Conference Presentations
These are the most worldwide set of videos. They are all formal lectures.
Refocus on Recovery 2012 conference, London, England – keynote “Mental Health Services and Recovery: Implementing Change”.
A good overview of my core recovery principles, practice, and system design.
CASRA (California Association of Social Rehabilitation Agencies) 2020 fall conference –
“A Rebellious Guide to Psychosis”
An overview of the material in my psychosis book
Recovery 2024 conference, Plzen, Czech Republic – keynote .
Creating Recovery Possibilities
After 8 years, I returned to Plzen, where Martin Fojticek and his Ledoveco organization have created a grass roots, international recovery movement.
NAMI and Public Education
This section consists of several short interviews I did with NAMI years ago at the Village, a couple of content rich lectures (one for NAMI about homelessness and one for the community leaders in Mt Vernon in Washington state about redesigning mental health systems), an online “book launch”, and a set of interviews and podcasts.
NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Los Angeles Recovery Questions 2012.
Put all 6 together each with their titles, no other text. Make them smaller.
Ledoveco interview with Martin Fojticek About Hope “o nadeji” – with Czech subtitles 2016.
While I’m at the first recovery conference in Plzen, the conference organizer Martin asks me details about promoting hope as the foundation of recovery.
Beyond the Frontier: A Rebellious Guide to Psychosis and Other Extraordinary Experiences” zoom book launch, hosted by Wayne Munchel, 2021.
Backstories about writing the book and how it’s put together.
Why is Finding Out About Bipolar Disorder Frustrating? 2021.
Tanya, a CSULB journalism student is doing a profile story of a friend of hers with Bipolar disorder and contacts me for help. This is my explanation of the unstated assumptions and limitations of the Medical model, why they’re frustrating her, and what else she can try to help her friend.
Rethinking Mental Health: Radical Inclusion for our Unhoused Neighbors, Union Station homeless Services Changing the Narrative Series E6 with Kerry Morrison, Anthony Ruffin, hosted by Ann Miskey 2021
A panel trying to find new perspectives and solutions to Los Angeles’s homeless crisis.
Creating a Recovery Based Mental Health System of Care, Mt Vernon, Washington, 2022.
A lengthy presentation for the community leaders and politicians in Mt Vernon describing how to move on from the standard deinstitutionalization narrative and medical model to create a more effective, comprehensive recovery based system instead. (BTW Despite wearing a mask, I did catch COVID on this trip and we missed our vacation.)
Lessons Learned from the Mid-90's Village-Integrated Services Pilot and Why They're Even More Relevant Today (with Dave Pilon), Heart Forward: Conversations form the Heart S3 E6 hosted by Kerry Morrison, 2022
A retrospective look at the Village and our accomplishments and how what we learned should be applied to today’s situations in Hollywood and elsewhere.
Recovery Perspectives of Homelessness and Mental Illness, Janis Black Warner Speaker Series, NAMI Westside 2023.
An overview of the various ways mental conditions, including trauma, emotional development, substance use, and mental illnesses create a cascade of events in many homeless people and how we can help them.
On Treating and Interacting with Psychosis. Not as Crazy as You Think Podcast S5 E17 with Jen Gaita Siciliano 2023.
This is a podcast interview I did at the ISPS-US (The International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis) annual conference after Jen was impressed by the workshop I presented about my psychosis book, discussing the issues that it brought up for her.
Dr. Mark Ragins: Learning and teaching about the possibility of recovery, Viva La Evolution podcast Crestwood hosted by Lori Ashcroft 2023.
A wide ranging, conversation sharing reflections about my recovery views and practices with another recovery movement veteran.
Staff and Student Education
I’ve managed to preserve recordings of a number of my lectures from the past half a dozen years. Watching them is like being in a class with me. There is one set that I did for the CSULB counseling center psychologist interns and staff geared to working with the students there and another set of three (out of the original five, two are missing) for the staff working at Union Station “in the trenches” with homeless people. There are also a couple more lectures One for the psychiatric staff at South Alabama university that focuses on recovery-based medication practices, and one for CSUN social work students introducing recovery to them, and an on line presentation to a group planning 988 crisis services.
CSULB Counseling Staff: Introduction to Psychiatric Medications (2018)
This is an overview of the issues around using psychiatric medications to make people more likely to understand how they can work for them, take them, and benefit from them, focusing on anxiety and depression.
CSULB Counseling Staff: Psychiatric Hospitalizations 2018
This is an overview of the evolution of involuntary treatment and hospitalizations, and current conditions, including trauma informed approaches and suicide prevention, for them to consider when a student might be hospitalized.
CSULB Psychology Interns: Overview of Role of Medications in College Counseling Center (2020)
This is a lengthy class that challenges the status quo and the medical model, beginning with the nature of college mental health challenges, focusing throughout on how medications fit into overall therapy, psychological development, and recovery, ending with how to get off medications.
CSULB Psychology Interns: Anxiety and Depression (2020)
Another version of my lecture focusing on depression and anxiety.
CSULB counseling and student health staff: Bringing a Recovery Model to College Mental Health 2022.
A formal lecture after several years at CSULB summarizing how to adapt the Recovery Model into a developmental model to address the mental health challenges college students face.
South Alabama University Grand Rounds
South Alabama University Grand Rounds: Medications with Meaning: Becoming More Effective with Medications and People with Psychosis 2020
A lecture to a psychiatric department advocating for and describing specific changes in prescribing behaviors to be more recovery oriented and more effective, especially for people with psychosis.
Union Station Homeless Services, Pasadena: Recovery in the Trenches 2021
Part 1:
Making Recovery Practical: Three Essential Transformations
Defines three concrete transformations from the medical model to the recovery model (person-centered, client-driven, and strengths-based) and how to apply them to advocacy and practice
Part 2:
Meeting Clients Where They’re At While Building Self-Responsibility and Self-Sufficiency (recording in my file)
This lecture uses the Milestones of Recovery Scale that I developed to describe where in the recovery process people are, what their needs are, and what practical strategies (risk reduction, engagement, motivating, skill building, community connection) should be used to help them grow and develop.
Part 3:
Case Management Plans and Client’s Level of Maturity (recording in my file, please cut the last 1:20)
This lecture focuses on assessing the client’s level of connectedness, motivation, self-responsibility, rationality, and time sense when making case management plans so they’re able to succeed.
988 Crisis Jam: Recovery and Crisis Care Ep 52
988 Crisis Jam: Recovery and Crisis Care Ep 52: Focusing on Recovery Even (Especially) in Crisis (2022)
A presentation of how to incorporate recovery strategies in crisis, when people are most likely to change, that I made to a group of people nationwide who were implementing the new 988 crisis plans.
CSUN School of Social Work Guest Lecture: Recovery: A Personal Perspective (2023)
This is a description of recovery for young students urging them to consider it as a better path than the medical model for their careers. (Note: This recording may be difficult for some people to hear what I’m saying and especially the Q+A, but I don’t have another copy. Sorry.)
University of Iowa – Rural and Public Psychiatry Fellowship Guest Lecture: Creating a Career in Difficult Times: Recovery Can Help (2025)
This is a description of how our current political situation is recreating some of the challenges I faced in training in the 1980s, and how psychiatrists in training today would do better to pursue recovery approaches to address the challenges we face rather than continue the medical model approaches we developed and have been pursuing since the 1980s. (This content is relevant to many people beyond psychiatric trainees.)
CSUN Marriage and Family Therapy Guest Lecture: Creating a Career in Difficult Times: Recovery Can Help (2025)
This is a unifying description of how we should change our approaches from blaming deinstitutionalization, relying on the medical model, and using humane coercion to meet the growing challenges using recovery strategies instead, using examples from my career (working in community mental health at the Village, focusing on psychosis, college mental health, or street medicine).