Interview originally published in Polish in the quarterly „Psychiatra. Pismo dla Praktyków” (No. 44, 1/2024 Spring) and in a shortened version „Piękny Umysł” (No. 4, Spring 2024).
Katarzyna Parzuchowska – head of studies at the Masovian Recovery College, founder and instructor of the Teatr Kryzys, member of the program board of the OSFP Foundation, trainer-specialist in social communication at the Community Mental Health Center for Children and Youth in Warsaw’s Wola district.
Where did the idea for the Masovian Recovery College come from?
In mid-2018, Ania Zdrowińska, who at that time lives in Copenhagen, appeared in Warsaw at one of the meetings of the eFkropka Foundation. It so happened that it was in Denmark that she was treated for a serious mental crisis. After hospitalization, she became a student at Skolen for Recovery in Copenhagen. At eFkropkka, she talked about various courses, the assumptions of the model, the student community and how empowering this experience is. She was curious how it works in Poland and surprised that there are no recovery colleges here yet. I, in turn, was impressed that in Denmark such a solution is available and reimbursed by their National Health Fund. Then I did a short interview with her for my blog, in which Ania talked about stress reduction techniques without giving up normal life, learning to think of herself as a „mentally sensitive” person who is exposed to certain experiences that cause suffering, and not „mentally ill”. There was an immediate desire in my heart for someone to do this in our country. Over time, it turned out that there were a lot of people interested in this initiative. The topic was undertaken by the Open Seminars of Philosophy and Psychiatry Philosophical Foundation. The circumstances were favorable to us. After many months of preparations, we wrote an project and obtained funds for 3-year activities under a grant from the Masovian Center for Social Policy.
Where does the Recovery Collage model come from?
The first recovery colleges were established in the United States in the 1990s as part of the Recovery Movement, i.e. a patient movement shifting the emphasis from illness to giving psychiatric patients the prospect of hope for recovery. In Europe, recovery colleges first appeared in the UK, the first in London in 2009. They currently operate in over 30 countries. In some places, such as in Scandinavia or England, they are part of the medical system and are organized by local Ministries of Health. However, in the Czech Republic, for example, where we got first-hand information, the only recovery college located in Prague is run by a non-governmental organization on a project-based, discontinuous basis – just like we do in Poland. The Masovian Recovery College is based on cooperation with groups from the Czech Republic, where the college has been operating since 2017, and Slovakia, where Škola zotavenia works since 2023. We met them last year, first during their visit to Poland (arranged by Paweł Jordan from the BORIS Association), and next during our visit to Prague. We were particularly supported by Petra Kubínová, coordinator of the Center for Pro Development in Prague, and Juraj Marendiak, CARe trainer and consultant of the Slovak Association of Supported Employment, both actively involved in the deinstitutionalization of psychiatry in their countries. Petra provided us with materials describing the model of the Recovery College in Prague, we could discuss them with her and her colleagues, because it is always about living experience, not just information. We are still in contact with them. We are also joining the RECOLLECT International Research Consortium, a unit at the Institute of Mental Health in Nottingham that networks and researches the effectiveness of recovery college facilities around the world, from Canada, through Europe, Uganda, Thailand and Australia.
What distinguishes you from other forms of support?
First, each element of the recovery college is the result of cooperation and exchange between experts through knowledge and people with first-person experience of the crisis. The principle of such „cooperation” is the foundation of the model. This also has an impact on students: patients, families and loved ones, as well as professionals, enroll in the recovery college. They sit on school desks on equal terms. No one is smarter or more suitable than another student, although of course everyone can contribute different types of resources and present different needs. Thanks to this, they erase systemic inequalities to promote diversity and teach communication on the level of exchange, dialogue, cooperation and openness.
Secondly, the recovery college takes place outside the walls of hospitals or clinics. It is never enough to remind people drawn to psychiatry that there is also a world and offers related to recovery outside medical facilities. However, we are in no way against psychiatric treatment in any form. We do not propose something „instead of”, but „besides” or rather „together with”. We offer patients another link, a stop in the offer of returning to themselves.
Thirdly, students will choose the courses they will take part in. The schedules will be designed so that you can participate in each class, without conflicting dates, which we will encourage, but we will not force you to do anything. Someone may want to take one course on a trial basis, and in the next semester he or she will be interested in another topic or decide that it is not for him, and that will also be fine. The free decision-making of each person from the very beginning is the most important.
Who runs the classes?
Each course will be conducted by an expert through knowledge and an expert through experience. Thanks to this, professional knowledge will meet and complement the existing practice of everyday recovery during the classes. At the moment, we are working together on the construction of class programs in such a way that experts will not only bring their stories of illness and recovery through experience, but also complement the courses with workshop elements, well-thought-out exercises and experiences, so that it opens all students to mutual experiences and at the same time it promoted the acceptance of knowledge. We also hope that co-conducting classes by such dyads will make it easier for each participant to identify with a given person, to whom they are closer, and to get even more from their studies
Who can become a student?
For most classes, we expect a mixed group of students, including a group of psychiatric patients, professionals and people studying fields related to supporting people after crises. We also allow the participation of close people, broadly understood as family, friends or neighbors – in fact, statistically speaking, everyone. We are organizing 2 open days during which you will be able to meet us, ask about everything and register. We are very curious who will show up at these first meetings. They take place on May 27 and June 3, which is probably when this talk will be freshly printed issue in Polish quarterly “Psychiatra. Pismo dla Praktyków”.
Who is Recovery Collage not for?
Mazovian Recovery college is not for people who are in a serious crisis, need treatment and are still at the very beginning of their path to recovery. I emphasize again that we position ourselves alongside psychiatry, not instead of it, which means that medical care for students who are in mental crisis is a fundamental issue. If the symptoms significantly impede their functioning, starting school will not change that. On the contrary, it can cause someone to experience frustration because they will be demanding more from themselves at this moment than they can give, and this experience of failure to function at this next level will only increase the person’s suffering. Therefore, it is important that the student is in remission and has the strength to take up the student challenge here and now. The same applies to loved ones and professionals. They need to have space in their lives for additional activities. The more classes they take part in, the greater the effectiveness of their studies. The more they miss classes, the less sense it makes. At the moment, our college is limited to people living in the Masovian Voivodeship and this is one of the formal requirements for participation.
Where will the classes take place?
Some of the classes will be held online, thanks to which we intend to reach people living in the Masovian Voivodeship, but outside Warsaw. And we know that outside the capital the offer is smaller but the needs are similar. However, we will operate stationary in two cultural centers with which we have been cooperating in various contexts for several years, namely the Stokłosy Cultural Center and the Kadr Community Center. Both institutions have been involved in the deinstitutionalization of psychiatry for several years.
In the years 2020-2023, support groups were organized by the Mokotów Mental Health Center from EU funds. At the end of last year, the OSFP Foundation also organized workshops on Value-Based Practice there as part of the Active Citizens – National Fund program. There we also staged the play „Niesamowite” by the Teatr Kryzys as part of an open stage. I worked on each of these projects, but they ended. So a free space appeared in Kadr and we jumped into it with Recovery College. This is where the main Saturday meetings of the winter semester will be held, which will start at the end of August.
Whereas The Stokłosy Cultural Center has been the seat of the Teatr Kryzys since 2019, where we conduct workshops and on stage we prepare performances. Some of the open-profile Kryzys activities will now be incorporated into the Masovian Recovery College. Classes of theater group start in the summer semester, i.e. in mid-June.
Since it’s a school, are there tests and exams?
We assume various activities and experiences related to completing individual courses. These will not be credits typically associated with school. However, at individual stages we will require participants to do, for example, housework or various forms of involvement in a relatively stress-free manner. We will work together with the instructors to maintain a balance between setting requirements and challenges and the chance of receiving a final diploma. We want to increase motivation so that thanks to the effort put in, at the end there is a reward in the form of the greatest possible satisfaction.
What will you learn at the Masovian Recovery College?
We focus on practical matters: from how to take care of yourself and lead a healthy lifestyle, to caring for your independence and finances. We will be thinking about self-management and implementing plans, what the road to recovery looks like, what stage you are currently at and where you want to be tomorrow. We will look at our social relationships and discuss the risks and benefits of online discourse about mental health. A separate course will be devoted to neurodiversity. We will also look at the issue of acceptance of the diagnosis and the sense of influence or control in the context of one’s recovery. And finally, we will integrate and have fun during theater workshops, where we will introduce some spontaneity, imagination, movement and physical exercise, and we will try to create conditions conducive to safe expression. For this year, we are planning a schedule that includes ten different courses, three of which will also take place in the summer semester. Although we will encourage participation in all types of courses, we do not require it, so you can choose those classes that, in our opinion, will serve you best at this time.
What will students gain from participating? First of all, psychiatric patients who are our students will be able to switch from thinking about their illness to thinking about their recovery. The entire College is designed to awaken and strengthen hope. And hope is a healing factor. And the healthier you are, the more hope you can have, so it feeds back and strengthens you. We hope that this will happen. In addition, everyone will get a good dose of motivation to leave the house and plan their activities. They will have the opportunity to meet other people and look at difficulties from completely different perspectives. They will finally be able to commit to their recovery. That’s what we would like. Some people may be less involved, but they will receive Health Notebooks from us, i.e. a notebook for personal notes, conclusions and reflections, to which they will be able to return later, when the moment is more convenient.
Why is this so important to you?
I am a person with experience of many psychoses. Living with schizophrenia is a very big challenge for me. Particularly difficult were the moments when I started living with the disease and the last strong relapse, preceded by a state in which I was so confident in my resources that I missed the red light telling me that it was coming back again. The disease is always demanding and debilitating. Much is lost in life because of it. I know that my experience is not unique and I know how much support is needed in overcoming the crisis not only for patients, but also for loved ones and professionals. The college is supposed to be a solid source of support for all students.
Why did the OSFP Foundation, which has so far operated mainly in the field of educating professionals, take up this task?
The last 3 years of the OSFP Foundation’s activity have indeed focused on the education of professionals, especially thanks to participation in the Active Citizens program. Thanks to it, we organized not only some online courses in the philosophy of psychiatry for medical students and webinars focused mainly on psychologists and psychotherapists, but also the workshops on Value-Based Practice, which I conducted together with Andrzej Kapusta from the Institute of Philosophy of UMCS in Lublin. Values-based Practive workshops were designed precisely in this mode of full openness to all participants of the entire system, people studying and working, people who are sick and their loved ones, etc. I see the Masovian Recovery College as a natural next step on the same path.
Public task co-financed from the budget of the Masovian Voivodeship.
Fundacja Otwarte Seminaria Filozoficzno-Psychiatryczne 