I began working in community mental health because I found the people, the mental health consumers, so extraordinary. I could not believe how badly this group was treated, even by mental health professionals. Somehow, the humanity was stripped away from this group of people, because of an illness over which they had no control. This injustice, and the courage and inspiration of the people surviving and recovering from mental illness inspired me to enter this work, and continues to inspire and drive me to this day.
My friend Robert is a great example. Robert is not always the best dresser and he can sometimes be hard to understand. But that is not the Robert I see. I see a kind and gentle man who is funny and very smart. He is a great editor and finished a few years of college. If this illness had not struck him, and the medications had been better when he first became ill, many years ago, he could have become almost anything: a comedian or a history professor or who knows what. The important thing is that some large part of Robert is that person, and he is the person I see.
One of the great lessons I have learned in the later part of my career, is a profound understanding of the possibilities of recovery. I have come to know people who have schizophrenia or affective disorders and are also functioning lawyers and doctors. I know people sometimes have a hard time relating to this concept: that men and women with serious mental illnesses can overcome the challenge and have high-powered careers, but it can and does happen (witness Mike Wallace, Vincent van Gogh, Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, etc). Not everyone can achieve this potential, but everyone should be afforded the opportunity to try.
At Fountain House, we believe that anyone with the right medication, the right support and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of hope for the future, can and will succeed. We see it everyday behind the green door of Fountain House.
I would like to speak to the people visiting this Web site who have been told by professionals or others that people who have mental illness have a chronic disease from which they will never recover: usually meaning that they will never work again, complete their schooling, or have a healthy and happy social life. What they meant to say to you was that, while you may have some symptoms of the illness, and you may need to take medication for a long time, you can still sing and dance and fall in love and go to school and get a good job and have a home and meet some friends and do whatever you please.
Fountain House can't take everyone who would like to come here, but the good news is that more and more Fountain House model programs (generally known as Clubhouses, or ICCD-certified Clubhouses) are developing around the world. We have a link to the Web site of the ICCD, which has a directory of Clubhouses, the best of which can be identified by their three-year certification from the ICCD. As they say in the commercials, don't be fooled by the other places, which use our name or the name Clubhouse: only ICCD-certified Clubhouses are the real thing.
Finally no web site, even with a virtual tour, will ever capture a Fountain House Clubhouse. Only a visit to the real thing will give you a sense of the power of regenerative recovery to be found within the four walls of the Clubhouse. So come and visit us in New York City, or see a place closer to you. And remember never to give up hope, for yourself or anyone else you care about.
Kenn Dudek has been the President of Fountain House since 1992 and has worked as a social worker in community mental health for over twenty-five years.