Recently I was in Brindisi in south of Italy for a meeting on mental health. In this meeting, Two self-help groups of users of psychiatric services spoke about their experiences that I have translated into English to share on this blog. (Sunil Deepak)
"LOVE THE RAINBOW" GROUP
A group of users and family members of mental health services called “Ama L’Arcobaleno”, literally “Love the Rainbow” talked about their group work. Rosalia Ferrnandini, a member of the group made a presentation
This group is heterogenous and the members have different medical care needs. So they are not strictly within the goals of this blog since till now they have never discussed issues related to better understanding of their mental illness and their own medical care needs, but this is another possibility for them in the future. At the same time, this group raises some general issues that are useful for all self-help or self-care groups.
Speech of Rosalia Fernandini
I am going to read my speech as I feel that I am too agitated emotionally to remember all the things that I would like to say. Actually it is not my speech or something written by one or two persons but rather all our group members have contributed to it.
Officially our group “Love the Rainbow” was born on 2 February 2005 when 9 of us met for our first meeting. Beofre this meeting, some of us, on the suggestion of our socisal assistant, we had gone to the neighbouring city of Martina Franca, to attend some meeitngs of a similar group there. Since that experience was positive so we decided to make our own group.
Why did we start our self-mutual support group?
Francesco: “I decided to come to the meetings because I could talk and discuss problems.”
Carmelo: “I came to meet people who face similar problems that I face. People who have never faced these problems can’t understand them.”
Maria: “I like being with othger persons. After my father’s death I was sad. Teresa, one of my friends was coming to this group and I liked it.”
Vincenzo: “I like passing one and half hour with other persons.”
Penelope: “To meet persons who have same problems as I. Medicines are important but it is equally important to communicate.”
Stella: “It is like a window on the world. I used to avpoid so many things. Here in the group I feel at ease. We who have suffered so much we can’t be hypocrites.”
Teresa: “I was ill psychologically and I didn’t feel like doing any thing. I started coming here so that I won’t become completely isolated.
Antonio: “I like it when we make experiences of going around and understanding our environment.”
Manuela: “I liked the group because I felt at home here, it helped me to overcome and face my separation. It is like an anchor, a point of reference. I felt that in the group people loved me.”
Antonio: “In the group I feel free and I can talk to others.”
Teresa: “I was hoping that the group would accept me as I am. The group understood me. Slowly I feel better.”
Giuseppe: “I like talking to peopole, to listen to their stories, that serve me as examples.”
Rosalia: “I participate in the group because I belive in social relationships. For me it is important to have relationships with other persons. I thank the group for having given me this opportunity for meeting others.”
Our basic and shared rules
To be punctual: Being punctual is a sign of affection and respect for others.
Confidential: Everyone is free to tell their secrets, and this would not be possible if people didn’t have confidence that everything they say remains with us as confidential and does not go out.
Democracy: There are no hierarchies in our group, no one is superior or inferior. All decisions are taken on majority vote.
Non-judging attitude: You must never be disrespectful towards others even if you don’t share their positions and ideas.
Committment: We have discussed this rule many times because some of us didn’t accept that others didn’t come to our appointments and it was seen as “lack of committment”. Slowly we are trying to be less rigid about it to find a point of equilibrium so that we do not ask too much from others and at the same time avoid becoming indifferent to each other.
What have we done in these last three years?
We have made many cultural, artistic, educational and just for fun visits. We are attentive towards the nature and the environment. We leqarned about the history of our city and our area. We are also attentive towards health issues. We went for check ups and we attended yoga classes. We go together to cinema and theater. Our most important activity is to help each other.
What do we wish to do?
We have started a news bullettin. Some of us have written poetry and articles. We also have a sports project. We want to meet other self-mutual help groups and share ideas with them. We want information on birth control and family planning. We want to do more cultural visits.
SELF-MUTUAL HELP GROUP OF MARCO CAVALLO CENTRE OF LATIANO
"LOVE THE RAINBOW" GROUP
A group of users and family members of mental health services called “Ama L’Arcobaleno”, literally “Love the Rainbow” talked about their group work. Rosalia Ferrnandini, a member of the group made a presentation
This group is heterogenous and the members have different medical care needs. So they are not strictly within the goals of this blog since till now they have never discussed issues related to better understanding of their mental illness and their own medical care needs, but this is another possibility for them in the future. At the same time, this group raises some general issues that are useful for all self-help or self-care groups.
Speech of Rosalia Fernandini
I am going to read my speech as I feel that I am too agitated emotionally to remember all the things that I would like to say. Actually it is not my speech or something written by one or two persons but rather all our group members have contributed to it.
Officially our group “Love the Rainbow” was born on 2 February 2005 when 9 of us met for our first meeting. Beofre this meeting, some of us, on the suggestion of our socisal assistant, we had gone to the neighbouring city of Martina Franca, to attend some meeitngs of a similar group there. Since that experience was positive so we decided to make our own group.
Why did we start our self-mutual support group?
Francesco: “I decided to come to the meetings because I could talk and discuss problems.”
Carmelo: “I came to meet people who face similar problems that I face. People who have never faced these problems can’t understand them.”
Maria: “I like being with othger persons. After my father’s death I was sad. Teresa, one of my friends was coming to this group and I liked it.”
Vincenzo: “I like passing one and half hour with other persons.”
Penelope: “To meet persons who have same problems as I. Medicines are important but it is equally important to communicate.”
Stella: “It is like a window on the world. I used to avpoid so many things. Here in the group I feel at ease. We who have suffered so much we can’t be hypocrites.”
Teresa: “I was ill psychologically and I didn’t feel like doing any thing. I started coming here so that I won’t become completely isolated.
Antonio: “I like it when we make experiences of going around and understanding our environment.”
Manuela: “I liked the group because I felt at home here, it helped me to overcome and face my separation. It is like an anchor, a point of reference. I felt that in the group people loved me.”
Antonio: “In the group I feel free and I can talk to others.”
Teresa: “I was hoping that the group would accept me as I am. The group understood me. Slowly I feel better.”
Giuseppe: “I like talking to peopole, to listen to their stories, that serve me as examples.”
Rosalia: “I participate in the group because I belive in social relationships. For me it is important to have relationships with other persons. I thank the group for having given me this opportunity for meeting others.”
Our basic and shared rules
To be punctual: Being punctual is a sign of affection and respect for others.
Confidential: Everyone is free to tell their secrets, and this would not be possible if people didn’t have confidence that everything they say remains with us as confidential and does not go out.
Democracy: There are no hierarchies in our group, no one is superior or inferior. All decisions are taken on majority vote.
Non-judging attitude: You must never be disrespectful towards others even if you don’t share their positions and ideas.
Committment: We have discussed this rule many times because some of us didn’t accept that others didn’t come to our appointments and it was seen as “lack of committment”. Slowly we are trying to be less rigid about it to find a point of equilibrium so that we do not ask too much from others and at the same time avoid becoming indifferent to each other.
What have we done in these last three years?
We have made many cultural, artistic, educational and just for fun visits. We are attentive towards the nature and the environment. We leqarned about the history of our city and our area. We are also attentive towards health issues. We went for check ups and we attended yoga classes. We go together to cinema and theater. Our most important activity is to help each other.
What do we wish to do?
We have started a news bullettin. Some of us have written poetry and articles. We also have a sports project. We want to meet other self-mutual help groups and share ideas with them. We want information on birth control and family planning. We want to do more cultural visits.
SELF-MUTUAL HELP GROUP OF MARCO CAVALLO CENTRE OF LATIANO
As the name indicates, this group is made of persons who all receive medical and social services at Marco Cavallo centre of a small city called Latiano. Ms. Maria Conca of this groupo made the following presentation.
We are a new groups, just a few months old but in these few months it has become a community where intensive dialogue is taking place between the service providers and users. We try to look beyond our institutional roles to look at each other and listen to each other as persons for finding solutions to our problems as persons with psychic disturbances.
As a community we are very worried about kind of wrong information that is circulated about psichiatric disturbances. The news about criminal problems often blames depression or psychic problems as the cause of crimes. Thus general public views persons with psychological disturbances with suspicion. Once communities think like this they feel that we should be closed insides sanatoriums.
People also want us to be closed away somewhere for economic reasons. The medicines, psychotherapy, other rehabilitation services all have a cost. Ideally we need a vision of mental health for all the community and not just treatment of persons with psychic disturbances but for economic reasons, people talk of closing us in hospitals. They want us to drugged with psycho-medicines, rather than having us as responsible and active citizens. We need to take back our dignity as autnomous and free subjects, capable of taking care of ourselves and our own futures.
For this reason we need to multiply experiences like this where people meet in self-mutual help groups and helping in moving towards a mental health vision for all the communities, not to go back to the old institutional models of services.
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