deeply with Jo Watson’s work and this massively important book.'