Wednesday, November 04, 2009

The Accessible Psychiatry Project

We've decided we could use an umbrella organization to explain what we do in a more official capacity. What do you think? And yes, the podcast will be back, we're just trying to keep our heads above water with getting the manuscript done for the book, blogging, and the rest of life!
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The Accessible Psychiatry Project

Encouraging dialogue about psychiatry across media.

Mission Statement:

The Accessible Psychiatry Project strives to encourage dialogue about psychiatric disorders and their treatment in order to explore issues of controversy and misunderstanding in our field. Through open dialogue, in both new media and old, we hope to foster awareness about the work psychiatrists do, and to decrease stigma associated with the treatment of mental disorders.

Components of The Accessible Psychiatry Project include:

Shrink Rap: a blog by psychiatrists, for psychiatrists. April, 2006- present—currently over 1100 posts on a wide variety of mental health topics.

Shrink Rap: http://psychiatrist-blog.blogspot.com/

Shrink Rap gets approximately 2,000 unique visitors per week. Readers are not limited to psychiatrists

My Three Shrinks podcast: a regularly aired show featuring 3 psychiatrists. Other mental health professionals have made guest appearances.

My Three Shrinks: http://MyThreeShrinks.com/

November, 2006- present, 48 episodes aired,

10,000 downloads/month

Featured on the Itunes Medical Podcasts Webpage

ShrinkRapRoy Twitters about technology and healthcare.

ClinkShrink Twitters about issues related to psychiatry and the law.

Off the Couch: Three Psychiatrists Discuss Their Work. In process, to be published by Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.


12 comments:

Jessa said...

I LOVE YOU!

Ahem. I may have been hankering for this. http://www.mentalnurse.org.uk/ is my other go-to source for this sort of dialogue.

The following is a link (a god awful long link, of uncertain reliability, I apologize) to my undergraduate thesis. You are welcome to read the whole thing (I would love that, of course), but the relevant part is the last section, starting on page 30 of the pdf. There I detail my desires for patients and professionals to come together and lay all their cards on the table as they pertain to mental health care, in order to work things out.
http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs27/f/2008/145/7/5/mental_health_care_by_jessainthebox.pdf

Anonymous said...

psychiatrists perpetuate the stigma of mental illness, despite your best intentions. in the same way the military perpetuates the phenomenon of war.

mindfreedom.org

itsjustme said...

I think that your description of Shrink Rap as "a blog by psychiatrists, for psychiatrists" is not entirely accurate. It may have started out that way. However, many of your posts are in response to comments that patients made or questions that we've posed. Thanks for that, by the way.

Anonymous said...

i don't know what to say.

Dinah said...

Jessa, it's nice to be loved!
I looked at your thesis...have to say, I had a little trouble with the comparison of slave owners to psychiatrists...

Anon: It's my fault?

It's justme: That's why we put that readers are not limited to psychiatrists. Turns out we love the interaction with everyone.

Anon 2: say what's in your heart, of course. Maybe as simple as "please pass the chocolate."

Rach said...

I like this idea - I see a lot of excellent research potentially being produced... The more I think about what I want to do with my life, the more I think about psychiatric public health.

Jessa said...

Dinah, do you think it is an unfair comparison to make, or just a stinging one? Remember, psychiatry today is more like racism than slavery; it is that old stuff (lobotomies, chaining patients to things, treating them like zoo animals) that I paralleled with slavery. The point is to talk about it. Mental health care professionals are all about talking, except, it seems, when their profession is the topic at hand. Obviously your Accessible Psychiatry Project would be (is) an awesome step in the direction of getting the professionals to talk about their profession.

ClinkShrink said...

Jessa is right that the profession of psychiatry has things to not be proud of---the superintendent of Bethlem hospital (and other asylums) let visitors pay to look at the "lunatics". German psychiatrists took part in the T4 euthanasia project which was the forerunner to the Holocaust. Soviet psychiatrists were used as jailers for political dissidents.

With every newly discovered advancement in the field, we must remember our full professional legacy.

Anonymous said...

"They" still do labotimies, don't they? Only now they are called "Singleotomies". i'm checking to see if my insurance covers it, if i get desperate enough. ;) (Amost joking...!) Guess maybe i should try ECT first...

Anonymous said...

Don't you folks already have full-time jobs? And occasionally do something frivolous like sleep? I mean, it all sounds fascinating and great but wow.

Sarebear said...

Will the umbrella have your logo all over it? Eww, now I'm picturing standing beneath an umbrella covered in feet, that are now all wet and thus smelly . . . .

Interesting.

And I like the post. And Jessa and Clink's response - I like Clink's response.

On a personal level, I don't know how I'll ever trust a psychiatrist again, but I'm not saying that here to promote the idea that psychiatrists are untrustworthy - just that mine have sucked.

Having just realized as I've been taking myself off Cymbalta and this last week as it's been starting to wear off, realized that the black-box type side-effect had never completely gone away like I thought it had, and so I feel completely screwed over by my shrink, and by this medication, mentally screwed around with on that last. He's an idiot who never followed up after the the initial period of intense suicidal ideation on this medication. Idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot.

Sorry.

Just a bit angry right now. If I didn't know you three via this blog, I'd probably be declaring right now that all psychiatrists sucked. You three give me a glimmer of hope that some day I might find one that doesn't.

Let's hope it's the next one. If I can bring myself to swallow the bile I taste at the thought of seeing one again.

well, far astray I go but then I've had a hell of a week. And other stupid doctors included in that week, ugh.

Rach said...

I'm curious about how you're planning to unroll this project, and whether this would be a community type project, or academic... I don't know if you've thought these details through, but as someone who potentially wants to tackle this area professionally, I'm interested in the various approaches that can be utilized here.

You guys do good work!