Vol. 1 No.2 1972
This is the second issue of Madness Network News this issue larger and printed in a different way. Each issue will probably look a little different as we test out new ideas for communicating our information and art. The newsletter is intended to be personal and informal. There is no editor, staff, etc.—- just a group of friends doing it as it happens (although it’s not just happening, we’re making It happen—there wouldn’t be a newsletter if we weren’t). Anyone who wishes to contribute is asked to do so because that’s what the whole thing is about and that is the only way it is going to continue to happen. We are particularly interested in printing the kinds of things everyone thinks about, but that very few really talk about, at least publicly, especially those things concerning the “knots”/Catch 22’s/mind catch of the psychiatric system.
We received some great mail from people who read the last newsletter that we felt really good about. We haven’t the resources to answer the letters personally, but they sure are an energizer (especially the ones with the $ in them—we have very little money to put this out).
Keep the cards and letters coming…Also a lot of energy about this newsletter together is from women, particularly since women make up such a large proportion of the psychiatric patient population and such a smaller proportion of the profession.
Sherry Hirsch
Madness Network News is being distributed free to patients and staff of psychiatric treatment centers and alternative centers in San Francisco, Berkeley, Marin and the Peninsula. We also have a mailing list if you wish to be on it a $2.00 donation is requested in order to pay for mailing and printing. If you’ve received the newsletter in the mail without a donation, please send one in soon otherwise we won’t continue to send you one. Any additiona1 contribution you wish to make will be greatly appreciated. Madness Network News will be appearing approximately once a month, or so.
Our address is:
MADNESS NETWORK NEWS
P.O. BOX 684
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
94101
The cover is a Tibetan woodblock print, “Guardians of the Chopping Grounds,” carved by Roger Williams, a resident of Kathmandu, Nepal. In old Tibet the dead were chopped and left for vultures and dogs.
A copy of this or other designs
by Roger Williams available through:
Marc Goldberg
Box 122
Cloverdale, Cal
95925
If you wish to contribute anything to the newsletter for publication, please make it legible (typing not necessary) and let us know if you want it returned. If you want it returned, please send us a stamped, self-addressed envelope. In the future (it looks as if it may be the distant future) we hope to be able to pay some of our contributors for their work, although we are not able to do so now.
JOBS
This column is empty because we do not have anything to put in it. If you have information about any of the following please let us know!
- Relevant and meaningful paid positions in the mental health field in both established and alternative facilities.
- Volunteer positions that have the potential of becoming paid positions, particularly for ex “mental patients.”
- Employers who are willing to hire persons with a history of psychiatric hospitalizations.
- Ideas for money generating projects that could be developed.
A BERKELEY ALTERNATIVE
People interested in alternatives for Berkeley mental health are now working together to form an acute residential crisis programs an alternative to state hospitals. The community needs your ideas and energies for this project. If interested come on Sundays at 8:00 p.m. to 1509 Henry St. Berkeley. For further information call John or Peter at 848-9241
LUNATIC OF THE MONTH
(Each issue we will select a “lunatic of the month.” Winners are chosen in a totally arbitrary manner send in your lunatic to us today!!) This month’s prize goes to a well employed Hollywood actor who usually plays “bad guys” in B movies. Our lunatic is quoted from the following excerpt from the October 22, Chronicle.
THE GUYS that interest me are the unpredictable ones. Psychotics appear to be normal. see? Psychotics have no feelings. They can cut your throat and not think anything of it. We can be sitting here and it all seems very nice, and suddenly some guy takes out a knife and slashes you across the head out of nothing. That’s the behavior I like in a film. He was in London partially on honeymoon, partially to boost “The Godfather.”
Found in a fortune cookie………………….
“The need for the constant use of outer causes was found to be a projected outward meta-program to avoid taking personal responsibility for portions of the contents of his own mind.”
John Lilly
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Anyone wishing to “announce” something that may interest those of us in the network, please send your announcement to this newsletter. If you have an idea you would like to see actualized and want people to help or know about, write up your idea/project and send it and we will print it in this column. Anyone who has a service that they are “selling” we ask a donation or barter for a placement of an ad—further information regarding this can be gotten by writing us.
AAAIMH CHAPTER STARTING
A Northern California chapter of the American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization, Inc. Is being formed. Interested parties may direct inquiries to AAAIMH through The Frank Gallery, 629 Sutter Street. San Francisco, 94102.
Leonard Roy Frank will speak about AAAIMH to a law and psychology seminar in Room 401, Psychology building at SF State College, 19th and Holloway at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday November 14th. He will also address members and guests of George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation. 1471 10th Ave., S.F. at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday November 16. His subject there will be “Tom Szasz: 20th Century Tom Pains.” Following each talk there will be comments and questions from the audience. The public is invited to both events.
PSYCHOSIS FESTIVAL
Plans are continuing for the Festival of Creative Psychosis, to be held in Spring 1973 in the San Mateo area. A committee of eight has been meeting monthly. Personal contact by committee members will be made on the wards to collect artwork and publicize the festival. We need more people to work on the Festival. Meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month at 30 Channing Road. Burlingame, Ca, at 7:00 p.m.
Tullia Tesauro
ATTENTION VIDEO FREAKS, FILM FREAKS, FREAK FREAKS:
The San Francisco Association for Mental Health is sponsoring a film festival, “Focus Mental Health” for May 1973 and is inviting film makers to participate. Prizes will be awarded in two categories and anyone is eligible to enter. Category one is for films (8, Super 8 and 16) or video tape of 30 seconds or less duration. Selected films in this group will be promoted—–for T.V. use as spot announcements through the sponsorship of the Association. Prizes in the amount of $2,100 (cash and equipment) will be awarded. The judges will be chosen from outstanding Bay Area film makers or curators of films. Th subject for the film/video is “mental health.” More specific details can be found out by contacting
John Williams, Chairman of the Film Festival Planning Committee at:
San Francisco Association for Mental Health
Van Ness Avenue S.F., California, 94102
COLLECTIVE THERAPY CENTER
4222 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, California 94306
(415) 493-1114
- Barbara Almond, M.D.
- Richard Almond, M.D.
- John Asher, M.D.
- N.L. Genevieve Dishotsky, B.A.
- Hilda Kessler, M.S.
The Collective Therapy Center is now opening in Palo Alto for private psychiatric, psychological and psychotherapeutic services for all income groups at fees adjusted to ability to pay (they say they are also interested in bartering goods or services for treatment). The kinds of services the Center plans are brief and extended individual therapy, group therapy, couple therapy and family therapy. Projects planned are: dance movement classes, consultation to individuals and groups pursuing alternative family arrangements (such as communes) training of non-professionals as therapists, close collaboration with community agencies providing services to particular populations in the community, establishment of an “outpatient therapeutic community” or network using the Center as a base. The staff that runs the center describes themselves as follows:
“Most central to our work is the spirit of a group of congenial individuals who care about therapy and those they treat. We believe this spirit enhances therapy. We are also strongly pragmatic and know that our spirit requires sound organizational support.”
This page contains information we received about new things happening.
ALTERNATIVE VIEWS OF “MENTAL ILLNESS” A DROP-IN EVENING
Recovering from schizophrenia, depression, and other forms of “mental illness” are strongly affected by the negative medical and cultural views. Let us together share our experiences and explore and research other views: R.D. Laing, the megavitamin people, hypoglycemia, nutritionists, Stan Groff, Julian Silverman, and the views of other cultures. I welcome professionals, individuals, and families who, like myself, have had personal experiences with “mental illness.”
Dates: Tuesday evenings in October, November, and December, starting October 17.
Time: 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Place: 716 Arguello Blvd., San Francisco
Leader: Janica Fox
Cost: $5 per session. If money is a problem, please call Janica Fox at 346-2395.
Arthur and Janica Fox were resident fellows of Esalen and have been on the Esalen encounter staff for four years.
What your mother never told………..they will.
SAN FRANCISCO SEX INFORMATION
(415) 665-7300
San Francisco Sex Information announces the opening of its information and referral service. The service is for people who want facts about any or all aspects of Human Sexuality, including questions about sex definitions, sex problems, and referral for such concerns as VD. Unwanted pregnancy, pregnancy, counselling and birth control. Factual information is provided to the community in an anonymous way via telephone. The service is run by three professional staff members who are also members of the staff of the University of California Sex Advisory and Counseling Unit and 20 well-trained volunteers. “We believe that the community is entitled to easily available information about sex, especially honest answers to real questions.
Hours: M, W, Th, F: 6-9 p.m., & Tues, 2-5 p.m.
SFSJ STAFF: Toni Ayros, Maggi Rubenstein, Carolyn Smith
Dr. Caligari’s Column
Thorazine——–Paregoric* For the Mind?
The bell rings, or there is an announcement over the public address system of the ward, or there is a staff member calling out your name, or you simply see everyone slowly making their way to the nursing station……… “take it, your doctor ordered it—come on that’s a good boy/girl, it will help you, you want to get well don’t you???”
“A certain degree of practiced art in interpersonal persuasion is necessary in dealing with patients who resist indicated medication.”**
Babies are energy—adults are less energy. By the time we are three years old we have made important, seemingly irrevocable decisions about how we are going to
relate to our own psychic energy. We have decided/been told how we will show, express, experience, utilize, conceal or over adapt to our innate energy and we all have our own act/movie/drama or melodrama with which we relate to the world. Some people never get angry, some always get angry. Others spend frenetic hours frightening themselves or carefully arranging their set so they will get hurt and then suffer or whine and give themselves permission to control the next hurt by making it happen just like the last……. And the show goes on, the wheel turns and some of us have been programmed to get depressed, others to act crazy and some spontaneous and real. What happens when one “psychotic” juiced up person enters the mainstream of over adapted, controlled, compromised life back in the U.S.A. The experience of the meeting of these two worlds is like the stare of animals, that is when two animals meet and stare, either the animals fight or there is a dominance/submission ritual whereby the hierarchal nature of the relationship is acknowledged. In the U.S.A. psychiatry dominates and the person restrained, put into seclusion, of given 50 mg of Thorazine in the Gluteus Maximus and told just where things are at, where they should be.
Meanwhile “your” local community mental health center usually relates to the energy released in the “psychotic” process in negativistic, pre-determined, prior programmed manner. It is as if the person in the psychotic space has diarrhea of the mind and the object is to stop the flow and restore normal mind movements, thus making it more comfortable for all those involved.
Anyway, enter Thorazine (or some other “anti-psychotic” medication), stage left, as an energy “binder.” (Have you ever been in driver education class in high school
Where the gym teacher is in the front seat of the drivers ed car teaching you how to drive a stick shift Plymouth smokes a foul cigar whose smell is second only to that of burning brakes because your friend who is driving forgot release the emergency brake——that’s what Thorazine is kind of like, only the brake is never released and you just have to drive around like that.) I have never been “psychotic” and when I take 50 mg, of Thorazine I feel overwhelmed by the blahs. I feel tired and lethargic, motivated to do nothing. My thinking is turned down from 78 to16 rpms, my mouth is dry and I just don’t care all that much about anything, like being in the Lexington Ave. subway in New York at rush hour and not being sure if I was standing or being held. My experience with Thorazine was repeated with a group of 8 “non-psychotic” volunteers who basically reported a similar experience and had no desire for a repeat performance. If I had taken 100 mg. I would have been asleep in one half hour and yet I have seen people who were 3000 mg. a day, although an average is 400 mg. a day, in an effort to control behavior and normalize thinking.
Drugs are tools and whether or not you help or hurt a person with your tool is your decision about how you are going to give the medication and the other person’s decision about how he/she will take it. You can “tool” others with your tools or be “tooled’ by the people who are using your tools to “tool” you. Part of my training as a psychiatrist was this learning. I now know that people can be helped to work through and resolve their experience of “psychosis/schizophrenia” without any tranquilizers (that’s what I’m doing now), but it requires an output of energy by loving, responsive individuals that is equal to or greater than the amount of energy bound by Thorazine and other drugs in it’s family (Stelazine, Mellaril, Prolixin).
At this point in time there are very limited facilities set up specifically to help people work through “psychotic” experiences and most people who have these experiences have to deal with the psychiatric system at some point in their life. This brings us to the purpose for writing what I’ve written here and what I will write in the future. I will be providing information about tranquilizers that I have access to, in particular so called anti-psychotic drugs, talking about such things as doses, effects, side effects, medical contraindications to (medical reasons why an individual shouldn’t be given the drug) and answers to questions you have about these drugs, also ideas about how these drugs should be used and hopefully personal statements from people who have experienced these drugs and whatever else seems relevant. This means questions should be sent to this newsletter. Also this “column” is not a person, it is a function. Now I am filling the function, if other’s with information, ideas or experiences with “anti-psychotic” medications, or other
related drugs, want to fill that function, that’s fine with me.
Dr. Caligari
“Paregoric is an opium concoction used to treat diarrhea. Paregoric by tradition is used especially for children.”
D. Klein M.D. and J. Davis M.D.
Diagnosis and Drug Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders, p.18.
Sy-lum Sounds
Are you gargling or spitting, O insanity-saturated ward? and rap that nurse for showing smileness; we are here to see hard. Atwake we keep our dreams of sleep because we see life’s seems are cheap.
Marcia Hunt
Written of Gracie Square Hospital
New York
Sweet Air is a chance and a lifetime and isn’t it about life that I listen to music that gets me high on time. I, notwithstanding, hereby check one if not a11 of the following boxes and mail it to F.F. at. P.O. BOX 138 Berkeley Calif. 947O1
- I Want
- I have everything I need thank you
- I get the feeling that there’s something else going on besides all this
- All this and nothing more
- Kiss me
- I would love a copy of SWEET AIR which is the felicity facility’s newly released, non-commercial record of spacey organ meditation or otherskies music which works nicely on headphones and of which KPFA’s Music Director Charles Amirkhanian has said “It’s an indescribably high” environmentally, all-enveloping music—-like inhaling a little too much laughing gas or waltzing up the side of the Eiffel tower.” and for all of that energy I would be more than willing to send you 5 dollars of mine. 5 dollars is too much for me so enclosed is a check for 4 dollars.
“In the distorting mirror of your mind an angel can seem to have a devil’s face.”
-Maulana Majdud
Rough Times formerly the Radical Therapists, has a fairly complete listing of mental patients rights groups and information on mental patients rights in this months issue.
For Myself, And A Friend Returning From Mexico
In Sonora there is dancing in the streets,
The people dress in happiness.
In Boston it is snowing and the people walk in sadness.
Neither is true.
It would be better to live always in a strange country.
Virginia Davis, 1966
TOM SZASZ – FREEDOM FIGHTER
Leonard Roy Frank
“Voluntary mental hospitalization is a species of involuntary mental hospitalization.”
-Tom Szasz
Tom Szasz is an oasis in the desert of modern psychiatry. Last Saturday (October 21, 1972) more than 300 of the thirsty and the not so thirsty gathered around him, and many of them drank of his good will and understanding and were satisfied. The occasion was the second annual meeting of the American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization (AAAIMH), an organization he co-founded 3 years ago with George J. Alexander, Dean of the Santa Clara School of Law, who organized and served as moderator for the all day meeting.
Thoughtful and thought-provoking talks were given by: Roland C. Lowe, Chairman, Department of Psychology, University of Santa Clara: “Psychological Testing as a Means of Labelling the ‘Mentally Ill’”
John Joseph Matonis, Attorney at Law, Washington, D.C.: “Trial of Mental Health Issues: Commitment, Habeas Corpus, Civil Rights, Malpractice.”
Richard T. Roth, Center for the Study of Legal Authority and Mental Patient Status, Inc. (LAMP) Berkeley: “ ‘Emergency/Medical’ Commitment: A Due Process Emergency”
Hon R. Donald Chapman, Presiding Judge of the Municipal Court, San Jose: “Mentally Disordered Sex Offender Laws”
Edward R. Steinman, Assistant Professor of Law, Santa Clara University:
“Psychiatric Disposition in Juvenile Cases”
Because of space limitations the rest of this report will focus on Tom Szasz, who without taking anything away from the other speakers and guests, was clearly the standout personality at the conference.
Szasz, for 15 years Professor of Psychiatry, State University of New York in Syracuse, is generally regarded as the most controversial psychiatrist in America today. Just from the titles of a few of his books you begin to understand why – The Myth of Mental Illness, The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement, and Ideology and Insanity: Essays on the Psychiatric Dehumanization of Man. On reading his works the picture fills in quickly: mental illness is a label politically powerful people put on politically weak people as justification for controlling them; coercive psychiatry is a continuation of the inquisition, “with psychotics and schizophrenics replacing heretics and witches, psychiatrists standing in for inquisitors, and treatments as substitutes for tortures.” The essential purpose of both institutions, according to Szasz, is to enforce conformity, to beat back those who step out of line and to intimidate others who would.
But it’s only being with Szasz that you get the full measure of the man. He’s got presence, the glow is there, the eyes sparkle, the wit crackles. The air around him is warmer, and you feel it and it feels good. And all the while this feeling is reinforced by the image you have in the back of your mind the dehumanists of his profession who deny men their dignity, their responsibility, and their most fundamental rights.
Szasz’s topic Saturday was “Voluntary Mental Hospitalizations: An Unacknowledged Practice of Medical Fraud.” From the outset he made his position unequivocal. “Voluntary mental hospitalization is a species of involuntary mental hospitalization.” If hospitalization were truly voluntary, the patient could leave the hospital at his/her discretion, however, the truth is that most state statutes provide that a voluntary may be detained at the discretion of the hospital staff for varying periods up to 30 days, during which time he/she may be involuntarily hospitalized through judicial proceedings. In other words, in these states you are a voluntary mental patient only so long as you do not exercise your rights as such. Just as with involuntary patients, “voluntary patients are in effect prisoners,” and the doctors responsible for their incarceration are nothing but “jailers.” That these white coated jailers justify depriving individuals of their liberty in the name of treatment does not alter, in Szasz’s view, the criminal nature of these acts.
Szasz also pointed out that “voluntary mental hospitalization” Is used by psychiatrists as a “strategy of entrapment.” The intended victim is tricked into hospitalizing himself voluntarily under the threat of being involuntarily hospitalized if she/he does not cooperate. He is made an offer which cannot be refused, which, to Szasz, Epitomizes the tyrant’s approach to human relationships.
In the question and answer period after his talk someone from the audience asked Szasz to comment on the “alleged dangerousness” of mental patients. Szasz Was quick with his reply, “The dangerous people are the psychiatrists: they label dangerous anyone they don’t like.”
Following the meeting I sat in on an interview Szasz gave to a reporter. From his brief encounter I surmised that Szasz has broadened his attack on organized psychiatry. Heretofore the culprit was involuntary psychiatry, which he said was characterized by “the use of force and fraud.” Now he includes his attack voluntary psychiatry, which, while noncoercive, is nonetheless “a form of quackery because it offers cures for which there are no diseases.” So, then it’s not just involuntary mental hospitalization Szasz seeks to abolish- he wants to do away with the whole kit and caboodle. He put it this way, quotation psychiatry, as we know it, can’t be reformed: it must be abolished. Is it any wonder that his colleagues, put it mildly, are unhappy with the positions he has taken. If he had his way, they, the psychiatrists, the real priests of modern society, would be collectively defrocked.
In concluding I said to him, “We are agreed that ‘mental illness’ is not the name of the problem, but what is the name of the problem?” Our eyes met, Steady and hard. He said, “there is no name” and asked, “In Judaism, what is it that has no name?” I answered, and he said. “Now you have it.”
When I first came out of Agnews State Hospital, I lived for three months at El Camino House, The halfway house of Mental Health Recovery, Inc. in Belmont, California. I also lived in a house in the Satellite Housing Program of Mental Health Recovery for a month after that before moving out on my own. My experience in these programs was the first time I felt a really close bonds of community with a group of people. I was ready for the experience, and I am grateful that these programs were there for me when I was ready for them. I really have never before or since felt such an intense bond of community feeling. Desperation really drives people into each other, I think of those times I remember a circle of love, of people together, where individuals knew each other well and the lines of knowing and loving crisscrossed and connected from person to person to form this circle of love I was 28 years old and most of my friends at El Camino house were 18 to 22 years old. I had never really had my adolescent fling, And I had it then, ganging up together to go out for pizza and beer or, since we hadn’t much money, driving to park outside the fence at the drive-in movies to catch the high points of “Mash.” It was my initiation into the hip culture and to a whole new outlook and spirit and life. We used to sit as a group together for hours listening to rock music, with the feeling of almost mystical closeness. I will always remember those days and friends as being of a time of new awakening of human closeness in my life, which had before been marked by much loneliness and feelings of isolation and frustration. It was a bridge to a new full life which I am now embarked upon. Thus, it is with much affection and pride that I write this article to explain to you the programs of Mental Health Recovery, Inc.
Tullia Tesauro
This is a private, non-profit organization which provides rehabilitation services in San Mateo County in the following programs.
Direct Service Programs:
- El Camino house is a transitional residence for men and women 16 years of age and over. Referrals are received from public and private mental hospitals, County mental health services, social agencies comma and private therapists. Nineteen residents are accommodated at 750 El Camino Real, Belmont. This is a “high expectation,” performance oriented Halfway house, with a focus on utilizing existing housing in the community in creating post halfway house living accommodations with built in provision for follow up aftercare. For some individuals, the halfway house leads to fully independent living; others move into the satellite housing program. Planning for the halfway house resident’s discharge is begun at the time of intake and is both an integral part of the house program and a real part of the resident’s expectations. At one time the consideration had been given to the establishment of a low expectation halfway house, where persons could stay an indeterminate period of time, and where the pressure is for movements would be minimal. This idea was given up, however, because it would require pre-judgments upon discharge from the hospital of those who it was thought to be inappropriate for the high expectations halfway house improved much more than expected when placed there. Instead, there are now some low expectations Satellite Units, that is, some persons and Satellite Units who require closer supervision and more frequent staff contact. Thus, special services for the chronic, minimally functioning patient can be provided without setting up a special facility for this purpose.
- Pedregal House is a specialized group treatment residence for adolescents between 16 and 19 years of age. Teenagers with severe behavioral and drug abuse problems are referred by the Juvenile Probation Department, social welfare agencies comma the County mental health programs comma and private psychiatric practitioners.
- The Satellite Housing Program is composed of fourteen small housing units located throughout the country, with each accommodating between 3 and 5 persons. This program is designed to provide living situations and moderate supervision for individuals who can live semi-independently in the community but still require some degree of structure, support, group comma and individual counseling. Since the existence of the Satellite Program the length of stay within the halfway house has been reduced from five and one-half months to three months. Thus, the halfway house has been able to serve a greater number of residents. Another advantage of the satellite program is that there is a greater flexibility of movement. When a resident is undergoing serious crisis, she/he can better fit in , rather than re-hospitalizing.
- Ellsworth House in San Mateo is a research and demonstration project providing a residential alternative to jail for local offender.
- Redwood House is a proposed alternative to hospitalization. It is to be a community based residential treatment facility designed to provide short term intensive psychiatric treatment services, including close liaison with County regional mental health services for persons with an acute disability, who would ordinarily be hospitalized at Chope Community Hospital or in a state hospital.
The concept of providing intensive 24-hour psychiatric treatment in a non hospital setting is seen as an innovative departure from established and traditional patterns of care and one which could potentially significantly modify the use of County inpatient facilities, as well as the use of state hospitals.
A capacity of 20 persons (both men and women) is projected for this residence. The population served may consist of persons who have never been hospitalized before and those who have had an extensive history of psychiatric hospitalizations.
Services would include individual and group crisis treatment as necessary. During the week, various kinds of evening groups will be conducted by house staff and/or staff from the County Regional Mental Health Center. These groups would have the primary purpose of helping the person to progress toward a planned next step residential situation, return to home and family, or movement to the longer-term community facilities as described so far. Acceptance of the individual would be contingent upon the availability of space and the absence of excludable symptoms. This facility would be located in the southern part of San Mateo County, which, statistics indicates, is an area responsible for a great deal of the utilization of state
institutions and has within it some of the most needy populations at risk for social breakdown and institutionalization.
Indirect Services:
Program evaluation and research involve an in-depth study of the techniques and results of the programs, a follow-up study, and research into special problems such as the treatment of the “chronic schizophrenic [sic]” patient.
Education and training are conducted with graduate social work students from Fresno State College and undergraduate students from colleges throughout the country who do their field work training in the various programs of the agency. One of the primary goals of Mental Health Recovery is to provide services which can serve as a model for other communities wishing to establish similar programs a giant step in that direction was made when the organization was chosen one of 12 halfway houses serving emotionally disturbed persons out of a possible 200 in the country to be studied by the Joint Information Service of the American Psychiatric Association and the National Association for Mental Health. This selection meant that Mental Health Recovery’s program was considered a prototype of a well run and effective service. The results of the study were published in a book entitled “Halfway Houses for the Mentally Ill” by Raymond M. Glasscote, Jon E. Gudeman and Richard Elpers. An article describing the satellite housing program entitled “Expanding the Concepts of the Halfway House: A Satellite Housing Program” by Charles Richmond, ACSW, Executive Director of Mental Health Recovery was published in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry. Vol. 16, No.2. 1970. A new volume edited by H. Richard Lamb, M.D. entitled Psychiatric Rehabilitation in the Community, is being published by Josey Bass, San Francisco. The book includes a chapter on rehabilitative housing by Charles Richmond.
Tullia Tesauro
This issue of Madness Network News just concentrating on some mental health services available in San Mateo County. In future issues we will describe services in other areas of the Bay. Our main focus is not to provide a listing of all services available, but rather to describe unique more interesting services within a particular area. For example, this month we describe a “transitional care” system in San Mateo, another month we may concentrate on community inpatient care in San Francisco. By doing this we hope to fill together a complete picture of the kinds of services available.
The next issue of Madness Network News will contain more, of what we are not sure of yet. If you want to have a say of what it will be, then let us know. Process is our most important product…….
