Working wonders in the kitchen

On the outside, Anam Cara is no more than a terraced house in an old, well-kept part of north Birmingham

On the outside, Anam Cara is no more than a terraced house in an old, well-kept part of north Birmingham. Push open the unlocked door, walk past the giant dream-catcher and through to the kitchen and that's the place where the miracles happen. The therapeutic centre, if you could call it that, is a kitchen table, surrounded by six chairs and a kettle that's always on the go for cups of tea.

Sitting as it does at the centre of a warm, informal, family atmosphere, that table has heard many incredible stories, stayed solid under the weight of enormous pain and has been witness to the transformations of people who have been diagnosed as incurable by the psychiatric profession, and then - at Anam Cara - have got better.

Alison Reeves and Rob Kerrigan, who run Anam Cara, travel the world sharing their philosophy. Both have experienced their own mental health crises in the past. They were in Dublin this past weekend to speak at Schizophrenia Ireland's 12th Biennial Conference on Schizophrenia.

Anam Cara is funded by Change, a small charity in north Birmingham, and by the Northern Birmingham Mental Health Trust. It offers alternatives to hospital admission and crisis support services for people diagnosed with schizophrenia, manic depression, psychosis and other psychiatric labels. Anam Cara comprises two services: one involves three sponsor families who take people into their homes, the second is the crisis house.

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The Anam Cara (Soul Friend) crisis house is run by "recovery guides" - people who have themselves recovered from mental health problems and help to provide a supportive and a caring environment to others experiencing serious mental and emotional problems. It is supported by the statutory Crisis Home Treatment teams in the local area, who refer people to the house and visit them there.

The house facilities include a women's group, an art group and an Art of Happiness group based on the book by the Dalai Lama written with American psychiatrist Howard Cutler.

While Anam Cara accepts that drug therapies are often necessary, it also offers a number of alternative therapies including reiki (Japanese energy healing), shiatsu and Australian bush flower remedies, because none of these interferes with drug treatment.

Reeves, who grew up in South Africa, had mental health problems as a result of sexual abuse in childhood: she believes that what society defines as "psychiatric illness" is actually a "spiritual crisis". She has been strengthened by her belief that no matter how horrendous your suffering in life, it is part of a larger plan which - if you have the courage and guidance from supportive people - will bring you towards well-being and enlightenment. It's a philosophy which many of those at Anam Cara have also arrived at, individually.

Seeing a "breakdown" or "crisis" as a journey, rather than as a diagnosis, is also the approach of Rob Kerrigan, whose father is from Mayo and whose mother is from Tipperary. Kerrigan was briefly hospitalised in his 20s after several years in a rock band, when the stress of the touring lifestyle led to a breakdown in which Kerrigan became paranoid and believed he was Jesus Christ. He became a psychiatric nurse, before becoming involved with Anam Cara.

"I think mental illness is a human experience that gets misinterpreted and called `mental illness'. Working in a psychiatric hospital, I eavesdropped on what the patients were saying and realised that it is the system that is schizophrenic. The system is the illness. Hospitals create a paranoia which is regarded as an illness and treated as an illness."

His view is that the psychiatric hospital system, in which people are thrown in with others who are extremely ill, then constantly watched by staff, creates a concept of psychiatric illness which the patients are then encouraged to fulfill through their behaviour by becoming paranoid, fearful and angry. You must comply with the diagnosis in a psychiatric hospital, take the medication and behave well in order to be let out again. The result is that patients must focus on appearing superficially to be recovering, while all they are really doing is suppressing the fears and vulnerabilities that are troubling them and which got them into hospital in the first place.

Psychiatry and psychotherapy are not integrated, he observes, so patients are discouraged from telling their stories - stories which, if heard, would contain the keys to unlocking their mental distress.

At Anam Cara, people who have been psychiatric inpatients come to stay for three weeks after their release from hospital. Living in the house, they tell their stories, listen to the stories of others, and learn to accept each other, and themselves, for who they are. It is through this sharing that the healing comes.

"Anam Cara is what mental health care should be," Rob asserts.

And it's a model which Schizophrenia Ireland would like to see Irish mental health services considering.

Anam Cara Crisis House, 95 Wheelwright Road, Gravelly Hill, Birmingham B24 8PE. 0044 121 3841344 (office); 0044 121 384 2884 (house); 0044 4106 68782 (mobile)