Another Way

For over twenty years, Another Way has operated a community center in Montpelier,
Vermont that offers peer support, advocacy, resources, and crisis response to psychiatric
survivors and people at risk of psychiatric intervention.

Our homelike atmosphere is a place for people to relax and connect with others, live in
community, share meals, attend support gatherings and educational workshops, create art
and music, garden, build support networks, and access phones, computers, and other vital
resources. Another Way tries to literally provide “another way” of finding one's truth and
living well.

Another Way is a peer-run organization that receives most of its funding from the
Department of Mental Health, though we also run important initiatives with small grants
from other sources. Additionally, we recently collaborated with our local food co-op and
Transition Town Montpelier to raise money for healthy food and transform our backyard
into a permaculture garden where we grow apples and berries, herbs and tea, produce for
our meals, and have earthen benches and rock gardens for relaxation.

At Another Way, relationship is our prime service. We consider peer support an informal
process - not something "given" from staff to non-staff, but rather an expectation amongst
everyone who visits our space. We have lots and lots of conversations. People get involved
in one another's lives in meaningful and often lasting ways, and there are as many ways of
support as there are needs and personalities.

There is not a context of "mental health" at Another Way, though we do speak of the place
as being "for psychiatric survivors." People are not working out "mental health issues," but
rather being in relationship with one another, using resources, relaxing, creating art and
sharing meals, challenging one another to think in new ways, and giving and receiving
wisdom.

This is a crucial distinction between Another Way and traditional service providers. In
traditional mental health services, there is the implication that something is "wrong" with
users (mental illness) and that "help" should be provided to them (treatment). While that
context may be useful for some individuals in some ways, we do not start with the
assumption that anything is "wrong" with people at our center, and people are free to act
how they act without threat of being labeled, denigrated, or prescribed an intervention.

However, if someone is acting in ways that are difficult for others, a conversation happens
and feedback is given. There is an overarching context of creating a safe, supportive, warm,
creative, and useful space here, and it is within this context that these conversations
happen. This process looks different depending on who is giving and receiving the feedback,
though we dialogue often about how to communicate in honest and helpful ways. It's this
relational dynamic that often makes peer support different from traditional mental health
services. The focus is not on trying to get individuals to manage their symptoms or set goals
so they can have better lives, it's on trying to have good relationships so we can have better
lives. We believe this context creates stronger communities, encourages personal
responsibility, and allows genuine opportunities to build trust and take risks.

Because experiences commonly called mental illness and their subsequent treatment by
others generally leads to isolation and alienation, we believe the ideal of community can be a
vital part of health for folks with psychiatric diagnoses (as it is with others, too). Too often
the expectation by treatment providers has been for people with psychiatric diagnoses to
fully integrate into their surrounding communities as-is, as opposed to working with
communities to integrate people with psychiatric diagnoses as-is. While we certainly
recognize that belonging to mainstream society has its benefits, we also believe that having
spaces where psychiatric survivors can work together on their own terms can strengthen
one's sense of self, feeling of belonging and overall purpose, as well as create larger social
change.

For these reasons, we have seen Another Way break the cycles of hospitalization and
homelessness for some individuals - all without a treatment plan, goal-setting programs, or
direct approaches to managing symptoms. Indeed, becoming a part of a community
naturally challenges an individual to grow and to adapt, to reflect on patterns of behavior
that are not working, and to have opportunities to try new ways of being that are respected
by friends, all of which parallels so-called recovery from mental illness. Additionally, joining
together with peers of similar experiences creates opportunities for advocacy, especially if
the understanding amongst one another is that oppression exists and that individuals
operate within larger contexts, some of which are operated by material entities that can be
challenged.

Crucial to the creation of community is a shared understanding of personal boundaries.
Traditional mental health services erect strong boundaries between staff and patients.
Patients are ill; staff are experts on the illness. Personal disclosure of certain life experiences
by staff - one's own problems, trauma or psychiatric history, even interests - is strongly
discouraged or outlawed, as it is seen to negatively influence the patient's recovery by
unnecessarily influencing his or her decision-making, by sending mixed messages, or by
overwhelming him or her mentally and emotionally. These boundaries are put forth to
"protect the patient." However, such boundaries often have the adverse effect of
reinforcing to a person that he or she is "the sick one" and part of the "other group" and is
incapable of handling stress or negotiating relationships. Besides being paternalistic, this
approach essentially creates the opposite of community, as it disallows genuine connection
between people because it segregates folks into two types - those who are expected to
communicate openly and realistically about all the troubles of their lives, and those who are
expected to stay quiet about such matters, or in some silly situations, talk about them in the
third person.

Another Way is built on a different understanding of boundaries. Most staff persons also
use Another Way as a resource center, and certainly staff and users have relationships that
extend well beyond our community center. There are few top-down policies that curtail
personalities - for instance, there is no dress code beyond wearing some kind of clothes to
cover the body, and no rule about sharing a beer after work among staff and users. Issues
such as excessive swearing are naturally curtailed by community norms, and people -
whether paid or not - are free to be as open as they like about their lives.

Of course, ethical conflicts do not dissipate just because there is greater liberty: problems
do arise about relations. The point is, we address them as a community, not because of
policy. This approach encourages self-reflective learning and deepens moral responsibilities.
Yet it also relies on strong leadership, and at the risk of sounding polemical: a striving for the
common good.

A few other notes about our philosophy:
* Though we are skeptical of biopsychiatric propaganda put forth by pharmaceutical
companies and many traditional providers, we are pro-choice regarding medication usage
* We recognize that the vast majority of people with major psychiatric diagnoses are
survivors of severe trauma, which is often a causal factor in so-called mental illness and
should be acknowledged and addressed as such
* Our approach is worthwhile and good for many people, but also has limitations and is
certainly not a cure-all

Finally, it is important to mention that a spirit of volunteerism and giving permeates our
culture. While Another Way has business hours, people care for one another long after we
close. People stay with each other during crisis, encourage one another, give rides to one
another, offer assistance in hard times, cook meals for each other, stand up for each other,
and so on. Another Way has served as a hub for networking to meet not just peers, but
comrades who are there for one another when needed.