News stories from Counterpoint
In the News
• Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Peter Welch, and Rep. Becca Balint hosted a “town meeting on youth mental health” on June 29 at Spaulding High School in Barre. Sanders cited “a mental health crisis in America,” particularly “for our young people, who are living with...
Feds Publish National Standards for Peer Certification
More than a year ago, in connection with President Joe Biden’s 2022 State of the Union address, the White House announced a “national mental health strategy to strengthen system capacity,” including the peer workforce. This June, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health...
Neuroinclusive Health Clinic Reports Growth
All Brains Belong VT, a Montpelier-based nonprofit founded during the pandemic, garnered attention last year thanks to its unusual COVID-19 vaccination clinics. Outdoor settings (including the Statehouse lawn), calming features, and specially trained staff allowed...
ISPS-US Gets Ready for Annual Conference
The American chapter of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis received a record number of proposals this year for its annual conference, according to ISPS-US Executive Director Leah Giorgini. The conference, titled Humanity in...
June Evictions Appear to Increase Unsheltered Homelessness
Roughly 800 homeless Vermonters lost their state-funded motel placements on June 1. The government didn’t collect data on where they went, but service providers have made observations of their own in the months since. The group in question had not met vulnerability...
News Briefs: Mobile Crisis, Retreat, SVMC, DAIL, Mad Pride
Mobile Crisis Services Delayed Vermont’s statewide mobile crisis response program will not launch on Sept. 1 as planned, according to the Department of Mental Health. Deputy Commissioner Alison Krompf named Jan. 1 as a likelier start date. DMH contracted Health Care...
Counterpoint Articles Archives
Arts and commentary from Counterpoint
‘You Could Be a Light’
Essay by Adam A. Meyers My name is Adam A. Meyers and I was a police officer in Wisconsin for 21 years. On Friday, April 8, 2016, at 5:15 p.m., I was involved in a critical incident when I used deadly force against someone who armed themselves with a hatchet inside a...
Tips To Fight Panic Attacks
Commentary by Stan Popovich As a published author of a managing fear book, I struggled with fear and anxiety for over 20 years. I am sharing my thoughts here on how to deal with a panic attack. A person can experience a panic attack when they least expect it. This can...
Editorial: When Help Hurts
The good intention to help others sometimes flies smack-dab into causing harm instead. How does one balance the good intent of creating a safe physical space for people in crisis against the damage of a space so sanitized and dehumanizing that those same people are at...
Summer Poems
An Empty, Colorless Canvas by Morgan Brown Absent requisite artistic studio space,not to mention various and necessaryart supplies, currently unavailablewith which to explore and pursue one’slifelong dream, hope and vision to potentiallyendeavor among the ever...
What Is a ‘Found Poem’?
Book review by Anne Donahue If you begin reading Parallel Pathways by thumbing through, looking for a poem or story that looks appealing to read, you are likely to pause as some point and ask, “What is a ‘found poem’?” Something written a long time ago, and recently...
Psychotherapy to the Rescue!
Short fiction by Ron Merkin The more therapy I got the more my interest in women disintegrated. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t transfer to men. Call it asexuality, distrust. My libido began fading after the psychologist Dr. Bloomstuck began our eleventh session by...
Then and Now – A Comparison from the Pages of Counterpoint: 35 Years of ‘Regionalization’
The summer issue of Counterpoint in 1988, 34 years ago, focused on a new plan called “regionalization” that had begun the year before to shift people who were being held at the Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury to living in their local communities with support...
Membership Has Real Power!
Commentary by Zack Hughes, VPS Board Member Have you ever seen this? “We are having a membership meeting.” “Come renew your membership.” Why does it matter? VPS is a membership-driven organization. A member has obligations and has power! What obligations and power?...
Editorial: Defining Input
A brand-new initiative to develop a child and adolescent psych unit at Southwestern Medical Center in Bennington is already off on the wrong foot when it comes to input from psychiatric survivors and their families. Likewise for an initiative to develop an urgent care...
Peer Divisions Are Hurting Us
Publisher's commentary by Karim Chapman Despite our broad common interests, divisions in the peer movement are getting in the way of our ability to be successful in the state. In the past two years, there have been efforts in the peer community to push to be on the...