Video Category: BU Videos

The second day of the four-day continuing medical education seminar The Challenge of Promoting Health in Persons with Serious Mental Illness: From Science to Service is titled Mental Health Treatment and Health Promotion: Effecting Lifestyle Changes, Part 2.

An event for World Health Day 2001 In the last century it was believed that people with severe mental illnesses could not recover. Recent research has shown that the typical course of severe mental illnesses is, in fact, toward recovery rather than toward deterioration over time.

Judith Chamberlin responds to question of “What is Recovery?” She describes how the concept developed within the consumer/survivor movement, some of the changes which occurred over time. She comments on the consensus statement and ten elements of recovery as published by SAMHSA. Dr. Farkas develops the theme of “What is a Recovery Oriented Program?”

Clearly leaders in public mental health must assume many roles, deal with many constituents and answer to a variety of funding sources. The role of public mental health agencies is also complex. They have responsibilities to provide treatment, rehabilitation, housing, case management and many other practical supports but the agencies at the same time provides services and settings designed for safety and risk management.

Substance abuse in persons with severe mental illness (dual disorders) is a common problem for many consumers that contributes to a worse course of illness. Recent advances have shown that treatment is most effective when it integrates both mental health and substance abuse services into a cohesive package that is delivered in a manner informed by the consumer’s motivation to change and his or her level of involvement in the treatment system.

A scientific revolution is occurring in the field of behavior change. This revolution involves a shift from an action paradigm to a stage paradigm in which changing troubled behavior involves progressing through six stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance and termination.

Keynote address at the Innovations in Recovery & Rehabilitation: The Decade of the Person Conference Creating an analogy related to the poem “Mending Walls” written by Robert Frost, Dr. Anthony’s keynote address describes examples of “walls” existing in the field of mental health and highlights the necessity of tearing down these barriers that continue to isolate individuals diagnosed with mental illness from themselves and from one another.