I think I need some more time to read and re-read this beautiful article, but firsthand, first thoughts: it hooks right into my beliefs on psychosis and how we can help our self and others to deal with this altered state called ‘psychosis’.
It wasn’t until I met Oryx Cohen at the conference ‘The Alternatives’ in Austin and Boston, that I started to understand why it helps if we talk about ‘altered states’ instead of what I learned when I started my in-service-education to become a psychiatric nurse, the so-called DSM-V- classifications.
I felt unhappy and dissatisfied by it all right away. I wasn’t the most obedient student. I tried to get away from the psychiatric system the first internship-day I entered it in Building E, at Mental Health ‘Endegeest’ in the village of Oegstgeest.
All through my career I tried to find ways to be a different worker/nurse then the workers/nurses that tried to teach me what they had learned: knowledge and convictions, seemingly coming from ancient times.
I can tell you a thousand stories on the people I met since that time, almost 42 years ago. Stories of Birds of Paradise. Because that is what I think the people we work with are. They are the mirror of our twisted society.
As Jennifer, I am not going to romanticize mental illness or psychosis, but I am convinced that we are able to practice and invent altered ways and language to help people, other than medication and weekly 45-minute-one way-going nowhere-conversations.
So, thank you Jennifer, for this radical and altered article. I love what you wrote and state, and I was already a believer 42 years ago, the day I fell in love with what they back in the days called ‘chronic psychiatry’ and what we luckily now call ‘people with lived experience’. You wrote it in the most profound beautiful, poetic and alternative ways. It is a must- read-article for everybody interested in diversity and connection.
If any time gives us the opportunity to change our convictions about anything and to be specific, about psychosis, it is now.
Thanks again Jennifer, you made my day. ❤️??
The Article, Beyond Diagnosis, Understanding Psychosis
#AnoiksisMap #AnoiksisManifesto #Roomforthoughts #LabyrinthPsychotica