MHA Village: A Program of Mental Health America of Los Angeles

Dr. Mark's Writings

A note from Mark: Since most of my writings collect dust in my loyal coworkers’ desks or in long neglected computer files, I used to describe them as “audienceless”. But as the years have gone on some have managed to take on a life of their own, thanks to the internet or word of mouth, usually unbeknownst to me. This website is an effort to collect all of my major writings in one, reasonably organized place where hopefully you will find them and make good use of them. You may copy articles to share, but please give me credit for writing them and don’t charge for them.

I’ve tried to put them in an order that makes sense to me, but, frankly, if your style of exploration is to wander here and there following your own interests instead of following someone else’s lead, feel free. Each article has an introduction to put it in some context so you won’t get lost

We’ll try to keep adding more things as I write them. I always enjoy feedback from readers and fellow transformation workers.

How to use this site: Click on a section name to be taken to a page where you can read brief descriptions of each article's content, post comments, and share the articles with others on the web. Click on an article name to view or download a PDF version of that article.

Section 1: My Personal Transformation
is about my personal experiences as I transformed into a recovery based psychiatrist. The most complete piece is the “Rehabilitation Psychiatry” paper. Even though I’d never heard of recovery when I wrote it, I was well on my way.
Section 2: Creating a Recovery Vision
is where I’m coming to terms with the concepts around recovery and putting them together so that I understood why what we were doing was working. It contains the heart of my work, the “A Road to Recovery.” It’s my “signature” lecture and contains most of my best stories. We’ve sold or given away hundreds of copies of it as a small book. It’s even been translated into Japanese and Korean. In my opinion, its “Kubler-Ross style” four stages of recovery formulation is still my major contribution to making recovery understandable. If you’re going to skip around, you probably want to start with it. It also contains articles where I’m trying to demystify recovery and make it more accessible to typical professional audiences.
Section 3: Applying Recovery to Daily Challenges
is a whole variety of writings applying my understanding of recovery to challenges in my daily work. In my view, for a model to be useful, it should be able to lead us to successful approaches to challenges we didn’t anticipate when we put together the model. The recovery model hasn’t let me down yet. These papers don’t cover every important application. For example I don’t have anything on employment, or community development or advocacy, not because they’re not important, but because someone else at the Village worked on them. You get papers that focus on what I worked on, most notably substance abuse, homelessness, transitional age youth, and psychiatrists.

Service Delivery
Substance Use
Families
- Friends with Families-1997
- Advice for Families-2009
Suicide
- Challenging the Suicide Status Quo-1999
Homelessness
Psychiatrists
Transitional Age Youth (18 – 25 year olds)
Medications
International Mental Health
- A Personal Worldwide Perspective of Psychiatric Rehabilitiations-2000
Research
- What Would Recovery Oriented Research and Publishing Look Like?-2010
Section 4: Building & Improving a Recovery Program
is a description of how we put together the Village based on our principles and some of redesign challenges we’ve faced as its evolved. If you’re feeling lost without knowing what the Village is, turn to “An Overview of the Village.” I put it back here instead of up front because my main goal is to let you explore recovery and figure out how to apply it to you’re life, not to give you instructions of how to “cookie-cutter” replicate the Village.
Section 5: Spreading Personal Transformation
is about spreading personal transformation. From the beginning the Village was created as a model program to be used as an advocacy tool to promote widespread system change. As we’ve worked on this we’ve repeatedly realized that for the system to change, people need to change. “Up Close and Personal” is one of my favorites because I think it led me deeper into the underlying emotions and personal issues than any other paper. The “A Guide to Mental Health Transformation on a Personal Level” is another small book that is a comprehensive discussion of the need for everyone to change, not just “someone else.”
Section 6: Spreading System Transformation
is a variety of writings focusing on the practicalities of system transformation. Many of them were first distributed as part of two Proposition 63 implementation toolboxes. “Recovery Based System Planning (Part 1 and 2)” is my favorite for system transformation planning. “The Power of Flow” is probably the most challenging. “Creating a Recovery Transformation Plan” and “Designing Transformed Clinics” are probably the most practically useful for program directors. This chapter also has several administrative tools for building a recovery based infrastructure, including the “Milestones of Recovery Scale,” “Parameters for Service Relationships in a Recovery-Based Mental Health System,” and “A Recovery Culture Progress Report Card.”

Facilitating Transformation
Defining the Goals
Building New Recovery Based Programs
Building Infrastructure and Administrative Tools
Training and Workforce Development
- Curriculum Outline Proposal--Helping Relationship Skills-2005
- Hiring and Supporting Consumer Staff-2006

Dr. Mark's Writings

Section 1: My Personal Transformation

Section 2: Creating a Recovery Vision

Section 3: Applying Recovery to Daily Challenges

Section 4: Building & Improving a Recovery Program

Section 5: Spreading Personal Transformation

Section 6: Spreading System Transformation