The Psychiatric Survivor Clinic

 

In April 2023, we launched our first Psychiatric Survivor Clinic — a resource and support system for community members navigating the ongoing impacts of psychiatric harm, abuse, neglect, incarceration, and torture. This space offer opportunities for community care and peer support, strategizing and discussion, skill-sharing, and co-reflecting.

It was incredible building, sharing, processing, reflecting, and connecting with our first cohort, and we are excited to offer more Psychiatric Survivor Clinics in the future. Here is some feedback from our first cohort:

Registration is currently closed.

Meet The PS Clinic Facilitators

 
Asian American woman with an asymmetrically cut black hair shoulder length on one side and ear length on the other wearing one black and pearl dangling earring and a black cardigan with a floral embroidered design. The photo was taken in the NJ woods

Chanika Svetvilas

Chanika Svetvilas is a Thai American interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker based in Princeton, NJ. She self-identifies as having a mental health difference with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and is a mental health and disability justice advocate who embraces mad pride in her work as a psychiatric survivor. Her work is also included in Studying Disability Arts and Culture: An Introduction by Petra Kuppers and published in the Disability Studies Quarterly. For more information on her work visit chanikasvetvilas.com.

Interest areas: AAPI, psychiatric survivor, artists (all disciplines, performance, theater, dance, etc.)

Mel B

Mel B is a Mad & Disabled agender person who is invested in psychiatric liberation and disability justice. They are an abolitionist and an avid theory reader, and they are extremely passionate about building alternatives to the current systems of so-called care created by and for people with lived experience.

Interest areas: Psychiatric Medication Information, Disability Justice, International Mad Movements, Crisis Support, Complex Trauma

Jenny

Jenny (she/they) first became involved in peer support when working at their university’s peer-run mental health hotline, and has continued to be involved in peer support efforts for almost a decade. In addition to participating in community care and mutual aid, she is an abolitionist researcher studying non-police crisis response models, and is dedicated to centering the voices of psychiatric survivors in her work. They have lived experience of PTSD, suicidality, and psychiatric hospitalization.

Interest areas: LGBTQ+ folks; survivors of gender-based violence.

Tasha Fierce

Tasha Fierce is a queer Black disabled nonbinary femme writer, artist, transition doula, facilitator, and mystic residing in the occupied Kizh territory known as Pasadena, California. Learn more about their healing work at liberatedtransitions.org and their art at tashafierce.com.

Interest areas: Black psych survivors, spiritual crises, autistic/ND psych survivors, multiple survivors (sexual trauma+psych), queer psych survivors, femme psych survivors