helpful to anybody who wants to learn more about the many facets of mental health care and treatments.’

Home Page | Jacqui Dillon

This book takes the themes, energy and passions of the AD4E events – bringing together many of the event speakers with others who have stories to tell and messages to share in the struggle to challenge diagnosis. Online Events Online Classes Online Health Classes #counselling #psychiatry #psychology #mental_health 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 Screamwith overwhelming emotional issues typically does not help them. Instead, a psychiatric diagnosis usually

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

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. 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.’ Since then, they have delivered events in towns and cities across the UK, bringing together activists, survivors and professionals to debate psychiatric diagnosis. How and why does psychiatric diagnosis hold such power? What harm it can do? What are the alternatives to diagnosis, and how it can be positively challenged? It 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.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.' Challenging, insightful and often controversial… a truly innovative and valuable book that functions both as a learning resource and an ardent call to arms.’

Drop the Disorder! by Jo Watson | Waterstones Drop the Disorder! by Jo Watson | Waterstones

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.

International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis (UK)– works to promote greater knowledge of the different psychological approaches to psychosis and psychotic experiences – psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioural, arts-based, family and holistic approaches – and their better integration with each other and with pharmaceutical approaches. We want a better deal for everyone who seeks help for emotional distress – better understanding from practitioners and society, better responses and more choices from services and better outcomes from treatments. Our aim is that our publishing reflects these goals. There’s an intruder in our house! Counselling, psychotherapy and the biomedical model of emotional distress 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. 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.

De-medicalising mental illness | BPS

Mad in America– Mad in America’s mission is to serve as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care in the United States (and abroad). Dr Sarah Carr, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Service User Research Enterprise, King’s College LondonAD4E started in 2016 when Jo Watson invited Lucy Johnstone to do a training event in Birmingham. The appetite for challenging the mainstream narrative was huge and by March 2020 we had taken our AD4E day event to 21 cities around the UK and involved many contributors in the process. 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. 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. 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. Thanks for this, I needed something to rekindle my spirit today. It’s always wonderful to read of practitioners who saw the light and align with DTD.