National Empowerment Center

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The National Empowerment Center (NEC) is an advocacy and peer-support organization in the United States that promotes an empowerment-based recovery model of mental disorders. It is run by consumers/survivors/ex-patients "in recovery" and is located in Lawrence, Massachusetts in Essex County.

Contents

History

The self-stated mission of NEC is to carry a message of recovery, empowerment, hope and healing to people who have been labeled with mental illness diagnosis. It argues that recovery and empowerment are not the privilege of a few but a process that is possible for everyone to embark on and find help with. Although unconventional to those accustomed only to a narrow medical model, the model is part of a recovery movement that comprises an emerging consensus. [1]

NEC and other groups are working to implement the transformation to a recovery-based system recommended by the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. It operates a toll-free information and referral line. It organizes and speaks at conferences. Its staff have published in professional journals, scholastic books, popular press and alternative publications. NEC has "been involved" in many national boards and committees and in policy consultations at the White House, in Congress, in federal agencies such as HUD, the Social Security Administration, HCFA, the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation, and The President's Commission on Disability, and at the regional and local level with organizations such as HMOs and state divisions of mental health programs. It has developed educational, training and self-help resources. NEC staff have been featured by CNN, USA Today, The Boston Globe, National Public Radio and talk and radio shows in the U.S., Canada, Europe and other countries. [2]

NEC conducted qualitative research with people who were severely mentally ill but have met criteria for recovery, from which ten major principles of how people recover were extracted: [3]

NEC research also identified characteristics distinguishing those in illness and those "in recovery": [3]

NEC developed an approach termed Personal Assistance in Community Existence (PACE). [4] [5] [6] It is based on the premise that people can potentially recover fully from even the most severe forms of mental illness, and on an Empowerment Model of Recovery and prevention. [7] It is an education program to help shift the culture of mental health from institutional thinking to recovery thinking, designed for people training to become peer coaches, people furthering their recovery, and people learning new skills to help others. It has previously been deliberately contrasted with "PACT" - Program of Assertive Community Treatment - a form of outpatient commitment that was originally designed to enable people to live in the community, rather than in psychiatric hospitals, but according to NEC has become a "coercive, lifelong, and nonclient-directed system with medication compliance as its most important tenet" [1] NEC conducted a national survey of the use of PACE in the mental health system. [8]

NEC co-founder Patricia Deegan was featured on the award-winning radio show a "This American Life"in "Edge of Sanity," first aired on 1997. Deegan herself is a psychologist who became highly successful despite multiple psychiatric hospitalizations. She was diagnosed as having schizophrenia as a teenager. [9]

Founders

The co-founder and executive director is Daniel B. Fisher, now a board-certified psychiatrist. A graduate of Princeton University, he completed a PhD in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin, medical training at George Washington University, and a psychiatric residency at Harvard Medical School. While working as a biomedical researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health before he was a psychiatrist, Fisher had a psychotic episode including hallucinations and delusions. After three months at Bethesda Naval Hospital at age 25, which included forced seclusion and antipsychotic haloperidol, he was discharged with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. He was involuntarily hospitalized three times. He reports being influenced by those who were able to show they cared about the person inside and gave him hope that he might some day recover. He went on to become a psychiatrist. He was told during psychiatric training that "You can’t talk to an illness" but believed that talking to the person inside is a key method for building trust and recovery. [1] He has since worked as a psychiatrist in hospitals and clinics, while also being a part of the consumer movement. He said that a very significant part of the reason for becoming a psychiatrist was wanting to bring to the field what he wished had been there when he was going through psychosis [10] He was a member of the White House Commission on Mental Health, 2002-03.[ citation needed ]

Laurie Ahern and Patricia Deegan were the co-founders and directors of NEC for several years.[ when? ] [11]

Staff

The NEC staff is Oryx Cohen, Kimberly Ewing, Shira Collings, and Felicity Krueger. [12]

The deceased advocate Judi Chamberlin was an NEC staff person. [13] [14] Chamberlin was diagnosed with depression at the age of 21 but considered herself recovered, which she attributed to having been a non-compliant patient. [15]

NEC consultants are Daniel Fisher, Deborah Trueheart, Joana Archangel, and Juan Velez Court. [16]

Related Research Articles

A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is also characterized by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotional regulation, or behavior, often in a social context. Such disturbances may occur as single episodes, may be persistent, or may be relapsing–remitting. There are many different types of mental disorders, with signs and symptoms that vary widely between specific disorders. A mental disorder is one aspect of mental health.

Edwin Fuller Torrey, is an American psychiatrist and schizophrenia researcher. He is associate director of research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute (SMRI) and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), a nonprofit organization whose principal activity is promoting the passage and implementation of outpatient commitment laws and civil commitment laws and standards in individual states that allow people diagnosed with severe mental illness to be involuntarily hospitalized and treated throughout the United States.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is a United States-based nonprofit organization originally founded as a grassroots group by family members of people diagnosed with mental illness. NAMI identifies its mission as "providing advocacy, education, support and public awareness so that all individuals and families affected by mental illness can build better lives" and its vision as "a world where all people affected by mental illness live healthy, fulfilling lives supported by a community that cares". NAMI offers classes and trainings for people living with mental illnesses, their families, community members, and professionals, including what is termed psychoeducation, or education about mental illness. NAMI holds regular events which combine fundraising for the organization and education, including Mental Illness Awareness Week and NAMIWalks.

The Hearing Voices Movement (HVM) is the name used by organizations and individuals advocating the "hearing voices approach", an alternative way of understanding the experience of those people who "hear voices". In the medical professional literature, ‘voices’ are most often referred to as auditory verbal hallucinations. The movement uses the term ‘hearing voices’, which it feels is a more accurate and 'user-friendly' term.

Social psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry that focuses on the interpersonal and cultural context of mental disorder and mental wellbeing. It involves a sometimes disparate set of theories and approaches, with work stretching from epidemiological survey research on the one hand, to an indistinct boundary with individual or group psychotherapy on the other. Social psychiatry combines a medical training and perspective with fields such as social anthropology, social psychology, cultural psychiatry, sociology and other disciplines relating to mental distress and disorder. Social psychiatry has been particularly associated with the development of therapeutic communities, and to highlighting the effect of socioeconomic factors on mental illness. Social psychiatry can be contrasted with biopsychiatry, with the latter focused on genetics, brain neurochemistry and medication. Social psychiatry was the dominant form of psychiatry for periods of the 20th century but is currently less visible than biopsychiatry.

Schizophrenics Anonymous is a peer support group to help people who are affected by schizophrenia and related disorders including bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, psychotic depression and psychosis.

A mental health consumer is a person who is obtaining treatment or support for a mental disorder, also known as psychiatric or mental illness. The term was coined by people who use mental health services in an attempt to empower those with mental health issues, historically considered a marginalized segment of society. The term suggests that there is a reciprocal contract between those who provide a service and those who use a service and that individuals have a choice in their treatment and that without them there could not exist mental health providers.

Peer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters, and can take a number of forms such as peer mentoring, reflective listening, or counseling. Peer support is also used to refer to initiatives where colleagues, members of self-help organizations and others meet, in person or online, as equals to give each other connection and support on a reciprocal basis.

A mental health professional is a health care practitioner or social and human services provider who offers services for the purpose of improving an individual's mental health or to treat mental disorders. This broad category was developed as a name for community personnel who worked in the new community mental health agencies begun in the 1970s to assist individuals moving from state hospitals, to prevent admissions, and to provide support in homes, jobs, education, and community. These individuals were the forefront brigade to develop the community programs, which today may be referred to by names such as supported housing, psychiatric rehabilitation, supported or transitional employment, sheltered workshops, supported education, daily living skills, affirmative industries, dual diagnosis treatment, individual and family psychoeducation, adult day care, foster care, family services and mental health counseling.

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The psychiatric survivors movement is a diverse association of individuals who either currently access mental health services, or who have experienced interventions by psychiatry that were unhelpful, harmful, abusive, or illegal.

Psychiatric rehabilitation, also known as psychosocial rehabilitation, and sometimes simplified to psych rehab by providers, is the process of restoration of community functioning and well-being of an individual diagnosed in mental health or emotional disorder and who may be considered to have a psychiatric disability.

The recovery model, recovery approach or psychological recovery is an approach to mental disorder or substance dependence that emphasizes and supports a person's potential for recovery. Recovery is generally seen in this model as a personal journey rather than a set outcome, and one that may involve developing hope, a secure base and sense of self, supportive relationships, empowerment, social inclusion, coping skills, and meaning. Recovery sees symptoms as a continuum of the norm rather than an aberration and rejects sane-insane dichotomy.

Psychoeducation is an evidence-based therapeutic intervention for patients and their loved ones that provides information and support to better understand and cope with illness. Psychoeducation is most often associated with serious mental illness, including dementia, schizophrenia, clinical depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, bipolar and personality disorders. The term has also been used for programs that address physical illnesses, such as cancer.

Experience Focussed Counselling (EFC) is a normalising, non-pathologizing approach to counselling or psychosocial support/accompaniment aimed particularly, but not exclusively, at persons who may be distressed by experiences such as hearing voices aka auditory hallucinations, visions or other phenomena which are commonly associated with diagnoses such as schizophrenia and other mental disorders.(Schnackenberg & Burr, 2017)

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judi Chamberlin</span> American psychiatric survivors movement activist

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Deegan</span>

Patricia E. Deegan is an American disability-rights advocate, psychologist and researcher. She has been described as a "national spokesperson for the mental health consumer/survivor movement in the United States." Deegan is known as an advocate of the mental health recovery movement and is an international speaker and trainer in the field of mental health.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the psychiatric survivors movement:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Oaks</span> American activist

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Serious mental illness (SMI) is characterized as any mental health condition that impairs seriously or severely from one to several significant life activities, including day to day functioning. Four common examples of SMI include bipolar disorders, borderline personality disorder, psychotic disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, and major depressive disorders. People having SMI experience symptoms that prevent them from having experiences that contribute to a good quality of life, due to social, physical, and psychological limitations of their illnesses. In 2021, there was a 5.5% prevalence rate of U.S. adults diagnosed with SMI, with the highest percentage being in the 18 to 25 year-old group (11.4%). Also in the study, 65.4% of the 5.5% diagnosed adults with SMI received mental health care services.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Mulligan, K. (2001) Psychiatrist Turns Illness Into Empowerment Tool Psychiatric News, June 1, Volume 36 Number 11
  2. ↑ NEC website Programs and Services Retrieved on Aug 11 2008
  3. 1 2 Fisher, D. (2006) Recovery From Schizophrenia: From Seclusion to Empowerment Medscape
  4. ↑ Ahern L, Fisher D. Personal Assistance in Community Existence: A Recovery Guide. Lawrence, Mass: National Empowerment Center; 1999.
  5. ↑ Ahern L, Fisher D. PACE/Recovery Curriculum. Lawrence, Mass: National Empowerment Center; 2001.
  6. ↑ Fisher D, Chamberlin J. PACE/Recovery Peer Training Recovery Curriculum. Lawrence, Mass: National Empowerment Center; 2004.
  7. ↑ Ahern L, Fisher D. Recovery at your own PACE (Personal Assistance in Community Existence). J Psychosoc Nurs Ment Health Serv. 2001;39:22-32. PMID   11324174
  8. ↑ James H. Zahniser, Laurie Ahern, Daniel Fisher (2005) How the pace program builds a recovery-transformed system: Results from a national survey Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal Volume 29, Number 2 / Fall 2005 Pages 42-145 DOI 10.2975/29.2005.142.145
  9. ↑ Edge of Insanity This American Life, Chicago Public Radio, 02.04.2000, originally aired 01.31.1997
  10. ↑ An Empowerment Model of Recovery From Severe Mental Illness: An Expert Interview With Daniel B. Fisher, MD, PhD Medscape Psychiatry & Mental Health. 2005;10(1)
  11. ↑ "Patricia Deegan, Ph.D. Director of Training and Education National Empowerment Center". NARPA. Retrieved 8 January 2019.
  12. ↑ trwd. "NEC Staff & Consultants".
  13. ↑ NEC website NEC staff Retrieved June 28, 2012
  14. ↑ Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation The Recovery Vision: New paradigm, new questions, new answers. An event for World Health Day 2001 Boston University
  15. ↑ Chamberlin, J. Confessions of a non-compliant patient
  16. ↑ "NEC Staff & Consultants".
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