Open Excellence Podcast

About Jim Gottstein

Since brief psychiatric hospitalizations in 1982 and 1985, Harvard trained lawyer Jim Gottstein has advocated/litigated for people diagnosed with serious mental illness, including (1) participating in successful litigation reconstituting Alaska’s one million acre Mental Health Land Trust; (2) the Myers case declaring Alaska's forced drugging law unconstitutional for failing to require proof the drugging is in the person's best interest and there are no less intrusive alternatives available; (3) Wetherhorn holding unconstitutional Alaska's law authorizing involuntary commitment for being "gravely disabled" without requiring proof the person is unable to survive safely in freedom; (4) Wayne B requiring strict compliance with procedural protections before someone can be locked up and drugged against their will, (5) Bigley holding if a less intrusive alternative to forced drugging is feasible, the state must provide it or let the person go, and (6) Heather R., vacating and reversing an order for an involuntary psychiatric evaluation because the Court did not try to interview Heather R before issuing the order without notice.    

Outside of Alaska, in the ex rel Watson case, the 7th Circuit validated PsychRights' analysis that doctors cause false claims when they write prescriptions to children on Medicaid that are not for a medically accepted indication.  In the first of his numerous Bigley cases, Mr. Gottstein subpoenaed and released the suppressed Zyprexa Papers showing Eli Lilly engaged in illegal marketing, and hid that Zyprexa caused diabetes and other life threatening conditions, resulting in a series of New York Times articles.  

In 2020, Jim published his book, The Zyprexa Papers, relating to the legal battles around the release of the Zyprexa Papers and his numerous representations of Bill Bigley fighting forced drugging. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/057...

Angel Prater works as the Executive Director for FolkTime, is a Certified National Intentional Peer Support (IPS) Trainer, and was named Oregon’s IPS Trainer of Trainers. She is a mother of two beautiful daughters, and has recently become a grandmother of a chunky little baby boy. Angel says, “Recovery became a new way of life, living without the use of drugs, now a life of mental wellness and stability. Since July 5, 1996, Angel has shared her experience, strength, and hope without shame or guilt so that maybe it may inspire someone else to share theirs and help others.   

Danielle Grondin, director of training at FolkTime, is honored to be part of the peer movement. Her schooling focused on Sociology and Civic Leadership, while her lived experience illuminated the strengths and shortcomings of our current systems of care. Danielle has been in educator roles for over a decade and is passionate about social justice, intersectionality, sustainability, and holistic healing modalities. As the Director of Training at FolkTime, Danielle specializes in Intentional Peer Support. She is also trained as a Youth & Young Adult Peer Support Specialist, a Hearing Voices Facilitator, and a Certified Yoga Instructor.   

Learn more about: FolkTime in the Portland, Oregon metro area - https://folktime.org/Intentional Peer Support - https://www.intentionalpeersupport.org/

Jeannie Bass is voice hearer and a mother, a member of the Hearing Voices Network USA Board of Directors. She works as a Peer Specialist at a psych hospital in Massachusetts. Discovering the freedoms offered by the hearing voices movement sparked a life for her based on choice and autonomy both with her voices and beyond. Jeannie is passionate about the exploration of unique experiences (that most often get labeled as "psychosis"), human rights & making visible the often-overlooked lives emerging from the shadows of madness.

From Jeannie: People who are interested can either check the http://www.hearingvoicesusa.org/hvn-u... to see if a group local to them has moved online. However, it should be noted not every group has updated the listing.

They can also email [email protected] and we can get them the codes to the fully online groups. There are a variety of groups for people who hear voices/have other lived experience with unique experiences in addition to a specifically family & supporters online group facilitated by a person with lived experience, Cindy Marty Hadge and a family member of a voice hearer. 

Another resource available is Peter Bullimore from the UK, a leader in the hearing voices movement and founder of the National Paranoia Network has started a peer support email to help get people in distress support during the pandemic. That email is [email protected] . If they send an email someone will get back to them in a day or 2 and offer some support.

Dr. Bonnie Kaplan, PhD is the Open Excellence Nutrition & Mental Health Research Fund advisor and a member of the new International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research (ISNPR). For many years, she studied developmental disorders in children, especially ADHD and reading disabilities (dyslexia). Dr. Kaplan was part of a team from University of Calgary and University of British Columbia which helped in the search for genes that predispose children to dyslexia. Also, with her students, she investigated the characteristics of adults with ADHD. Such work led her to further investigations of the role of nutrition. Another interest has been the mood symptoms that accompany ADHD and learning difficulties, and the role of micronutrient treatment of mood, aggression and explosive rage. This progression of topics has resulted in a research program focused on the role of nutrition in brain development and in brain function, especially the use of broad spectrum micronutrient treatment for mental disorders.  

Dr. Kaplan’s latest published research: A randomised trial of nutrient supplements to minimise psychological stress after a natural disaster. PsychiatryResearch (2015).

Rebecca Miller, PhD, is a member of Open Excellence's Scientific Advisory Council. She is a psychologist and Assistant Professor at the Yale School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry. She serves as Director of Peer Support at Connecticut Mental Health Center in New Haven, using her lived experience with mental and physical illness to inform her work.   Her publications and other scholarship have focused on peer support for persons diagnosed with serious mental illnesses, person-centered and recovery-oriented approaches, alternative experiential approaches to clinical training, and deprescribing in psychiatry. She received her MA and PhD in Clinical Psychology from Long Island University and her BA from Barnard College.

Ashley Sproul works as a Certified Peer Specialist at The Living Room, a Peer-staffed drop-in crisis alternative in Framingham, Massachusetts. She describes how her and her family's experience with the agency's Open Dialogue program changed them all.

Hearing Voices researcher Dr. Gail Hornstein talks about her exciting work in the United States and why it is more relevant than ever in the midst of a global pandemic.

CDR Vieten, a board certified clinical psychologist, served on active duty from 1998 - 2008, with tours at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Roosevelt Roads (Puerto Rico), and Naval Air Station Patuxent River. In 2008 CDR Vieten transferred to the Select Reserve, where she has held several positions, including the Officer-in-Charge of the Headquarters Detachment, and Regional Detachment Director for New England, Expeditionary Medical Facility, Bethesda. In 2014, she was recalled to active duty and assigned to the staff of the Navy Chief of Chaplains where she trained over 1000 military chaplains worldwide in pastoral response to operational and military sexual trauma. She has completed two deployments in support of OIF/OEF.  Dr. Vieten is the Executive Director of Warfighter ADVANCE, which provides intense training programs, such as The ADVANCE 7-Day, for active duty and veteran warfighters with operational stress and reintegration issues. The ADVANCE™ is a non-medical 7-day training program that uses a variety of means to change the trajectory of the warfighter’s (active duty or veteran) post-deployment life, so that rather than an existence characterized by an endless cycle of mental illness diagnoses, medications, medical appointments and disappointments, the warfighter has a life characterized by pride, productivity, healthy relationships, continued service, and advocacy for the same outcomes for their fellow service members.

Mark Lipman is a musician, an Expressive Therapist, and an Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Massachusetts. In 2017, he completed training to be an Hearing Voices facilitator, and he uses the values and ethos of the HVN as a compass in his work in psychiatric hospitals and in his own private practice. Having personal experience as a client at different levels of the mental health system, he knows how important it is to maintain a person's dignity and choice in their own treatment. He infuses his experientially educated perspective and understanding of holistic and narrative approaches to health into his work. In hospitals, he attempts to educate staff on the value of HVN as a resource for people who experience non-consensus reality states, while also introducing HVN approaches to people in treatment. He has a passion for exploring the limits and bounds of the human voice in song and story, and firmly believes in the power of keeping stories alive via oral and musical tradition.

Dartmouth psychiatry professor Robert Drake talks about the healing power of meaningful work and how his Individual Placement and Support program has gone international.