News stories from Counterpoint
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...
Soteria House Union Wins First Contract
Workers at Soteria House in Burlington ratified their first collective bargaining agreement with their employer, Pathways Vermont, in late August. Soteria House is a peer-run therapeutic residence. Its staff unionized in the summer of 2022, joining Local 1343 of the...
Battle Erupts on Hotel Evictions
Report by Anne Donahue MONTPELIER – Some 2,800 individuals, including children, who have been housed at hotels during the COVID pandemic face losing shelter by July 1, leading to a contentious political battle over the state’s budget and its responsibility to keep a...
‘I’ve Got To Walk the Walk’
Story by Anne Donahue BURLINGTON – When Christina Guessferd takes to the air as co-anchor on the WCAX nightly news, she is the consummate professional: composed, articulate, relaxed. That reflects a large part of how she sees herself. As her high school’s class...
State Expands Urgent Care Sites
WATERBURY — Projects intended to keep Vermonters out of emergency departments during mental health crises are coming to nearly every part of the state. Of the 12 submissions generated last year by the Department of Mental Health’s request for proposals for mental...
Counterpoint Articles Archives
Arts and commentary from Counterpoint
Drugs vs. “Psychotherapy”: A True Story
Essay by Ron Merkin. All names, except the author’s, have been changed. Part One: Drugs “How do you feel about the use of psychotropic medication in the treatment of psychiatric patients?” she asked. Her question caught me completely unprepared. It was my first...
Documentary Sheds Light on Mental Health Court
The term “mental health court” has the ring almost of an oxymoron. But for some criminal justice reformers, such programs (which include Vermont’s Chittenden Adult Drug Treatment and Mental Health Court Dockets) demonstrate a means of reducing the rate of...
She Always Comes Home
Short fiction by Ron Merkin, Montpelier The Jaltsens lived in New Jersey. Walking through Manhattan after a concert we attended with them one night, my husband asked if they'd be taking the George Washington Bridge home. “Oh, no!” Alice responded. “It'd be much too...
Voices from Mad Pride
The bandshell at Burlington’s Battery Park hosted speakers from across the state on Mad Pride Day. Excerpts follow. Chris Hansen, Burlington My chief qualification for being here is my own history of being seen as mad enough to lock up at a significant time in my...
Editorial: New Week, New Ideas
How should psychiatric survivors and ex-patients interact with mainstream progressive demands for a fully funded mental health system? On July 31, the popular HBO show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver aired a 25-minute video essay about mental healthcare in the...
Fall Poems
Reflection Lakeby Raven Joy Crispino, RutlandYou came to me in a fragmentLess than a sentence drew meIntrigued, I opened the door to a worldThat could hold our weightIn pain, in laughter, in heart-hardening silence. I promised to cry less… Was told I saved you from...
Eleven Years of Being Peers
Essay by Linda Fuglestad This year, 2022, Alyssum quietly, but proudly, celebrates 11 years of being here in Vermont as the first peer-hosted alternative holistic crisis intervention and respite! In doing this work, we have been happy to celebrate our ongoing...
Mental Health and Cycling
Essay by Tanawat Luekr-u-suke Riding my bike and walking have always been a way for me to clear my thoughts and improve my attitude. Over time, long walks and bike rides became meditation sessions for me, allowing me to boost my mental health simply by making time to...
Editorial: Who Decides if the News Is ‘Bad’?
In April, the Burlington-based alt-weekly Seven Days published the following headline: “UVM Health Network Halts Badly Needed Psychiatric Bed Project.” The article was a news story, not a commentary, about an announcement by the University of Vermont Health Network...
How Radical Psychiatrists Pursued ‘Disalienation’ in a French Hospital
A libertarian Marxist refugee from the fascist regime that won the Spanish Civil War, Dr. Francois Tosquelles, a Catalan, arrived in France less than a year before the German invasion. Following a months-long internment at the Septfonds concentration camp, his release...