News stories from Counterpoint
Does Safety Hurt More Than Help?
An increased regulatory focus on removing psychiatric inpatients’ opportunities for self-harm has led Vermont’s hospitals to make major changes to improve safety. But according to psychiatric survivors, some of these changes have yielded unintended consequences in how...
Former Peer Support Worker Is Honored
RUTLAND – Vermont Psychiatric Survivors board members offered a tribute to longtime staff advocate Amy Wales at the opening of the organizations Annual Meeting this past fall. Wales was a peer support worker at Second Spring, an intensive recovery residence, for 10...
Hospital Eyes New Beds for Youth
BENNINGTON – Vermont could have ten to 12 new inpatient psychiatric beds for adolescents by 2024 if a proposal by Southwestern Vermont Medical Center comes to fruition. Direct input from psychiatric survivors or family members has yet to be brought into discussion on...
Fall Poll Results: The Small Number Responding Support a Separate Forensic Facility
RUTLAND – Of a total of only 25 responses to Counterpoint’s fall poll question, about two thirds supported creation of a separate hospital for patients who are involved with the criminal justice system. In Vermont – unlike most states – such forensic patients are held...
New Legislative Agenda Unclear
MONTPELIER – With at least 47 new faces entering the Vermont House of Representatives and nine freshman senators, the 2023-2024 legislative biennium looks more than usual like a blank canvas. Mental health advocates will be watching closely to see how it fills up. The...
Urgent Care Options Are Underway
BURLINGTON – The Department of Mental Health is actively looking to relieve Vermont’s overburdened emergency departments by expanding other options for care during mental health crises. There has not yet been any direct involvement by psychiatric survivors about...
Counterpoint Articles Archives
Arts and commentary from Counterpoint
Psychotherapy to the Rescue!
Short fiction by Ron Merkin The more therapy I got the more my interest in women disintegrated. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t transfer to men. Call it asexuality, distrust. My libido began fading after the psychologist Dr. Bloomstuck began our eleventh session by...
Then and Now – A Comparison from the Pages of Counterpoint: 35 Years of ‘Regionalization’
The summer issue of Counterpoint in 1988, 34 years ago, focused on a new plan called “regionalization” that had begun the year before to shift people who were being held at the Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury to living in their local communities with support...
Membership Has Real Power!
Commentary by Zack Hughes, VPS Board Member Have you ever seen this? “We are having a membership meeting.” “Come renew your membership.” Why does it matter? VPS is a membership-driven organization. A member has obligations and has power! What obligations and power?...
Editorial: Defining Input
A brand-new initiative to develop a child and adolescent psych unit at Southwestern Medical Center in Bennington is already off on the wrong foot when it comes to input from psychiatric survivors and their families. Likewise for an initiative to develop an urgent care...
Peer Divisions Are Hurting Us
Publisher's commentary by Karim Chapman Despite our broad common interests, divisions in the peer movement are getting in the way of our ability to be successful in the state. In the past two years, there have been efforts in the peer community to push to be on the...
Making Community Connections, Virtually
Commentary by Laura Shanks In April, I launched a virtual peer-run wellness collaborative group on Zoom through Vermont Psychiatric Survivors with my colleague, Carter Kinoy, with a mission to provide a safe community space for open discussion, synergetic support,...
Beating Back the Imposter Syndrome
Commentary by Grace Walter Performing a job that is based on “lived experience” at the young age of 23 has been difficult but rewarding to develop. For a period of time when I first began this job I was dealing with impostor syndrome, the feeling that you are not good...
Helping Those Who Need a Safe Space
Commentary by ANONYMOUS I’ve been thinking about the question from the reader poll in the fall Counterpoint: Does Vermont need a forensic psychiatric hospital? A separate place from a regular psychiatric hospital? I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. If you think...
Letters to the Editor
Mental Anguish Versus Mental Illness Thanks for this, and for the article on Any Given Day… I agreed with you on almost every point. Thepremise of the film is that Mental Illness is Real… an a priori with which I take issue. The fact is thatsmoking weed or pcp or...
January of ’21
Words by Patrick Stanton “The card of the day.” Jody shuffled her Tarot deck on the small, cafe-style table where we were served all three meals by the staff of the Unit. She was known as “Splash” by the patients (as in bringing “a splash of color/positivity” to the...