Drop the Disorder! Challenging the culture of psychiatric diagnosis

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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. Just want to say thank you, your perspective is so extremely refreshing and mind-opening. I’ve bought the literature and can’t wait to read more. I feel enlivened by changes in my thought process and possibilities of working with a different mind-set. This is such a simple and obvious concept and so needed, it just shows how we (society) has been conditioned to think in limiting ways about mental wellbeing. Thank you.

Drop the disorder Archives • A Disorder For Everyone! Drop the disorder Archives • A Disorder For Everyone!

A. New assessment tools: based on the kinds of trauma a person has experienced and its lasting effects. They also need more humane methods of eliciting recovery, e.g. counseling in which there is authentic, person to person, client-centered connection. 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.' 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. --Johann Hari, author of Lost Connections and Chasing the ScreamIt 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. The Inner Compass Initiative and Withdrawal Project– provides information, resources, tools, and connecting platforms to facilitate more informed choices regarding all things “mental health”.

Drop the disorder? - Jo Watson Drop the disorder? - Jo Watson

This is a limited numbers online workshop with the aim of creating a space for interaction and discussion for participants. Free and reduced places are limited and available on a first come first served basis. Johann Hari, journalist and writer; author of Lost Connections: why you’re depressed and how to find hope

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There’s an intruder in our house! Counselling, psychotherapy and the biomedical model of emotional distress 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.’ 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. Thank you, Jacqui, totally mind blowing! Really made me think and lots of practical skills I can use in my work. 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.

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

helpful to anybody who wants to learn more about the many facets of mental health care and treatments.’Challenging, insightful and often controversial… a truly innovative and valuable book that functions both as a learning resource and an ardent call to arms.’ This book is a revised and retitled second edition of A Straight Talking Introduction to Being a Mental Health Service User(2010). 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. 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.’

Home - Mad in the UK

The Power Threat Meaning Framework– Towards the identification of patterns in emotional distress, unusual experiences and troubled or troubling behaviour, as an alternative to functional psychiatric diagnosis. So grateful for you giving us this time and opportunity Jacqui…. your passion and knowledge is so inspiring. I have been able to take so much away with me. I’d love the opportunity to hear more of your thinking. 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. AD4E asks not 'What’s wrong with you?’ but 'What happened to you?’ a question that encourages the framing of distress as an understandable reaction to trauma, adversity, or just the struggles we all face as human beings in a difficult world.It would require significant systemic change to de-medicalise mental ‘illness’ but the authors suggest three steps that individuals can take to help reduce the use of biomedical language: 1) use everyday words, 2) emphasise the context of ‘symptoms’ and 3) use speech marks around diagnostic language. They suggest that these seemingly small acts can build up to collective action for radical change.