Resources

Below is a selection of resources that I have (co)produced – I hope you find something stimulating!

Journal articles, research and presentations:

1. Grey, Flick (2019). ‘Flick Grey 2019 Peer workers in Open Dialogue – expereinces, dilemmas and dialogues..’ Thesis for Open Dialogue training, Open Dialogue UK (2015-2018), and research undertaken for SANE Australia’s Hocking Fellowship 2015 [Unpublished]
2. Grey, Flick (2017) ‘Just Borderline Mad‘ Asylum: the magazine for Democratic Psychiatry 24(1), pp.7-9.
   In this article, I reflect on Open Dialogue, centres and margins, and how I understand my own experiences of distress (and the relationships between these). The article was originally a Madness Studies conference presentation, at Lancaster University in September 2016, before it was republished in Asylum magazine.
3. Grey, Flick (2016) ‘Benevolent othering: Speaking Positively About Mental Health Service Users‘ Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology 23(3/4), pp.241-251.
   In this article, I analyse a series of “awareness raising” images, and examine discourses of co-production, through the lens of my doctoral research into benevolent othering. I argue that speaking positively about mental health service users can often function as a project of the “benevolent subject,” who gets to feel good about themselves, while maintaining the subordinate status of service users. A brilliant innovation in this journal edition is the creation of dialogue – two responses to my article were elicited to which I was then able to respond. Unfortunately, this article is copyright protected and can only be accessed by subscription (e.g. through a library).
4. Grey, Flick (2012) To live is to fight: Human rights in mental health. Talk for the Dax Centre forum, University of Melbourne, August 9^th, 2012.
   In this talk, I explore some of the nuances of how human rights intersect with mental health, including the feeling of just not mattering.
5. Grey, Flick & Epstein, Merinda (2012) ‘All consumers are equal, but are some more equal than others?‘ New Paradigm: the Australian Journal on Psychosocial Rehabilitation. Working with Complexity (Spring/Summer 2012), pp.14-6.
   In this article, Merinda and I reflect on the various hierarchies that divide mental health consumers, including diagnostic hierarchies and hierarchies of trauma.
6. Grey, Flick (2011) ‘Positive thinking about consumers.’ Presentation at The Mental Health Services Conference, 2011, published in the Book of Proceedings, in the “Recommended Reading” section.
   This is an early formulation of my thinking about ‘benevolent othering.’
7. Grey, Flick (2010) ‘Opinion piece: No revolution in youth mental health without young people leading it!‘ New Paradigm: The Australian Journal on Psychosocial Rehabilitation. Youth Mental Health (Spring 2010), pp.52-3.
   This is an opinion piece I wrote (quite some years ago now), based on my observations of the ways in which young people were “allowed” to participate in the “revolution” in youth mental health services.

Booklets:

• Grey, Flick & O’Hagan, Mary (2016), ‘The Effectiveness of Services Led or Run by Consumers in Mental Health‘ Sax Institute, for the NSW Mental Health Commission.
• Our Consumer Place (2014) ‘Mad Workplaces: A commonsense guide for people with ‘mental illness’ on how to navigate the workplace‘ & Our Consumer Place (2014) ‘Mad Workplaces: A commonsense guide for workplaces, about working alongside people with ‘mental illness‘
  These two complementary booklets are written with the complexity of workplaces and ‘mental illness’ in mind – they are not just another resource written by a well-meaning charity, and there’s (hopefully) no patronising advice. This topic can be genuinely challenging, but lots of us navigate it and have learnt things along the way. These booklets also recognise that sometimes it’s the workplace that is making us crazy, and that intelligent management of ‘mental illness’ in the workplace can transform work practices to create a more meaningful and sustainable workplace for everyone!
• Our Consumer Place (2012), ‘Deep Insight: Leaders in the International Mental Health Consumer/Survivor Movement share their thinking‘
  This booklet comprises interviews with 11 leaders in the international consumer/survivor movement, including Shery Mead, Peter Beresford, Oryx Cohen, Ron Coleman, Mary O’Hagan and many more. It really is a burst of brilliant, inspired, transformative thinking. Plus it is illustrated with cartoons by Merinda Epstein.
• Our Consumer Place (2011) Speaking Our Minds: A guide to how we use our stories
  Launched by the Hon. Mary Wooldridge (Victorian Health Minister) at the opening of Mental Health Week, 2011, this booklet is all about what we do with our stories (or choose not to do). As always, there are great cartoons by Merinda Epstein.
• Our Consumer Place (2010) So, you’ve got a ‘Mental Illness’? … What now?
  This booklet is where it all began for me (in the sense that it was the first substantial job I had in the consumer workforce, bringing this booklet together, in collaboration with Merinda Epstein) – written by a wide range of people, this booklet ranges from how diagnoses work and where to find help, to oppression and human rights frameworks. It is brimming with useful information that is rarely collected together. I still love it, after all these years.

Several other fabulous resources are available at the Our Consumer Place website (I’ve only listed the ones here that I was involved with producing).

Audio:

• All in the Mind (ABC Radio National) ‘Lived Experience in Mental Health’ (2017), presented by Lynne Malcolm (28:52).
  This show interweaves interviews with myself and Professor Mike Slade (UK), both Keynote Speakers at the 2017 TheMHS conference.
• All in the Mind (ABC Radio National) program on Open Dialogue (2016), presented by Lynne Malcolm (28:50)
  This show includes interviews with Jaakko Seikkula (co-developer of the Open Dialogue approach), Anna Arabskyj (family member who has personal experience as a member of Open Dialogue social network meetings) and myself.
• Out of Our Minds (3CR) special broadcast for the International Day of People with a Disability (2010) presented by Piers Gooding and Flick Grey,  (30mins)
  This show includes an interview with Merinda Epstein, long-time activist, advocate, writer/ researcher and cartoonist in the Australian ‘mental health’ consumer movement and Dr. David Webb, psych survivor, academic, author, activist and disability advocate.

Videos:

1. Opening the dialogue about madness and distress, Keynote, TheMHS Conference, Sydney 2017 (48:38). There’s also a recording of the subsequent Q&A session (1:01:31).
2. Speaking about Open Dialogue, in conversation with Kermit Cole, London 2016 (20:55) Published on Mad in America. In this conversation, I think through what studying Open Dialogue has raised for me, as an Australian, as a peer worker, and as a human being.
3. “How can we talk about this?” National BPD Awareness Day 2011 (15:45)
   In this talk, I wonder how we might be able to speak about experiences that get labelled as Borderline Personality Disorder, when these conversations are actually relationally very difficult!

[Fun fact: mycelium (fungal colonies like mushrooms) can communicate through vast networks underneath forests, including sending nutrients from one part of the forest to another – I find that a richly generative metaphor for how we nourish each other’s thinking]