“A Disorder for Everyone!” – Exploring the culture of psychiatric diagnosis, creating change.
With Dr Lucy Johnstone and Jo Watson (in association with Mind in Camden).
Friday 3 March 2017 from 9:00-17:30
Hamilton House, 80 Stokes Croft, Bristol, BS1 3QY
With Dr Lucy Johnstone, Jo Watson, and Dolly Sen
Reserve your ticket here.
Friday 10 March 2017 from 9:00-17:30
The Melting Pot, 5 Rose Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2PR
With Dr Lucy Johnstone, Jo Watson, and Jo McFarlane
Reserve your ticket here.
Thursday 8 June 2017 from 9:00-17:30
Amnesty International UK, 25 New Inn Yard, London, EC2A 3EA
With Dr Lucy Johnstone, Jo Watson, and Rai Waddingham
Reserve your ticket here.
These one day Continuing Professional Development (CPD) events are for everyone who is interested in the current debates around mental health. It aims to attract psychologists, counsellors, service users, psychotherapists, mental health support professionals, psychiatrists, people with lived experience, managers and individuals with a personal interest.
Facilitated by Dr Lucy Johnstone and Jo Watson. It is a chance to discuss the critical questions of the day around the biomedical model in mental health.
Lucy Johnstone will summarise current debates and controversies about psychiatric diagnosis. It is increasingly acknowledged, even within the mental health establishment, that categories like ‘schizophrenia’, ‘bipolar disorder’ and ‘personality disorder’ lack validity. The assumption that distress is best understood as disease can have very serious consequences for the individual, their identity, and their path to recovery. Lucy will present alternatives to diagnosis which can help clients to make sense of experiences of distress, however extreme, and which are based on working together to explore personal meaning.
Refreshments are provided.
All hours are valid CPD hours for BACP and UKCP (CPD Certificates will be issued by post on request after the event).
About Lucy Johnstone
Dr Lucy Johnstone is a UK clinical psychologist, trainer, speaker and writer, and a long-standing critic of biomedical model psychiatry. She has worked in adult mental health settings for many years, alternating with academic posts. She is the former Programme Director of the Bristol Clinical Psychology Doctorate, a highly regarded course which was based on a critical, politically-aware and service-user informed philosophy, along with an emphasis on personal development.
Lucy has authored a number of books, (including ‘Users and Abusers of Psychiatry, 2nd edn 2000) articles and chapters on topics such as psychiatric diagnosis, formulation, the psychological effects of ECT, and the role of trauma in breakdown.
Lucy was a contributor to the Division of Clinical Psychology ‘Position Statement on Classification’ 2013. She is currently convening a group of leading UK clinical psychologists and mental health experts who are working to develop an evidence-based and conceptually coherent alternative to the current diagnostic systems.
Lucy is the author of A Straight-Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Diagnosis, and you can follow her on Twitter using the handlebar: @ClinpsychLucy
About Jo Watson
Jo Watson is a psychotherapist, trainer and activist with a professional history the rape crisis movement of the 1990’s. She has worked therapeutically for the last twenty years with people who have experienced trauma. Jo actively challenges the biomedical model in mental health both inside and outside of her work and links distress and mental ill health to psycho-social causes.
Jo believes that in many cases the identification with a ‘diagnosis’ is damaging and counterproductive to a satisfactory healing process and that alternative understandings should be offered.
Jo founded the facebook group ‘Drop The Disorder’ in September 2016 as a place where the issues surrounding the biomedical model can be discussed. Jo is orgainising and promoting “A Disorder For Everyone!” with Lucy which is presently making its way around the UK. Further information about Jo can be found here, and you can follow her on Twitter using the handlebar: @JWpsychotherapy