The Western Mass Recovery Learning Community was ‘born’ in May of 2007. Toward the end of 2009, we really started re-evaluating the focus of our work. Up until that point, we’d spent a lot of time on day-to-day support offerings and local resources. However, part of what we really wanted to be doing was changing the world, and that takes the kind of systems change that involves a lot more than just people who have been given psychiatric labels. Change means everyone. And so, we started holding a number of events, inviting speakers from across the nation and even other countries to talk about how things could be (and, in some instances, are) different. At some point, I realized that we were talking a lot about perspectives other than the “medical model,�? but still rarely ever naming what those other perspectives were. Failure to name and build understanding about those other perspectives means they continue to hold much less power than the dominant model that most at least feel they understand in some way. At that point, I tried my hand at creating some trainings to help concretize the ideas behind some of those other perspectives and ways of thinking, but me up there droning along in front of a Powerpoint slide isn’t nearly so compelling as a variety of people’s stories and voices. So, as people came to us to speak at events, we also interviewed them, along with several people in our own community. We asked questions based on the hypothesis that people would have a lot to say about what worked for them beyond a medicalized belief system, and that more than one person would likely balk at being pigeon holed into any one particular ‘model.’ We were right. The film took quite some time to make, but the story that came out of it is one that helps people who didn’t even know there was a question to be asked come to the understanding that there’s actually more questions than answers. That was our goal.
Near the beginning of the film, the narrator says that much of the medical model was intended to be “artful” – an exploration. Do you believe the medical model is still explorative?
No, I do not believe that the medical model is particularly explorative in most circles. My personal experience is that a psychiatric diagnosis (or any medical diagnosis, frankly) is little more than step 1 of a fairly rigid and prescribed ‘what do we do next’ flowchart. When I was first diagnosed, it was as if a treatment plan came along with it as an inextricable attachment that said, “Now we medicate and therapize, and when she does the scary stuff, off to the hospital she goes!�? I’m sure there are still people in the medical field who are invested in exploration and creativity, but they aren’t the people with whom many of us cross paths. The majority have been trained to diagnose and treat, not ask questions (unless for the purpose of diagnosis) and explore.
In your experience working at the Western Mass RLC or elsewhere, have you found it realistically possible to facilitate ‘recovery’ from emotional distress without subscribing to any one “mental health model”?
Yes, it is absolutely realistic to facilitate healing without subscribing to any one model or approach. What allegiance to a model is needed to simply be with someone? What allegiance to a model is necessary to ask someone questions about their life and how they’ve come to understand things? Why would I need someone to squeeze themselves into a ‘medical’ or ‘trauma’ box in order to talk through creative next steps to issues that are coming up for them? The whole idea of ‘models’ comes from a systems/education angle, and much less a human one. Perhaps those activities don’t sound like they’re about facilitating a process of healing, but most people who’ve ‘been there’ will tell you otherwise. It’s probably worth us taking note that many much less developed nations seem to have much higher rates of this thing we called ‘recovery,’ and they certainly aren’t spending a lot of time wondering which ‘model’ is the right one.
Beyond the Medical Model does not claim to have all of the answers, and instead asks questions. Have you found, as a result of the questioning, that answers are appearing?
The answer is that there is no (one) answer. That’s kind of the point of the whole thing. The answer is that we do far more harm by deciding what the answer is and forcing it on someone else than we do by not claiming to have any answer at all. The answer is that the answer is different for each person in some way. And so, yes, the answers are coming in that, each day, there are people who are making discoveries about themselves that are a part of changing their lives. The answers will always be coming as long as there are people who are supported to have the space to seek them out.