Customer Reviews

Fountain House: Portraits of Lives Reclaimed from Mental Illness

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The purpose of the club is that there is no purpose. What? Yes, there are places, 250 clubs throughout the world, where persons with a mental illness can go where "we" can change from professional patients to human beings. Thats a tall order. I want to go somewhere where I do not have to suffer someones good intentions for me. So caretakers should not have good intentions? God forbid. In the clubhouses the members (ex-mental patients) do not need to be tinkered with. We need to be given a chance to experience choice. I work in the club and when I feel ready to work for pay, the club offers the oppurtunity. I can work outside for the same wage as my normal co-workers. These jobs are four hours a day for six months. With several of these I will have a resume and now the chance to work on my own becomes real. I do not attend work readiness classes, nor budgeting classes but I am immersed right on the job. I learn from my experiences. These are different from being on the expensive back wards of a mental institution.

A great book to learn about clubhouses, how they run, and the type of people (members and staff) who make up these mental health communities. Our local clubhouse is currently struggling because they have lost focus of their purpose, and fail to value and help the members. I wanted to see whether their policies were the way clubhouses normally operate by learning about the original one, and I found my answers. Combines story, history and how key standards are carried out.