“The public mental health system is so fucked up,” says Sascha Altman DuBrul, co-founder of influential mental health support network The Icarus Project (since reorganized as Fireweed Collective) and former recovery specialist and trainer at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. “Fundamentally, the way that we look at people is we see them as having illnesses, and diseases, and disorders. That immediately, in and of itself, ends up taking away agency from people. Young people who are diagnosed with psychotic disorders who are coming in are thought to have a disease of the brain.”
More than 20 years ago, DuBrul himself was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and hospitalized repeatedly with psychotic symptoms. He has since devoted his life to helping other patients navigate the mental health system. After three years at the Psychiatric Institute, he has recently left to open a private practice incorporating IFS.
“The beauty of IFS is that it shifts the frame,” he says. “If I’m someone with a psychotic disorder, let’s say, then all of a sudden my identity very easily can get wrapped up in this idea of ‘I’m bipolar’ or ‘I’m schizophrenic.’ Whereas IFS understands we have a bunch of different parts, and we can have parts that have a lot of work to do. We can have these exile parts that are full of pain and trauma and we can have these protector parts that are just trying to help us. That can end up looking like what’s considered mental illness. If I’m sitting with someone who has what’s considered a serious diagnosis, I don’t have to see them as ill. I can see them as someone who has a bunch of stuff going on, and we can kind of isolate it and tease apart the different pieces.”
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