Road to Recovery: Employment and Mental Illness

To download the entire report, please click here.

Also see:

National Alliance on Mental Illness

NAMI Principles of Support

National Alliance on Mental Illness (United States)

Principles of Support

• We will see the individual first, not the illness.

• We recognize that mental illnesses are medical illnesses that may have environmental triggers.

• We understand that mental illnesses are traumatic events.

• We aim for better coping skills.

• We find strength in sharing experiences.

• We reject stigma and do not tolerate discrimination.

• We won’t judge anyone’s pain as less than our own.

• We forgive ourselves and reject guilt.

• We embrace humor as healthy.

• We accept we cannot solve all problems.

• We expect a better future in a realistic way.

• We will never give up hope.

Source

Empirical Support for the Family-to-Family Program

From the This Month's Highlights section of the June 2011 edition of Psychiatric Services:

Family- and consumer-driven care is at the center of a transformed system. Family members play important roles in the lives of most adults with serious mental illness. They need information and skills to help their loved one, as well as the support of others to fulfill their caregiver role without being overwhelmed by distress and burden. The Family-to-Family Education Program (FTF), introduced in the early 1990s by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is the most widely disseminated mutual-support program for family members of people with mental illness.

Although an estimated 250,000 family members have participated in FTF, little research has focused on family selfhelp. In the lead article this month, Lisa B. Dixon, M.D., M.P.H. [pictured], and colleagues report the results of the first randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of FTF, which involved assignment of 318 family members from five Maryland counties to FTF or a waiting list. At three months (course termination), FTF participants had significantly greater improvements in problem-focused coping, as measured by empowerment and illness knowledge. Their emotion-focused coping was also significantly enhanced, and they had less distress and better problem- solving skills. These empirical findings confirm the word-of-mouth popularity of FTF among participants, the authors note, and provide support for consideration of brief family-driven educational programs as an evidence-based practice (page 591).

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Also see:

Strengthening Families Together

A new schizophrenia brochure from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

Please click on the image to magnify it.

To download the entire brochure (PDF), please click here.

Also see:

National Alliance on Mental Illness

NAMI launches new schizophrenia website and brochure

An article posted on April 1st by News-Medical.net:

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has launched a new website on schizophrenia and published a new brochure on the medical condition which affects more than 2.4 million American adults each year.

Onset of schizophrenia often strikes men in their late teens or early twenties, while appearing in women in their late twenties or early thirties. The cause and course of treatment are different for each individual.

"NAMI has launched the new schizophrenia website and published the new schizophrenia brochure to provide up-to-date information to individuals, families and others," said NAMI Executive Director Michael Fitzpatrick.

"Everyone should know the nature of schizophrenia and its symptoms. Everyone should know the latest medical thinking on prevention, triggers and treatment."

The schizophrenia brochure can be downloaded from the website at www.nami.org/schizophrenia or ordered in packets of 25 copies each for local groups, physician offices, health fairs, conferences or workplace education.

The website highlights two areas of recent research relating to onset of schizophrenia:

• "Fish oil" supplements may help prevent psychosis during critical years of brain development. Further studies are needed, but NAMI Medical Director Ken Duckworth advises individuals in their teens or twenties with early symptoms of psychosis to take Omega-3 fatty acids—available in supermarkets and pharmacies. There appear to be few risks compared to the potential benefit.

• Smoking marijuana is increasingly seen as a causal factor that can trigger onset of schizophrenia in some people. NAMI cites three studies published in February and March 2011. As an environmental factor, marijuana is believed to "trigger" genetic factors, increasing the risk of psychotic incidents and ongoing experiences.

The schizophrenia web site includes discussion of anosognosia, more commonly known as a lack of insight. Individuals may lack awareness of their own illness—believed to be the result of problems with neurological processes in the frontal lobe of the brain. The condition can lead to tension within families and complicate treatment.

NAMI offers education and support programs to individuals and families confronting schizophrenia.

SOURCE: National Alliance on Mental Illness

Eleanor Owen's tireless battle for mental-health care

An article published in the March 12th edition of The Seattle Times:

Having a son with schizophrenia, Seattle's Eleanor Owen knows firsthand the heartache and worry families face. She joined others to found the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

By Maureen O'Hagan

HE IS your child.

You watch him go from artist to hermit, from scholar to stranger. He starts sleeping in the basement, in a box. You tell yourself it's an adolescent phase.

He walks the streets, barefoot and disheveled, a blanket around his shoulders and letters shaved into his head. Could it be drugs?

Then one day you find a noose he'd hung from a pipe.

Another day, he gets arrested after creating a disturbance at the train station, trying to get from Seattle to San Francisco on a movie-ticket stub.

Eleanor Owen [pictured] was teaching and staging children's plays. Her husband, John, was an engineer. They were well-educated and comfortable and endlessly resourceful. Yet they felt helpless.

Their son's life, Eleanor says, "became more and more tragic."

At some point, she realized two things.

Her son had schizophrenia.

And she would fight for him with all her might.

To read the entire story, please click here.


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In Our Own Voice

For further information on In Our Own Voice, please click here.

The Soloist: A Call to Action

A press release from the National Alliance on Mental Illness:

April 23, 2009

Arlington, VA— The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has launched a new Web site, www.nami.org/soloist, as part of a social action campaign with Participant Media surrounding Friday’s release (April 24) of The Soloist, starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr.

"The movie will help humanize people who live with schizophrenia and are homeless," said NAMI executive director Mike Fitzpatrick. "It will help people look beyond stereotypes and create better understanding of the challenge for treatment and recovery."

"The mental health care system is in crisis. After people exit theaters and leave popcorn behind, we want to translate new awareness into action."

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that affects about 2 million Americans—twice the number living with HIV/AIDS.

The Soloist is based on the true story of the unlikely friendship between Nathaniel Ayers, a street musician living in Skid Row, and Steve Lopez, a columnist with the Los Angeles Times. In a series of columns, Lopez reports on Ayers’ journey as a gifted student from the Julliard School of Music to the streets of Los Angeles, living with schizophrenia.

On NAMI’s special Web site, visitors can:

• Watch The Soloist trailer

• Test their schizophrenia knowledge

• Listen to Dr. Ken Duckworth, NAMI’s medical director, answer questions about schizophrenia, diagnosis and recovery
  

• Learn more about NAMI’s education programs

• Alert state and national representatives to NAMI advocacy goals

• Register for a local NAMIWalk to support people living with mental illness

OTHER RESOURCES

Participant Media: Take Part

NAMIWalks

NAMI Schizophrenia Report

NAMI 2009 Grading the States Report

Photograph of Nathaniel Ayers and cellist Yo-Yo Ma (2007) courtesy of G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Grading the States 2009

From the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI):

A Report on America’s Health Care System for Adults with Serious Mental Illness

Mental health care in America is in crisis. The nation’s mental health care system gets a dismal D. As the nation confronts a severe economic crisis, demand for mental health services is increasing -- but state budget cuts are creating a vicious cycle that is leaving some of our most vulnerable citizens behind. We must move forward, not retreat ...

For more information, please click here.

For a video, please click here (Windows Media Player).


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Misunderstanding Defines Most Americans' View of Schizophrenia

From the August 15th edition of Psychiatric News:

By Eve Bender

Services and support are seriously lacking for people with schizophrenia and their caregivers, according to the results of a recent NAMI poll.

Schizophrenia is an oft-misunderstood disorder that remains shrouded in mystery, according to the results of a poll released by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in June.

The survey, titled "Schizophrenia: Public Attitudes, Personal Needs: Views From People Living With Schizophrenia, Caregivers, and the General Public," examined attitudes about the disorder from the perspectives of those who have firsthand knowledge of the illness as well as the general public.

To read the entire article, click here.

Also see:

Schizophrenia: Public Attitudes, Personal Needs

Schizophrenia: Twice as Common as HIV/AIDS, But Survey Shows Americans Misinformed