#Eleanor Longden

[quotemadness]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[thoughtkick]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[stay-close]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[quotefeeling]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[perfeqt]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[thehopefulquotes]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[surqrised]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[perfectquote]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[resqectable]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[nightlyquotes]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[rattusn0rvegicus]

Sometimes, when talking about the current psychiatric system, we get lost in anger and don’t look towards alternatives and what a better tomorrow might look like. Here’s some cool mental health/psychiatry reform things that I think are neat (Somewhat US centric bc that’s where I live). Lots of them focus on psychosis, because I think psychosis is a sorely ignored subject in mental health activism.

US Peer Respite Directory - A list of voluntary, community-based, non-clinical crisis support group-home like environments that are staffed by people with lived experience of mental illness and/or lived experiences in the psychiatric system.

Students With Psychosis - A nonprofit that empowers students with psychosis through virtual programming, support groups, etc. They’re run by the amazing Cecilia McGough, an advocate with schizophrenia.

Hearing Voices Network - A network of support groups for people who hear voices, see visions, and have other extreme experiences. Focused on supporting individuals without judgement and giving them a place to explore their experiences and grow from them.

Open Dialogue - An psychosocial approach to psychiatric services that focuses on treating clients with respect, shared decision-making, dialogue between client, providers, and family (if the client wants family involved), and more minimal use of medication.

CommonGround software - A software developed by Dr. Pat Deegan that allows clients to communicate their needs to their providers more efficiently to support shared-decision making. Dr. Deegan has a lived experience of being diagnosed with schizophrenia and believes in personal medicine and med empowerment.

Project LETS - A radical approach to peer support and healing that has a disability justice centered approach, giving people with lived experience a voice and focusing on mutual aid. They provide peer mental health advocates, self-harm prevention, and more.

Integrative Psychiatry - A holistic form of psychiatry that focuses on nutrition, exercise, therapy, and psychosocial factors, where medication is just an aspect of treatment. US database of integrative psychiatrists here.

Soteria Houses - Community homes with peer support that provide residents with personal power, responsibilities, and “being with” residents, that focus on a humane and person-centered approach.

Relating to Voices Using Compassion Focused Therapy - A self-help book by Drs. Eleanor Longden and Charlie Heriot Maitland about managing distressing voices and building a respectful, cooperative relationship with them. Views voices as potential allies in emotional problem-solving rather than enemies.

Clubhouse International - A non-profit organization that gives people with mental illness opportunities for friendship, employment, housing, educational, and medical services all in one place. It was founded by a group of friends who survived a psychiatric hospital together.

Psychosis Research Unit - A group of psychology researchers who are doing research on and developing psychotherapeutic techniques for coping with and managing psychosis, such as CBT for psychosis and Talking with Voices therapy.

[quotemadness]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[thoughtkick]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[swordrogue]

Schizophrenia in HtN

Sometimes I wonder if The Body is real. Or if she is, because this is a fantasy story with ghosts and gods, I think she is supposed to be a parallel to a part of Harrow’s schizophrenia.

In this excellent ted talk, Eleanor Longden describes her experiences with schizophrenia. Most of the terror came from other people’s responses, including medical professionals. She says that the voices came at a time of immense stress, anxiety, and loneliness in college, and provided comfort. They were ambivalent, passively describing the things she did every day (ie. “She is opening the door”) and were an external representation of her internal needs that were going unaddressed. In this case, attention from someone, anyone.

Developing schizophrenia as a child is much more rare and seems to require extraordinary stress/trauma. Which, I think, Harrowhark fits. Born of a massacre, the weight of her civilization on her tiny shoulders, she—everyone, including the 200 children who died for her—needs her to be the perfect prodigy.

What did Harrowhark need, when she decided to open the Tomb and die? She needed a reason to live. Someone to love her, as Gideon had just brusquely reminded her that even Harrow’s mother did not.

And that is what her mind supplied. A woman so perfect Harrow decided to live, just in case she ever woke up. Harrowhark got what she needed, and that is all that matters.

[quotefeeling]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden

[perfeqt]

The relevant question in psychiatry shouldn’t be what’s wrong with you, but what happened to you.

Eleanor Longden