New Guided Mutual Support Group
We have set up a Gaining Autonomy Over Psychiatric Medication (GAM) group, meeting weekly on a Saturday afternoon.
We use the GAM WorkBook that helps people look at their relationships with medications and empowering them to make choices about what they want to do in the future. This could include tapering the medication, either completely or just partially – or – helping group members make a decision about what medications they want to be on.
What is GAM?
The resource we use:
Gaining Autonomy and Medication Management in Mental Health
To start, the group has gone through the resource book for the last 10 weeks as a means to establish a peer support group that will meet on an ongoing basis.
The group is co-facilitated by Neil Caton and Paul Baker from CHARM. Neil and Paul have both undertaken training in the GAM approach from Celine Cyr, A GAM trainer and facilitator from Montreal.
The GAM resource takes you through 8 steps empowering you to make informed decisions about what decisions you want to make in relation to your medication:
- Awakening – Your life belongs to you, waking up to your rights.
- Observing and reflecting – Thinking about my experiences with medication.
- Finding the right people, information and tools
- Deciding – making decisions about your future relationship with medication.
- Planning and preparing for change
- A method to reduce or withdraw from medication and lessen withdrawal reactions
- Managing withdrawal reactions and emotions.
When and Where
We meet on a Saturday between 3pm and 4:30pm GMT
We are a hybrid group with some people joining from Manchester in person , and other group members joining online using owl technology to ensure that communication between group members is seamless.
See below website of technology we use:
Owl Labs – Leading the Way in Smart Video Conferencing Technology
Contact
For any questions or to register your interest, please contact either charm.mentalhealth@gmail.com or catonneil1009@gmail.com
Background
This is a continuation of work we commenced in 2020 with a series of online workshops held form 2020 to 2022 led by
Dirk Corstens (Netherlands) and Allison Branitski (USA/UK)
Celine Cyr (Canada) and Olga Runciman (Denmark)
You can read about the Taking Control, of Medication initiative here
