These too are ways that the survivors of abuse decide not to face their own feelings, and instead to abuse other survivors. Anyone who wants to deal with the epidemic of distress and despair in our society should engage deeply with Jo Watson's work and this massively important book.

a question that encourages the framing of distress as an understandable reaction to trauma, adversity, or just the struggles we all face as human beings in a difficult world. In other words, way too many therapists are way too quick to fall in line and defer to the authority of the medicator instead of challenging thought content and issues surrounding the diagnosis; this is a huge mistake and clear detriment to the persons in the system. So therefore, in many ways, this book started to become somewhat revolutionary for me the more I read.

Because for me it feels like if we are not careful we might end up moving further away from encompassing a more holistic idea such as recognition of the variety of psychological diversity within all of us. I guess I’ve set this challenge for myself (and it is very frustrating and disheartening when others don’t understand what I’ve been through–or worse they couldn’t be bothered to listen). We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. This book brings together psychologists, counsellors, psychotherapists and users and survivors of services to propose answers to these questions.

event in Birmingham, with psychologist Dr Lucy Johnstone, to explore (and explode) the culture of psychiatric diagnosis in mental health.As a survivor of a narcissistic family, I know that the system gains power through the “divide and conquer”-method. I hear and read everywhere: ‘I AM [fill in the manufactured psych diagnosis]’, and ‘I HAVE [fill in the manufactured psych diagnosis]’.

It was February 2016, the UK-EU referendum debate was beginning to warm up and my tolerance for absorbing toxic tweets and frustrating Facebook posts was dwindling fast. Feeling dark gloomy and lost- in amongst a darkness of thought and emotion— obviously needs- light – all i get in my mind -and thoughts – visual- are a small group of psyches chuckling – giggling away- after having made sure all the lights are off- and their crouched- watching behind a cover- the person- who needs the light to see- stumbling around in the dark- where they were once – free at least- and are now incarcerated in the dark- with no freedom. This is exactly the message that the self proclaimed “holistic psychologists” have been spewing as truth for decades now, especially the “holistic” psychologists who like to profiteer off of covering up sexual abuse of small children for the religions, like my former psychologist. come from a variety of backgrounds: they are professionals, survivors, ‘service users’, carers and people with a general interest in the debate.

I made my Recovery in (detail removed) in 1984 as a result of (carefully) coming off strong medication with the help of Psychotherapy. Jacqui’s survival of childhood abuse and subsequent experiences of using psychiatric services inform her work, and she is an outspoken advocate and campaigner for trauma informed approaches to madness and distress. It examines the question of who decides what is normal and why do we perhaps judge and reduce people who are so often going through an authentic, understandable, emotional struggle with trauma? Despite the progressive image conveyed by British critics of psychiatry (both professionals and survivors), the biomedical discourse in the UK is still deeply embedded in public consciousness and actively promoted in anti-stigma campaigns and media reporting. I am serious about my Funding Request, and hopefully making a contribution to UK Mental Health Recovery.