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Books!
All can be bought through Crazydiamond
www.crazydiamond.org.uk
 “The THRIVE Approach to Mental Wellness” - Marion Aslan & Mike Smith £19.99
A self help / guided approach to recovery. This book is aimed at individuals experiencing distress and their supporters and accompanies the individual on their journey to recovery and beyond, instils hope and optimism for a positive future, and enables the person to chart their own course.
Olga Runcimans forword to the book
It is a great privilege and pleasure to be asked to write a foreword for THRIVE which for me is not just any book. THRIVE speaks to me in one of those rare, powerful and deep ways and touches my soul as the psychiatric survivor that I am. However THRIVE will not just appeal to those who have had psychic distress in their lives it goes beyond that.
By using the words psychic distress rather than many of the words bandied about by the psychiatric system and picked up in the general public this book is making a statement. A statement fashioned by the authors alternative viewpoints on the psyche and the distress people can experience due to life experiences. The statement is power, your power, the power that exists within all of us to make choices about who you are and how you choose to live your life regardless of the almost insurmountable difficulties one might have encountered in life. THRIVE gives you the tools for finding this intrinsic power which exists within each of us and the inspiration to take up the challenge. It does this by looking at the six elements which make up THRIVE; time, healing, resilience, interdependence, vivacity and empowerment. Six elements which though very different are so connected that together they send a reverberating message to all who should choose to read this book. I cannot imagine that anyone who reads this book will not come away from it without feeling inspired or invigorated or more knowledgeable on the elements that can hinder or encourage personal growth. Neither can I imagine anyone coming away from this book without the feeling that they have smelled the scent of freedom or the rainbow of possibilities that lie stretched out before them.
 Working with Self Harm – Mike Smith £10.00
This workbook is an invaluable tool for people who self injure to identify, explore and understand their experiences and to reframe them in a way which is meaningful for them to move on in their recovery. The purpose of the book is to offer hope to the person who self injures and through a series of exercises develop the confidence to own the experience, reclaim and ultimately take ownership of it. Workers and supporters will also find this book extremely constructive in developing strategies for recovery.
 Working with Voices – Ron Coleman & Mike Smith £10.00
This workbook is an invaluable tool for voice hearers and the people they select to work with them. The book disputes the notion that voices are the consequence of mental illness and instead focuses on the context, meaning and individual interpretation of the person hearing the voices. Structured exercises will help to unfold the relationship the person has with the voices and find more effective
ways of coping and will enable people who have difficulties with their voices and are overpowered by them to take control. Workers and supporters will also find this book extremely constructive in developing strategies for recovery
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 Working to Recovery – Ron Coleman, Paul Baker & Karen Taylor £10.00
This workbook is the third in the series of books on recovery written especially for people undergoing emotionally distressing experiences and those who have been diagnosed as having a mental illness. This workbook is intended as a practical tool in assisting you in your recovery, and asks you to accept a personal challenge. While the challenge may at times be difficult and painful it does offer the potential for personal change, discovery and growth – key elements on your journey to recovery.
 Psychiatric First Aid –Mike Smith, Ron Coleman, John Good - £10.00
This book draws together the wide range of methods for coping with psychotic experiences; from singing out loud to in depth cognitive strategies. A handbook for nurses, carers and people distressed by psychotic experiences, this book introduces alternative ways of coping with difficulties in the short term and deals with various areas including; voices, visions, troublesome beliefs and what psychiatry calls ‘negative symptoms’. It aims to direct the professional towards dealing directly with the problems that the client presents, following on from diagnosis and treatment.
 Recovery, an Alien Concept – Ron Coleman £10.00
An exploration of the concept of recovery by Ron Coleman, including how he gave up being a chronic schizophrenic and went back to being Ron. In ‘Recovery – An Alien Concept’ Ron attempts to reflect on the past and learn the lessons of history in the psychiatric system, by exploring recovery and encouraging professionals, clients and carers to begin their own personal journeys towards recovery. In these pages the reader may feel the pain of those for whom the present system has failed, feel the inspiration and joy of those who have recovered, and the desire to make recovery a reality for all.
 Raising our Voices – Adam James £10.00
In this comprehensive book, Adam James demonstrates why he is the ‘Mind Journalist of the Year 2001’. He has brought both the philosophy and struggle of the Hearing Voices Network to life. In this compelling book, the history of the Network from Julian Jaynes’ work on the bicameral mind to the development of the UK Hearing Voices Network as a pseudo mainstream organisation is explained in terms that anyone can understand. This book will invoke in its readers a multitude of emotions, from happiness to sadness, from joy to anger, and more importantly, James has enabled the reader to comprehend in a new way the lives of those who hear voices both in and outside of psychiatric services.
 Killing Me Softly – Sharon LeFevre £10.00
This posthumous collected thoughts of Sharon Lefevre, a woman who campaigned for greater understanding of self-injury. ‘Killing me Softly’ is an objective, non moralistic recognition of the contradictions that occur within abuse and self-harm, and the controversy that this will cause makes this book important, along with the no holds barred approach to the subject, which is at its best when the concept of recovery is discussed. The challenge posed by this book is a challenge to all users, professionals and carers. If we accept this challenge, then perhaps real changes in these areas can and will happen.
 So You Think You’re Mad – Paul Hewitt £10.00
“So You Think You’re Mad - 7 Practical Steps to Mental Health’, outlines Paul Hewitt’s personal struggle to attain mental well being and follows the steps he took to achieve this. The authors’ awareness of a world of increasing social disorder and individual despondency, and the lack of advice offered in the area of attaining mental health, especially when suffering from the various psychological
inflictions and diagnoses of today’s social environment, prompted him to offer some practical guidance in the art of freeing the mind of self-inhibiting mental disorder. Within these pages Hewitt hopes to provide a system for the management of disorder and therefore, improved welfare.
 Politics of the Madhouse – Ron Coleman £3.00
“Politics Of The Madhouse’, is the result of thirteen years of living within the psychiatric system, and is an analysis, rather than a personal experience of this system. Through his political beliefs, Ron Coleman believes that it is only through revolutionary activity that ultimately change can be made and that it is our duty to fight for reform in the here and now. This publication is unashamedly political in content with Coleman’s belief that the whole issue of mental health is bound up inexorably with the political system that we live in.
 Who’s hurting who? – Helen Spandler £10.00
“Self harm was a way of feeling that I was worth something to myself because I can say God, I can control this – how many times I cut, how far I go, where I do it and how I do it”. Nobody can control that…” Young people have their say on the issue of self harm and suicide. Helen Spandler’s collected listenings to groups of young people who self harm
Mad Pride – A Celebration of Mad Culture
Mad Pride is set to become the first great civil liberties movement of the 21st century. Sick of discrimination, marginalization, medication and being treated like shit, psychiatric patients are preparing to rise from the ghettos and make the world a fit place to live in. Featuring 24 authors boasting about wild things they’ve done when they’re losing it, and sharing their accounts of liberation through madness, this collection celebrates madness in all its forms as a means to all-out social
revolution.
Understanding Voices – Marius Romme, Sandra Escher £10.00
“Understanding Voices” - Coping with Auditory Hallucinations and Confusing Realities’, is a collection of the original research by Romme and Escher, who founded the Hearing Voices movement. The book covers three articles; the first is a study of an experiment in which people with auditory
hallucinations were brought into contact with and described their experiences to each other. The second is a paper covering a pilot study comparing people who heard voices either diagnosed as schizophrenic, or as having an affective disorder, which concludes that hearing voices is not primarily
an incomprehensible symptom of an illness but more a personal way of coping with personal problems. The third article covers extensive research on the main results of the comparative study of three groups with auditory hallucinations. Following the conclusion, Romme, Escher and Hage include the ‘Maastricht Interview’ schedule, which has been used during their research, and is currently used
in therapy.
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