Creating a new culture for recovery
Dr. Mark Ragins, a well-known American psychiatrist who has dedicated his life and practice to recreating, improving and sustaining mental health recovery programs, spoke to 200 people who attended the second annual lecture series of Eden Health Care Services in Winkler last fall. Ragins began by noting that there is a revolution in working with…
A crash course in grace
Every one of us deals with mental health challenges. Whether we’re losing sleep about the math exam tomorrow or are hospitalized for schizophrenia, whether we’re on medication for depression or battling obsessive regrets over how we’ve raised our children—we each have been dealt a unique set of cards. For almost 20 years my hand has…
The changing face of mental illness among Mennonites
American Mennonite conscientious objectors (COs) working in mental hospitals during World War II decried the deplorable and inhumane treatment of patients. One symbolically powerful way they objected—and advocated for better treatment—was to unshackle the patients, collect the iron chains and cuffs, and melt them down into one enormous bell. That bell, which states, “Cast from…
