To: s-acc@yahoogroups.com

From: "dis_course" <dis_course@yahoo.com>

Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:38:44 -0700

Subject: [s-acc] Re: n-word

 

Hi

Yesterday I attended the Santa Clara County MHSA "Stakeholder Leadership Committee" meeting. I'm interested in the political dynamics of the new period of "learned helplessness," as adjustment to the MHSA takes place locally and statewide.

State DMH has fallen back on/regressed to the conventional power dynamics that put Mayberg in as Director and provided the "realignment" politics of 1992 onward. They turn inward. At the meeting we had to vote on the County giving back to DMH the operation of three major MHSA initiatives, "suicide prevention," "student mental health," and "stigma and discrimination." It seems their "partnership coalition" can't be revved up these days, the grassroots cannot be managed, as they'd like.

[As I see it] County M.H. Director Nancy Peña, now mentored by Allan Rawland, Behavioral Health Director in San Bernardino Co., is constructing an alternative power base to Mayberg's "old guard." Statewide, as Pres. of the Calif. M.H. Director's Ass'n, she has them sporting a "social justice" committee. [!] That's a direct challenge to how things are now done. And locally she has a grassroots disconnect which I fingered with my "n-word" ploy last month.

I got pulled before the Deputy Director last week and chewed out for "hurting people's feelings" – Nancy’s – for that "n-word" ploy. I also organized, got support from Social Accountability activists/networking, from the system 'rank-and-file'. Yesterday, I announced the APA Referendum result on psychologists being involved in torture; she said publicly then and there that she would directly take responsibility for any torture happening in her domain. And we had a long discussion on "language" viz. the question of the use of the word "consumer."

Globally speaking, the terms of conflict between our activism and the provider advocacy seem to be moving from rights to "behavioral science." Torture (trauma of treatment) is still not 'licensed' conversation, but "influencing attitudes and changing behavior" questions are moving things beyond "empowerment" talk, beyond simple reliance on the rhetoric of 'rights' and 'self-help'.

One can see it coming. We need to absorb it, and work with it, thoughtfully.

 

Andrew

 

 

Andrew Phelps wrote:

On Tues. I attended a County MHSA work group meeting regarding the standing issue of whether "consumers and family members" should be 51% of the leadership, and .. how to achieve that. This specific meeting was for "definitions."

I wore a name tag type badge that said, "N-Word." I cited Phil Cushman's article on Why the Self is Empty where he explains how historically the term "consumer" was adopted and why it is an epiphenomenal choice, a kind of fashion from a certain historical dynamic (roughly, the 'yuppie' phenomenon).