Reimagining Crisis Support: Matrix, Roadmap and Policy by Tina Minkowitz

 

Reimagining Crisis Support: Matrix, Roadmap and Policy

by Tina Minkowitz

About the book

Reimagining Crisis Support: Matrix, Roadmap and Policy aims to change the conversation about personal crisis from mental health discourse to one based in a social model of disability and human rights. It is available from Lilith’s Warrior Press at the website www.reimaginingcrisissupport.org.

Crisis

Instead of being met with punishing abuse in the mental health system, someone experiencing personal crisis should be offered support for making decisions and support to live independently in the community. These kinds of supports are entitlements recognized in Articles 12 and 19 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Community

Crisis can also have interpersonal dimensions leading to conflict or potential violence. Some communities have created practices to resolve conflicts and prevent violence. People who have experienced personal crisis themselves should participate equally in developing these practices to make sure they are relevant and accessible.

Law and Social Change

Legislation and policy should be developed to replace involuntary commitment and coercive paternalism with a solidarity-based response to human needs, not dependent on mental health discourse, practices, funding or supervision.

Matrix, Roadmap and Policy

After explaining the book’s basic premises, a Matrix of human rights is constructed as the scaffolding for crisis support reimagined in contrast to mental health discourse and practices. The Roadmap then links this framework to broad social transformations and tools needed to complete the vision of a society where de-medicalized, de-judicialized crisis support makes contextual sense. This is followed by a discussion of Policy considerations, Appendices, and References.

Author

Tina Minkowitz works at international human rights law from a survivor of psychiatry perspective. She is one of the drafters of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and is currently president of the Center for the Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry. She writes, speaks and networks globally on legal capacity and the abolition of forced psychiatric interventions.

Please contact Lilith’s Warrior Press at:

lilithswarriorpress@earthlink.net

for more information or to request an interview with the author.

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