the allure of reductionism

what bipolar means to me & 7 great questions

If you missed my messy-yet-heartfelt intro to this series, I’ll be sharing a paper I wrote in the fall of 2019 for my Master of Social Work program at Salem State University (the intro of the paper is the second of three short videos today, the intro linked above gets into the weeds a little more).

Good morning, muses, happy Monday

I thought I would start this series last week and then I was kind of taken down a bit by some viruses flaring up and that was good.

My body really needed to release a lot last week, so there was plenty of crying in addition to respiratory stuff

And I'm feeling good again now which always feels like a rebirth, as anyone who's ever gotten over a head cold knows

And I have finally actually just fairly quickly filmed the full introduction to this paper and will be launching this little series on what bipolar means to me

And meanwhile I'm finishing up the draft of the musical - 44.4 the Musical is its working title at this moment - which is kind of a joke because we're doing this glorified staged reading on the day that I turned 44.4, which is May 23^rd; and it's also not a joke because for a lot of people 444 is an Angel number and for me, for whatever reason it came to me in the night as the day it needed to happen;

And it has been one of the most beautiful, Spirit-led experiences of my life to put this together with these amazing friends and many former students who are now friends and just incredible loving beings that I get to collaborate with;

So. Because there's so much work to do on that, and because I often organize myself through art making and through connection with others,

I collaborated with a beloved friend - one of the soul sisters of my SoulCollage® facilitator training - I just want to give a big shout out to my friend Betsy who helped with a SoulCollage® reading that I did on Saturday morning - she was my witness to this process -and six questions emerged as part of the process that I wanted to be asking myself each day leading up to this first little premiere of 44.4 the Musical

And there's a 7th question that I asked myself when I was thinking about this paper that I wrote; that is the centerpiece of what bipolar means to me … that is going to be in a separate video.

So right now I am going to just read aloud the questions that I am holding in my heart and that I offer to each of you as you are walking through whatever you're walking through today and this week:

· what will instill a sense of living victoriously?

· what action can you take that may seem meaningless to some but will be of the essence for you?

· what will make me happy today?

· how shall I be of joyful service?

· what can I hold more loosely in this moment?

· how is incompleteness/imperfection/betwixtyness serving at this time?

Side note: “betwixtyness” came because one of the SoulCollage® cards that offered that specific question to me is a card that I named Betwixt Heaven and Earth that has a picture of a woman leaping in the air. I really like the word betwixt.

I'll let that be all for today; many blessings.

Social Welfare Policy

KENDRA’S LAW: IS THIS THE BEST WE CAN DO?

Hannah Lynn Mell

Salem State University

December 2019

Introduction: The Allure of Reductionism

Over the course of its history, the United States has employed a variety of approaches toward treating mental illness¹. Each has aimed to ensure that mental illness does not pose a serious threat to those afflicted, to those close to them, or to society at large. Some approaches have offered short term, “band-aid” solutions while others have aimed to effect long lasting recovery. Some have relied on institutionalization while others have touted recovery in society. Some approaches have advocated coercion when an individual does not comply with standard treatment; others have insisted on preserving the free will of those diagnosed with mental illness.

Unfortunately, the matter cannot be reduced to dichotomies: yes or no to institutionalization; short-term v. long-term recovery; coercion v. free will. Increasingly, theorists and practitioners seek approaches that recognize and accommodate the inherent ethical complexities of the issue (Marsh & Kelly, 2018*). A recent development in treatment is Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT), exemplified by Kendra’s Law (Mental Hygiene Law § 9.60) in the state of New York. Assisted Outpatient Treatment provides a more palatable alternative to some forms of institutionalization, but it does not address fundamental ideological flaws underlying America’s response to mental illness. Our country places the onus of societal failures on individuals and opts to “fix” problematic people rather than addressing its ethical shortcomings.

¹The language of mental illness is a complex matter. Writing “living with a mental illness” is preferable to “suffering from a mental illness,” and writing “a person experiencing hallucination” is preferable to “schizophrenic” (Bulthuis, n.d.). Due to its historic subject matter and due to a lack of standardization in contemporary terminology, this paper uses a variety of descriptors.

*Shout out to Pauline Marsh, University of Tasmania & Lisa Kelly for their beautiful article Dignity of risk in the community: a review of and reflections on the literature, linked below - hopefully they will let you read it if you request it through Research Gate below.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327713593_Dignity_of_risk_in_the_community_a_review_of_and_reflections_on_the_literature

the 7th question:

If you made it this far, WOW, thanks!