CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON AND BEYOND “CHANGE” IN MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ...15 AND 16 NOVEMBER 2017

19 Oct 2017

A Two-Day Conference organised by the School of Applied Social Studies and the Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College Cork, in association with the Critical Voices Network Ireland

 The conference aims to explore and debate critical perspectives on and beyond:

• What do we understand by ‘better’ mental health services?
• Do we need mental health services at all? If so, what should they look like? If not, what other ways are there?
• The politics of changing mental health services

This conference, now in its 9^th year, is unique as it is free for all participants and it involves people from diverse backgrounds (self-experience, survivors, professionals, academics, carers) presenting, discussing and debating critical and creative perspectives on and beyond the dominant bio-medical approach. The 2010 conference saw the launch of the Critical Voices Network Ireland (CVNI), a network of people interested in considering and developing responses to human distress, which are creative, enabling, respectful and firmly grounded in human rights.

• 11.00-12.00 Jay Watts: An Environmental Model of Mental Distress.

• 12.00-13.00 Jolijn Santegoeds: Stopping Coercion in Mental Health Care.

• 15.00-16.00 Iseult Twamley: Reluctant Revolutionaries: “Changing from Within” - Experiences of the Irish Open Dialogue Implementation.

• 11.00-12.00 Diana Rose: Making the Most and Dismantling the Worst of Mental Health Services: Reflections on User-led Research and its Implications.

• 12.00-13.00 Oor Mad History Community History and Arts project: Oor Mad History: How to Get Mad and Influence People.

• 13.45-14.45 Jim van Os: Who is Wondering about Mental Health Services and What are Their Suggestions for Change?

 Conference Programme;

Confirmed Keynote Speakers (in alphabetical order):

Oor Mad History are a group of people with lived experience/mad identified, mad positive academics and mental health advocacy workers from Edinburgh, Scotland, interested in the newly emerging field of “Mad Studies”. Jim van Os is Professor of Psychiatry at Utrecht Medical Centre (UMC), The Netherlands, interested and active in mental health care reform. Diana Rose has been a mental health service user all her adult life and is now Professor of User-Led Research at King’s College London, researching mental health services from the perspective of those with mental distress who use such services. Jolijn Santegoeds is a user/survivor of psychiatry, and founder of a protest group in the Netherlands called "Rage against Isolation!". Paul Doherty is CEO at Slí Eile, which supports people to develop a strong foundation for mental health recovery by harnessing the power of intentional residential community, collective enterprise and discovery-based life-planning. Jay Watts is a consultant clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and activist, who has written widely about neoliberalism and the politics around mental health.  

 Book of Abstracts; 

The Conference organisers are Lydia Sapouna, School of Applied Social Studies and Harry Gijbels (retired), Catherine McAuley School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College Cork, Ireland.