This blog is dedicated to anyone who is working in the allied helping professions: counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychiatric techs, psychiatrc nurses, case managers, psychologists, psychiatrists and any other professionals who work in the system but want to change the system from within.
This blog is dedicated to anyone who has received mental health services or has had a loved one receive mental health services and yearn for something better.
This blog is open to all critical thinking, engaged and curious citizens who are interested in learning more and becoming part of the movement.
This movement is revolutionary. It is provocative, controversial, forward-thinking and progressive.
It calls for a paradigm shift. But we are not alone. Many compassionate, intelligent thinkers from inside and outside the field have paved the way for us. The concepts are not new, but they are not mainstream.
The message or idea behind my blog is simple: Let's bring dignity, respect, integrity, freedom, responsibility and choice to mental health. I do not believe in the disease/medical model of "mental illness." The absurdities and atrocities that occur in the mental health system include but are not limited to the proliferation of mental disorders in the DSM, the fact that psychiatry is in bed with psychopharmaceutical drug companies as well as the ridiculous health insurance industry and their managed care, better known as "mangled care," not to mention the criminalization and pathologization of entire population segments.
Mental health issues are human rights and social justice issues.
We must demand equal access to quality, effective, confidential, compassionate, culturally-sensitive mental health treatment for all who seek services.
Thank you for reading the first post to the "Is It Just Me Or..."blog.
Diverse views are always welcome. Open, tolerant minds engaged in dialogue is crucial.
This blog is written in the spirit of positive change/pro-mental health and not a negative/anti-movement. Please pass this along to anyone you think might be interested.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Best,
Raquel "Rae" Ornelas
Hey Rae,
ReplyDeleteI like your blog site and your thoughts on our profession of counseling, with emphasis on healthy growth and development as effective prevention against unpleasant and too often disabling bio-psycho-social issues.
Hi Lew!
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to read my blog and post a message. Your positive support is much appreciated.
Please come back and post! It's this type of engaged dialogue that we need to create change.
I can't wait to hear amore about you, what you do in your neck of the woods for mental health and human rights and social justice!
In peace,
Rae
Hi Rae,
ReplyDeleteI think it is great that you are taking a stand for many mental health patients and also the workers who believe there can be better. It seems like now even the mental health field has gotten to be about money and the "quick fixes". I am currently a psychology student at Kaplan University, and I myself have had a little experience with mental health professionals. Some seem to just not care anymore about the individual. It is great that you are using your knowledge and experience to make a difference. I hope to one day be able to do the same. The best of luck to you.
Debbie
Hi Debbie!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your support!
One of the goals of this blog is to create a community of interested and engaged people to include professionals such as clinicians, professors and researchers as well as mental health consumers, advocates, journalists and students, at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Good luck to you on your educational journey.
This is a really exciting time to be a part of the movement for positive change.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Best,
Rae
Hi Rae,
ReplyDeleteThis is an awesome beginning and a wonderfully provocative post questioning the status quo that is so in need of questioning. Thank you for bringing these thoughts and ideas to the fore.
I would love to see you gain even more exposure for your blog. If you are a dues-paying member of The William Glasser Institute and would like to take a week and blog on our site, then you could link back to your blog and have the CT community exposed to your work. Let me know if you're interested.
Keep it up. I'm going to follow you!
Hi Rae,
ReplyDeleteliving at the other side of the ocean doesn't put me in the best position to discuss the issues of the American mental health system.
However, I really appreciate your unconventional approach and I am looking forward to see how the discussion unfolds here on your blog.
Hi Rocky,
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of a paradigm shift.
Conventional psychology knows so little about who were are, and and conventional Western thought is so closed to known paths that can help expand that knowledge. A little revolution sounds inviting.
Hi Rae!
ReplyDeleteAn intriguing beginning to something we are looking forward to!