MHA Annual Conference 6/9 with Pat Deegan

Balancing the “Duty to Care” with the “Dignity of Risk” Principles of Recovery

Patricia E. Deegan, PhD

Principal, Pat Deegan, PhD & Associates, LLC 

Informed by the experience of her own recovery, Dr. Deegan speaks eloquently about the “conspiracy of hope”, and the essential humanity of all people. Dr. Deegan will also present “Shared Decision Making” a set of tools that help people work collaboratively with their providers to make educated health care decisions based upon personal priorities and preferences.

Bringing the Gifts and Challenges of Open Dialogue to the U.S. – One Community Agency’s Experience

Chris Gordon, MD

Senior Vice President, Clinical Services Medical Director, Advocates, Inc.

Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School

Brenda Miele Soares

Director of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Advocates Inc, Framingham, Massachusetts.

Dr. Gordon and Ms. Miele Soares will share their experience of bringing the Open Dialogue approach to working with people with mental health conditions to the United States. One of the dilemmas which the team has wrestled with has been how to offer people in psychiatric crisis the very best of what the medical system has to offer, while avoiding insofar as it’s possible to do so, the toxicities, disempowerment and other inadvertent impediments to recovery that psychiatric treatment can bring.

Critical Time Intervention – A Tool For Recovery

Alan Felix, MD

Psychiatrist, OnTrackNY@MHA Westchester

Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University’s College of Physicians & Surgeons Faculty

Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research

Medical Director, Riverdale Mental Health Association

Dr. Felix will discuss the value of the Critical Time Intervention (CTI) model as a component of recovery-oriented services.  CTI assists individuals who are transitioning back to the community from institutional settings succeed and move toward independent functioning by teaching concrete skills and providing tailored time-limited supports.  CTI is also a cornerstone of the OnTrackNY program which provides services to young adults in the first year of psychosis.