Looking at Diagnosis: The Simultaneity of Researching and Creating Community

Location

1054

Format Type

Paper

Format Type

Paper

Start Date

12-1-2017 4:10 PM

End Date

12-1-2017 4:30 PM

Abstract

This session shares an ongoing survey/community-organizing project of the East Side Institute (ESI) that began as conversations about psychiatric diagnosis at street fairs in Harlem and Brooklyn, NY, and has now included over 1,000 people in 25 countries. At the ESI, an independent research and training center, we make no separation between the creation of grassroots activities that can support the development of people and the creation of community, and the study/discoveries that can be made through these activities. In 2013, in the midst of the controversy leading up to the publication of DSM V, the staff of the ESI, who were already participating in the conversation amongst professionals, went onto the streets and online to ask ordinary people--the ones most impacted on by the medicalization of mental and emotional health--about their experiences with and thoughts about diagnosis. The survey was: 1) an invitation to the people who responded to the survey to participate in this important public conversation; 2) an invitation to the professionals who were debating the merits of diagnosis to include ordinary people; and 3) a discovery/organizing process to see if we could contribute to the creation of a nascent grassroots, humanistic challenge to what we consider the damaging effects of traditional psychology. In addition to continuing to collect the surveys/have the conversations, we have now been in a process of analyzing them for over a year. This presentation will share the process from street fair to presentations at the APA, including our ongoing work to have the analysis process itself be a part of the emerging conversation and community building.

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Jan 12th, 4:10 PM Jan 12th, 4:30 PM

Looking at Diagnosis: The Simultaneity of Researching and Creating Community

1054

This session shares an ongoing survey/community-organizing project of the East Side Institute (ESI) that began as conversations about psychiatric diagnosis at street fairs in Harlem and Brooklyn, NY, and has now included over 1,000 people in 25 countries. At the ESI, an independent research and training center, we make no separation between the creation of grassroots activities that can support the development of people and the creation of community, and the study/discoveries that can be made through these activities. In 2013, in the midst of the controversy leading up to the publication of DSM V, the staff of the ESI, who were already participating in the conversation amongst professionals, went onto the streets and online to ask ordinary people--the ones most impacted on by the medicalization of mental and emotional health--about their experiences with and thoughts about diagnosis. The survey was: 1) an invitation to the people who responded to the survey to participate in this important public conversation; 2) an invitation to the professionals who were debating the merits of diagnosis to include ordinary people; and 3) a discovery/organizing process to see if we could contribute to the creation of a nascent grassroots, humanistic challenge to what we consider the damaging effects of traditional psychology. In addition to continuing to collect the surveys/have the conversations, we have now been in a process of analyzing them for over a year. This presentation will share the process from street fair to presentations at the APA, including our ongoing work to have the analysis process itself be a part of the emerging conversation and community building.