Communities Magazine #150 (Spring 2011) - Mental Health

Mental Health: Challenges and Hope

To purchase a print copy of this issue, contact Communities new home at GEN-US.

• Publisher’s Note–Being Vigilant about Vigilante Dynamics by Laird Schaub
• Crazy About Community by Chris Roth
• GIFTED, MAD, AND OUT OF CONTROL – The author recounts his personal history with the “mentally ill”—social misfits who can show us the way to a better world, if they are allowed to make the journey. by Alexis Zeigler
• Walking Wounded by Gigi Wahba
• COMMUNICABLE GIFTS – Both healthy ideas and unhealthy ideas can take hold and spread like viruses. Suicidal tendencies and eating disorders provide invaluable lessons to one communitarian. by Kristina Jansen
• TOUGH GRACE: Mental Illness as a Spiritual Path – For 12 years, a once-proud career woman struggled with manic depression, becoming a “bag lady” and experiencing more than a dozen hospitalizations, before entering recovery. by Alice A. Holstein, Ed.D.
• The Influence of Community on Mental Health by Cindy and Friends [Cindy Baranco, Ilana Firestone, Marilyn Moohr, and Judy St. John]
• HAND IN HAND, HEART TO HEART: Peer Counseling in Community – With loving help from others, the old emotional distresses that can sabotage both our mental health and our relationships in community can be cleared and permanently resolved. by Amara Karuna
• SHADOW SIDES OF NVC AND CO-COUNSELING – To make best use of nonviolent communication and co-counseling, avoid these traps. by Dona Willoughby
• PRESCRIPTION FACEBOOK: How can Facebook act as an agent of mental health to a community fragmented 20 years ago? – Ex-members of the Emissaries of Divine Light reflect on their shared past and discover more holistic approaches to inner wellness as they reunite online. by Sandy Brown Jensen
• RX FOR “MENTAL ILLNESS”: Caring Community – How can we best support mental health? Caring attention—even from amateurs—can promote healing unattainable through impersonal approaches or drugs. by Brian Toomey
• Healthy Community; Healthy People by Burl Hall
• A Mental Health Patient Seeks (But Does Not Find) Religious Community by John Wachter
• Therapeutic Community: A Century at Gould Farm by Steven K. Smith
• Camphill: Working with Special People by Diedra Heitzman and Jan Martin Bang
• Camphill: Glimpses of Community Life by Wanda Root
• Camphill: The Way of My Brother by Bill Prensky
• NURTURING HEALTHY MINDS – Living in community can provide all the elements necessary for promoting mental well-being, from kinship and useful work to recreation and beauty. by Elizabeth Barrette
• Community Living Worldwide International Conference about Intentional Communities by Bill Metcalf
• Review: HOPEFUL NEW STORIES FROM THE OLD WORLD: A New We – Ten European ecovillages show the way to a brighter future. by Chris Roth