All conversation is predicated on memory; without memory there is nothing to say save opinions and they prove merely to embarrass those who bear them to any length.  Real conversation is grounded in perceptions and facts.  We share what we have seen, heard, told, read, conceived, admired, loathed, feared, questioned, etc.  All of these require that our minds take in information, process it, and store it for further use.

 I work full time and loose my dignity everyday. Here is a quote from Phoenix Rising in the early 1980's. "If you thought school was bad welcome to work a "prison of measured time"..

A German version of our mission statement, translated by our awesome Anarchist friend Gabriel. He says: "here is a german translation of the mission statement. i had a radical psychologist friend who runs a project providing psychotherapy for refugees in austria proofread it. she's a hard critic but gave a green light, so i assume this should work."

This is the question I dread the most. It is also the query that is made of me in the initial stages of just about every acquaintanceship. And whenever it is asked, invariably said ship is sunk.

It angers me beyond all imagination that psychiatric incarceration, police brutality, forced drugging and complete negation of our humanity or worth is the best our supposedly 'enlightened' society can offer to distressed people.

Mental Disability Rights International and the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales needed a spanish-speaking psychiatric survivor with group facilitation and grassroots organizing skills. So I got a call: Would I go to Argentina to work on the campaign to reform the country's asylum system? Here's a report on my fascinating trip to the land of Che and Milongas...

Any one heard or been to CEDU?

Bipolar author of "Lipstick and Thongs in the Loony Bin" describes the limits of psycho-logical language, the contraints vs. liberation of diagnoses and how symptoms are signals to pay attention to, but not be afraid of necessarily...

Photos from my recent trip to Buenos Aires Argentina to work with Mental Disability Rights International and the Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales in the effort to reform the country's abusive asylum system.

Icarus Staff Will Hall was invited to speak at a 150 year-old psychiatric hospital in Toronto Canada with a group of family members about how to help their relatives going through mental health crisis, at a seminar sponsored by the innovative Family Outreach and Respose agency. Check out Will's Blog.

Bipolar author goes from Rock Bottom to Rock ON! In "Lipstick and Thong in the Loony Bin" Courtney A. Walsh offers a survival story of hope healing and humor about the taboo subject of suicide. Pandora's Box?...is OPEN....

NPR's Weekend America did a 6 minute program on the Icarus Project tour visit to Virginia Tech. Audio and link to transcript.