SCHLEPPING WITH THE ENEMY

by Sally Clay

 

schlepp - verb; to drag or lug something around; to move slowly or awkwardly.
noun; a tedious journey. From the Yiddish shlepn, meaning a clumsy or stupid person.

e.g.: They schlepped a shopping bag around town. They schlepped around with the twins in a stroller.
They were schlepps.

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Schlepping as Nonviolence

Schlepping with the enemy might be called a weary form of nonviolent action. It is like two opponents competing to reach a goal. The opponents have spent years throwing garbage back and forth at each other, but neither of them gets anywhere. Finally one of them suggests that they join forces. Once they agree to consolidate the garbage, they are surprised to find that many of their goals are the same. It is only the garbage that is different.

The essence of schlepping with the enemy is to find a common burden, a frustration jointly endured. The idea is that it is easier for two people to carry a bag of garbage than one person alone. Of course, to do this requires that the two opponents speak to each other civilly, and even listen to what the other has to say.

It does not require that we give in and accept uncritically any point of view at odds with our beliefs. It does not mean that we can't speak honestly and even, on occasion, with anger or outrage. It only requires a deep personal belief that, on a fundamental level, we are all human beings with the common ground of our mutual goodness.

Below are some examples of how consumer/survivor/ex-patients have used techniques of non-violent schlepping to improve the mental health system. In the process we have empowered ourselves and mental health professionals as well.

Schlepping with the System

PSYCHIATRISTS - Ex-patients first organized under the banner of "anti-psychiatry." Because psychiatrists endorse forced or invasive treatments, they are often perceived as our single greatest oppressor.

Example - The Recovery Project, a series of discussions between psychiatrists and survivors in New York. It was sponsored by the Office of Mental Health and recorded for posterity on video.

The common burden - The psychiatrists worried that fewer and fewer medical students go into psychiatry. The survivors pointed out that psychiatrists are not taught to understand our experience. The psychiatrists recognized the need for major reform in the training of mental health professionals.

Tactics and Results - Survivors were presented as people recovered from mental illness. The possibility of recovery was admittedly a new approach for the psychiatrists; they wanted to hear what helped us and what failed us. One result: consumer/survivors were asked to help train medical students.

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BUREAUCRATS - Paperwork, meaningless regulations, and endless meetings characterize government at all levels, and even pollute the private sector--especially in medical care.

Examples - National boards and committees; local planning and advisory committees; provider boards and committees; voluminous reports, Medicaid paperwork; reporting requirements for caregivers; and other useless mechanisms too numerous to mention.

The common burden - All of us are buried in a landfill of paper, politics, and other garbage. Even the bureaucrats are miserable.

Tactics and results - By establishing a rapport with people within the bureaucracies, we go beyond paper to address each other as human beings. Results include: the Portland Coalition, a consumer group, helped to create a Bill of Rights in Maine; another group, PEOPLe, stopped construction of a psychiatric institution in New York; the Support Coalition, a national survivor organization, met with the FDA in Washington regarding ECT.

Co-opting Institutions

STATE INSTITUTIONS - Large mental institutions are by definition oppressive and damaging.

Examples - Peer advocacy services at Augusta Mental Health Institute in Maine and Hudson River Psychiatric Center in New York.

The common burden - Direct care staff work under the same conditions that oppress the patients, and they are frustrated by bureaucratic paperwork. Some administrative staff truly want to improve conditions.

Tactics and results - The Portland Coalition and PEOPLe both began advocacy programs at state institutions by speaking openly and honestly to administrative staff. On the wards we treated staff with respect and received the same. In Maine, our advocacy paved the way to a class action suit on behalf of AMHI patients. In New York, we became the model for other peer advocacy groups that began forming across the state. Advocates in both New York and Maine were given keys to the hospital wards.

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COMMUNITY HOSPITALS - These hospitals are less subject to regulation than state institutions. Sometimes the greatest abuses in human rights occur there.

Examples - Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, NY, and Maine Medical Center in Portland, ME.

The common burden - An entire community suffers when its local hospital mistreats patients. Sharing the burden with us are families, clinics, private practitioners, and even members of the hospital staff.

Tactics and results - Public protests were led by consumer-run groups. After a march in Maine and a community meeting in New York, we submitted recommendations for reform and started ongoing dialogues with hospital staff. In Maine we earned widespread support from the media, the public, and even the Chief of Psychiatry at MMC. At Benedictine hospital, the Clinical Director was fired and there was a shake-up in psychiatric staff and policies.

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CLASS ACTION - State-run mental institutions and community services are everywhere notorious for inefficiency and abuse. Class legal action to mandate reform is dreaded by those in the System.

Example - Sanbourne vs. Chiles, a class action suit against South Florida State Hospital and community agencies in four districts. The plaintiffs hired a team of experts that includes a consumer/survivor.

The common burden - State bureaucrats and legislators refuse adequate funding for community mental health programs in South Florida.

Tactics and results - The "consumer expert" organized a Consumer Advisory Board to assist the plaintiffs. When members bore witness to personal experiences in the mental health system, and made constructive suggestions, they were regarded as less threatening than the lawyers. The professionals listened. Consumer-run initiatives received funding, and consumers were hired at state-run services. The state recommended that South Florida State Hospital be shut down.

Confronting Kith and Kin

FAMILIES - NAMI, and other non-consumer groups, are stuck in allegiance to "experts," especially medical professionals. They have swallowed--hook, line, and sinker--the disease model of mental illness, and they believe that mental illness is hopeless and incurable.

Examples - The Alliance for the Mentally Ill, a family group and some branches of the Mental Health Association. An alternative treatment program in Massachusetts called Windhorse Associates.

The common burden - Need for housing, community programs, and treatment alternatives.

Tactics and results - The Portland Coalition began as an offshoot of AMI, and soon became a more powerful force. Likewise, consumer/survivors in New York are more influential than family groups. Consumers ally themselves with the MHA and AMI on common issues. Both self-help groups created alternative programs for non-psychiatrically labeled people, called "Associates." The Windhorse program was originally composed entirely of professionals. After advocacy from consumers, the program now bills itself as a "coalition of professionals, families, and consumers."

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PEER POLITICS - As Pogo once said, "I have seen the enemy, and it is us." In our movement, most leaders advocate for radical change at the state and national level, but in the grassroots, self-help members still struggle for personal survival and remain dependent on the leaders rather than empowered themselves.

Example - Portland Coalition, PEOPLe, Support Coalition International (SCI), Alternatives '93.

The common burden - When leaders advocate at a systems level, they are drawn away from their roots--their local peer groups. When grassroots organizations achieve a certain level of success, they are apt to be swallowed up by the bureaucracy. Widespread empowerment is lacking.

Tactics and results - PEOPLe and the Portland Coalition offer training and jobs to members. SCI offers workshops in community organization and counseling skills. Other tools of empowerment include apprenticeship, exploration of healing and spirituality, and participation in conferences such as Alternatives. Activists are effective role models to both peers and professionals.

Conclusion

There is an enemy common to all these opposing groups. Whether we are labeled or not, all of us are oppressed by objectivism. This is the mentality that regards human beings as objects. Bureaucracy is a kind of objectivism, and so is the disease model of mental illness. Our shared burden is the search for healing in the face of dehumanization. Our most effective tactic in this search is friendly dialogue, in which we are not ashamed to reveal our deepest hopes and beliefs. In affirming our own experience, we may sometimes appear awkward or stupid or, heaven forbid, crazy. To speak out at the risk of ridicule is a kind of schlepping. It might be called "The Courage to Schlepp."

Winter 1993

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