ISPS-US Annual Conference 2026

1:30pm EST

Metacognitive Frameworks for Social Connection and Creative Engagement (In-Person Only)

Friday November 6, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm EST

Metacognitive Frameworks for Social Connection and Creative Engagement

1:30-2:15pm Complex Trauma and Metacognition: From Concrete Symptom to Creative Engagement - Marilyn Charles, PhD, APP, Jeremy Ridenour, PsyD, Danielle Frank, LCSW
2:15-3pm Reconnecting with Others: Metacognition and Social Recovery in Psychosis - Courtney Wiesepape, PsyD, HSPP, Jessica Garrelts, MS, Marlee Gieselman, BS

Complex Trauma and Metacognition: From Concrete Symptom to Creative Engagement - Marilyn Charles, PhD, APP, Jeremy Ridenour, PsyD, Danielle Frank, LCSW
Research and experience show that psychosis is a function of alienation from self and other. We can find the roots of psychosis in the early developmental failures that are linked to complex trauma. In this panel, we will offer three perspectives on psychosis that invite creative engagement between persons as a means for promoting greater ease within the social environment. The first speaker focuses on ways in which psychosis can be traced to failures within the parent-child bond, providing a lack of a sense of competent personhood. A case will be presented in which the experience of having internalized the mother’s voice, over time, could be recognized as an aspect of an interpersonal relationship rather than a concrete reality. This process was built on an attitude of active interest in the person’s experience as a way of building space for two minds to meet and exchange experiences and perspectives. The second paper focuses on play as an aspect of clinical work that can facilitate learning, intimacy, and personal growth. After exploring impediments to play, the presenter looks at how readiness for play can be assessed and fostered, in part by embodying an attitude of curiosity and trust. The final presenter will discuss creativity in relation to considerations regarding ethical clinical practice. Clinical material will be used to discuss the use of creativity as an internal position of the therapist as a phenomenological and practical matter, bridging psychoanalytic ethics and technique. Together, the three papers show ways in which the clinician’s willingness to engage creatively and playfully can help to enhance the reflective capacities of the person suffering from symptoms of psychosis.

Reconnecting with Others: Metacognition and Social Recovery in Psychosis - Courtney Wiesepape, PsyD, HSPP, Jessica Garrelts, MS, Marlee Gieselman, BS
Individuals with psychosis frequently experience disruptions in social functioning, including difficulties forming and maintaining relationships, reduced social support, and interpersonal withdrawal. While these challenges are often conceptualized through social cognition, less attention has been given to the role of metacognition. In this presentation, we propose that the integrated model of metacognition may offer a framework to better conceptualize difficulties related to social functioning and corresponding treatment options. Two domains of metacognition that may be particularly relevant are decentration and understanding the mind of the other. Decentration is understood as the ability to view the world with recognition that one is not at the center of all noteworthy events or actions of others. In this way, one can understand that events are the result of complex emotional, cognitive, and environmental factors. Understanding the mind of the other is the ability to form increasingly complex and integrated representations of specific other people. Metacognitive deficits in these domains may result in intolerance for social ambiguity and lack of awareness of perspectives outside the self. These obstacles may contribute to suspiciousness, hypervigilance, and misinterpretations of threat commonly observed in paranoia. This presentation will utilize the integrated model of metacognition to better understand social dysfunction in psychosis. We suggest that Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy (MERIT), as well as its group-based adaptation (MERITg), are therapeutic interventions that enhance metacognitive capacity and thus improve social functioning in a person centered and recovery-oriented way. We propose that enhancing metacognition through MERIT acts as a method for improving social functioning, reducing social misinterpretations, and strengthening interpersonal connectedness.

Speakers

Danielle Frank, LCSW

Staff Psychotherapist, Lenox Hill Hospital Outpatient Center for Mental Health

Danielle Frank is a clinical social worker, with experience in community mental health, college counseling andhospital settings and is also in private practice. Her interests include trauma, gender/sexuality, psychoanalytic treatment ofpsychosis, and the psychic implications of sociopolitical... Read More →

Marilyn Charles, PhD, APP

Psychologist/Psychoanalyst, Austen Riggs Center

Marilyn Charles is a psychologist and psychoanalyst at the Austen Riggs Center, Co-Chair of the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (APCS), and Scholar of the British Psychoanalytic Council. Affiliations include the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, Universidad de Monterrey... Read More →

Courtney Wiesepape, PsyD, HSPP

Assistant Professor, Indiana State University

Courtney Wiesepape, PsyD, HSPP [she/her] is a licensed clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Indiana State University, where she teaches, mentors, and supervises graduate and undergraduate students. She is the founder and director of the Metacognition for... Read More →

Jessica Garrelts, MS

PsyD student, Department of Psychology, Indiana State University

Jessica Garrelts is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program at Indiana State University. She earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in biology from Butler University in Indianapolis, IN in 2018. She later earned her master’s degree in psychology from... Read More →

Marlee Gieselman, BS

PsyD student, Department of Psychology, Indiana State University

Marlee Gieselman is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology program at Indiana State University. She earned her B.S. in psychological sciences at Western Kentucky University, and her research interests include suicide risk and serious mental illness, particularly as they relate... Read More →

Jeremy Ridenour, PsyD

Associate Director of Admissions, Austen Riggs Center

Jeremy Ridenour is a psychologist and psychoanalyst at the Austen Riggs Center where he serves as Staff Psychologist, Associate Director of Admission, and Director of Psychological Testing. He has published various articles on psychosis and the personality assessment. Jeremy Ridenour... Read More →

Friday November 6, 2026 1:30pm - 3:00pm EST
Breakout Room #1

Breakout Session, In-Person Only

3:30pm EST

Transforming Clinical Education: Lived Experience and Meaning-Centered Care (In-Person Only)

Friday November 6, 2026 3:30pm - 5:00pm EST

Breakout Room #1

Transforming Clinical Education: Lived Experience and Meaning-Centered Care

3:30-4:15pm Out of the Shadows and Into the Classroom: Integrating Lived Experience into Education and Training About Psychosis - Philip T. Yanos, PhD, Evan Auguste, PhD, Emese Ilyés, PhD, Ethel Kirabo Nalule, MSc, Madi Barber BS
4:15pm-5pm Opening the Door: Resident and Patient Perspectives on Meaning-Focused Care in Psychosis - Punita Peketi, MD, Rachel Waford, PhD, ABPP, Saritha Venkataram, Camila Camacho

Out of the Shadows and Into the Classroom: Integrating Lived Experience into Education and Training About Psychosis - Philip T. Yanos, PhD, Evan Auguste, PhD, Emese Ilyés, PhD, Ethel Kirabo Nalule, MSc, Madi Barber BS
Most undergraduates are between the ages of 18 and 25, a period when the onset of psychosis and other mental health conditions often first begins- which means these experiences are not hypothetical, they are already in the room, carried by students and faculty alike, often unnamed. Further, since many are experiencing mental health conditions for the first time, this age range is when the potential impact of stigma toward others (in the form of expressed microaggressions and social rejection toward peers) and oneself (in the form of internalized stigma and a decreased willingness to seek help) increase considerably. College and graduate coursework that concerns psychopathology and “abnormal” psychology typically focus on imparting information drawing heavily on DSM frameworks that can reduce dynamic, complex, and context dependent experiences into checklist and labels. This approach poses particular risks for students from racialized and classed communities, whose encounters with distress are not only more likely to be misread, over-pathologized, or under-supported by clinical systems, but whose experiences are often fluid, multiply-shaped, and resistant to categorical capture. When diagnostic categories become identities rather than provisional descriptions, stigma is not just possible - it is structurally produced. A key strategy for potentially decreasing stigma includes incorporating lived experience (through personal disclosures, sharing videos, podcasts, songs, in-class visits, and other approaches) into one’s teaching approach. This strategy often leads students to disclose their lived experience which also has the potential to impact stigma, which can meaningfully shift the affective and epistemological climate of the classroom. At the same time, this kind of teaching requires holding space in ways the academy was not designed for: institutions of higher education were built around hierarchy and gatekeeping, not around feeling, connection, or the relational conditions that make honest disclosure possible. Faculty and students who bring their full selves into these encounters do so at real cost, and that cost is not evenly distributed. Disclosure from faculty and students poses risks, especially in the current political climate. In the current panel, 3 John Jay Psychology faculty and 2 students will discuss the impact of the incorporation of lived experience into the classroom.

Opening the Door: Resident and Patient Perspectives on Meaning-Focused Care in Psychosis - Punita Peketi, MD, Rachel Waford, PhD, ABPP, Saritha Venkataram
For individuals who are experiencing symptoms of psychosis, psychiatrists are often their first line of treatment. The medical model often attributes psychotic experiences with a biological focus rather than with psychological and social perspectives. This may stem from residency training, as residents focus heavily on symptom reduction rather than understanding how trauma, culture, and social aspects may contribute to patients’ experiences. Residency training is a pivotal point in a psychiatrist’s career as training shapes the attitudes and perceptions for different patient populations. We spoke to 5+ psychiatry residents at Emory, some of whom have experience of learning psychotherapy for individuals with psychosis during their training. We aimed to understand how this experience may influence how psychiatry residents conceptualize, approach, and connect with this patient population. This is a pilot study to provide a basis for further research. This is a pilot study to provide a basis for further research.Teaching residents how to “hold” and explore meaning behind symptoms versus solely focusing on symptom reduction may allow residents to be more curious and exploratory in their own approach to psychosis. This may help psychiatrists “open the door” from the biological view towards the multifaceted standpoints (social, cultural, trauma) that contribute to our patient presentations. Additionally, we spoke to patients who are enrolled in additional psychotherapy treatment regarding their experience. We aimed to understand patients’ experience of this space to explore themselves outside of the context of symptom reduction, and how this also may have influenced their connection and alliance to their provider. By understanding how trainees and patients experience meaning-focused care, we hope to shape educational foundations that holistically respect patients’ lived experiences.

Speakers

Camila Camacho

Camila is a graduate student in public health and a qualitative research coder and analyst with interests in health communication and human rights advocacy. She has contributed to qualitative research examining therapeutic relationships and to research focused on hearing healthcare... Read More →

Philip Yanos, PhD

Professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Philip Yanos, PhD is a professor in the psychology department at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is the author of the books Written Off: Mental Health Stigma and the Loss of Human Potential (2018) and Exiles in New York City: Warehousing the Marginalized on Ward's ... Read More →

Rachel Waford, PhD, ABPP

Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Professor, Consulting Psychologist, Early Psychosis Clinic Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Grady Health System Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Rachel Waford, PhD, ABPP is a licensed and board-certified clinical psychologist in Atlanta, GA. She is an Assistant Professor at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Hubert Department of Global Health and Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry... Read More →

Punita Peketi, MD

Psychiatry Resident, Emory University

Punita Peketi will complete her psychiatry residency at Emory University in July 2026. She earned her MD at Northeast Ohio Medical University and her bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences, with a minor in psychology, from the University of Akron. Her interest in psychiatry grew... Read More →

Saritha Venkataram

Masters Student in Clinical Psychology, American University

Saritha Venkataram is an MA in clinical psychology student at American University where her research interests center on the patient and therapist process, including training. She served as a research coordinator exploring the impact of long-term psychotherapy on patient experience... Read More →

Ethel Kirabo Nalule, MSc

Doctoral Student, John Jay College/CUNY Graduate Center

Ethel Kirabo Nalule is a doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY Graduate Center. Inspired by bell hooks and Paulo Freire, she views education as a practice of freedom, recognizing that when a student walks into and out of... Read More →

Madi Barber, BS

Doctoral Student, John Jay College/CUNY Graduate Center

Madi Barber is a second year PhD student in Clinical Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She graduated from Metropolitan State University of Denver where she earned a BS in psychology. In her undergraduate work, Madi engaged in a variety of research projects including... Read More →

Evan Auguste, PhD

Assistant Professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Evan Auguste, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He completed his PhD in clinical psychology with a major area of focus in forensic psychology at Fordham University in 2022. Auguste is a 2014 graduate of Middlebury College. He identities... Read More →

Emese Ilyés, PhD

Doctoral Lecturer, John Jay College

Emese Ilyés, PhD, is a Doctoral Lecturer in Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, where she teaches liberation psychology, research methods, and participatory action research. Her scholarship centers on decolonial methodologies, community... Read More →

Friday November 6, 2026 3:30pm - 5:00pm EST
Breakout Room #1

Breakout Session, In-Person Only

1:30pm EST

Contextualizing Psychosis: Society, Culture, and Lived Experience (In-Person Only)

Saturday November 7, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST

Breakout Room #1

Contextualizing Psychosis: Society, Culture, and Lived Experience

1:30-2pm Rethinking Psychosis: A Lived Experience Perspective - Kristen Koniuch, BS
2-2:30pm The Role of Societal Factors on the Thematic Content of Hallucinations and Delusions - Skye Wood, MA

Rethinking Psychosis: A Lived Experience Perspective - Kristen Koniuch, BS
This presentation explores how cultural, social, and political environments may shape psychosis spectrum and altered state experiences through both an interdisciplinary framework and the lived experience of the speaker. It examines how factors such as safety, stigma, community integration, and meaning-making influence both the interpretation and trajectory of these experiences across cultures, with particular emphasis on the cultural climate of the United States. Attendees will be introduced to alternative frameworks for understanding psychosis, including spiritual emergence, symbolic experience, and trauma-informed perspectives, while also examining the strengths and limitations of dominant biomedical models. Through the speaker’s own psychiatric survival story, participants will gain a deeper understanding of compassionate, dignity-centered approaches to supporting individuals navigating psychosis spectrum experiences.

The Role of Societal Factors on the Thematic Content of Hallucinations and Delusions - Skye Wood, MA
Why do particular themes recur in the hallucinations and delusions of psychotic individuals? While biological vulnerability and personal life experiences are widely recognized as contributing factors in psychosis, the role of the societies in which psychotic individuals reside in shaping the thematic content of symptoms has received comparatively less attention.This presentation proposes that recurring features of a society may help produce recurring thematic patterns in the hallucinations and delusions of people living within that society. Rather than viewing psychotic content as random or solely individual in origin, I will explore the possibility that social environments cultivate and exacerbate dispositions, expectations, fears, aspirations, and interpretive habits that can later become exaggerated or pathologically amplified during psychotic experiences.Drawing on various types of literature and multimedia sources, I will examine major recurring psychotic themes and present hypotheses regarding the societal conditions that may contribute to their prevalence. Examples may include surveillance technologies, achievement-oriented economic systems, dominant religious narratives, social distrust, and other cultural and structural influences.The presentation does not argue that societal factors alone determine psychotic content, nor that all individuals exposed to the same conditions will develop similar experiences. Rather, it proposes that psychotic themes may emerge through interactions between individual vulnerabilities and socially produced dispositions. By examining psychotic content through a social lens, this presentation invites discussion about the relationship between psychosis, culture, and the societies in which people live.

Speakers

Skye Wood, MA

Skye Wood, MA is a 28-year-old living with schizoaffective disorder bipolar type with a strong interest in deepening understanding psychosis and the schizophrenia spectrum. Skye hold a BA in Philosophy with a minor in Language Sciences from Virginia Tech and an MA in Media Studies... Read More →

Kristen Koniuch, BS, MA Student

Student, Lesley University

Kristen Koniuch is originally from Long Island, New York. She holds bachelor’s degrees in Public Health and Policy Studies from Syracuse University and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling with a specialization in Expressive Arts Therapy at Lesley... Read More →

Saturday November 7, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Breakout Room #1

Breakout Session, In-Person Only

3:00pm EST

Structural Contexts of Psychosis: Migration, Stigma, and Recovery (In-Person Only)

Saturday November 7, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm EST

Breakout Room #1

Structural Contexts of Psychosis: Migration, Stigma, and Recovery

3-4pm Interrogating and Addressing Stigma to Facilitate Recovery: An Overview of Research in the Mental Health Recovery Research Lab - Philip T. Yanos, PhD, Madi Barber BS, Victoria Shepard, BS, Amanda Siriram, MA
3:30-4pm Psychosis Among Immigrants in the United States: Epidemiological, Conceptual, and Social Considerations - Supriya Misra, ScD

Interrogating and Addressing Stigma to Facilitate Recovery: An Overview of Research in the Mental Health Recovery Research Lab - Philip T. Yanos, PhD, Madi Barber BS, Victoria Shepard, BS, Amanda Siriram, MA
Stigma is recognized as an umbrella term that includes a range of processes (including discrimination, structural stigma and the internalization of stigma) that follow from the attachment of negative stereotypes to human characteristics (Yanos, 2018). Stigma toward people diagnosed with psychosis has been identified as a major social barrier to their community participation and social recovery. This themed panel will include 5 presentations addressing a range of projects interrogating and addressing stigma conducted within the Mental Health Recovery Research Lab at John Jay College. Regarding predictors of stigma, Philip Yanos will review research and theory on the association between right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and stigma, and will present findings from a meta-analysis of the relationship between RWA and both attitudes and intended social distance toward people diagnosed with mental health conditions. Madison Barber will present findings research on perceptions of stigmatizing content on social media. This experimental research aimed to understand if participants could identify a stigmatizing social media post, and if the source of the post influenced perceptions of the post itself. Regarding the experience of stigma among diagnosed individuals, Amanda Siriram will present a review of the literature of intersectional stigma experiences, individualism vs collectivism, and acculturation among first- and second-generation immigrant students experiencing mental health challenges. Regarding interventions to alleviate the impact of stigma among diagnosed individuals, Victoria Shepard will present on model adaptations and preliminary findings from a program evaluation project examining the delivery of group-based Narrative Enhancement and Cognitive Therapy (NECT) to Black and Latine young adults with mental health conditions in partnership with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health. Finally, regarding interventions to decrease stigma among community members, Sheharyar Hussain will present findings from a project on the development of script for an anti-stigma lived experience video geared toward the South Asian community, with quotes drawn from the narratives of 20 person who identify as being diagnosed with mental health conditions and South Asian.At the conclusion of the panel, Philip Yanos, will discuss overriding themes between the presentations and their implications for understanding of how social processes impact people diagnosed with psychosis.

Psychosis Among Immigrants in the United States: Epidemiological, Conceptual, and Social Considerations - Supriya Misra, ScD
European epidemiological research has substantially demonstrated inequities in the incidence, severity, and care of psychosis among immigrants, primarily due to greater experience of structural and social adversities preceding, during, and following migration. Yet the United States, which has the world’s largest immigrant population totaling about a fifth of all the world's immigrants, has limited research on this phenomenon. While the earliest known study on the relationship between immigration and schizophrenia is from the United States, dominant U.S. research priorities on psychosis have since shifted from social factors to biomedical causes. Given the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric and repressive immigration policies and practices causing a backlash against immigrants, particularly their use of health and social services, it is vital to understand how to document and serve immigrants who experience psychosis. At the same time, centering lived experience, autonomy, and self-determination make visible that the Western medicalized concept of “psychosis” may not even have validity or utility for many immigrant groups in the United States, and that drawing attention to the data gaps might inadvertently risk coercive responses given the increased use of forced and involuntary psychiatric intervention across the country. This presentation will overview inequities in psychosis prevalence for immigrants globally, explain the role of social adversities to help explain these inequities, review what is known about psychosis for immigrants in the United States, and explain the context for immigrant mental health in the United States. Evidence includes a critical analytic review of the literature and qualitative findings from two research projects, one focused on South Asian immigrants in New York City and the other on immigrant peer specialists in the California Bay Area. The presentation will end with research and practice recommendations that broaden conceptions of these experiences and leverage person- and community-centered perspectives.

Speakers

Supriya Misra, ScD

Associate Professor of Public Health, San Francisco State University

Supriya Misra is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health and Affiliate Faculty at the Health Equity Institute at San Francisco State University. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on how structural and interpersonal experiences of racism, stigma, and trauma impact... Read More →

Philip Yanos, PhD

Professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Sheharyar Hussain

Sheharyar Hussain is a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center. As a Pakistani American Muslim who has little representation in the field of clinical psychology, Sheharyar is passionate about highlighting the narratives of people who are often... Read More →

Victoria Shepard, BS

PhD Student, John Jay College

Victoria is a doctoral student in the Clinical-Psychology PHD Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Victoria earned her BS in Psychology with a minor in Spanish from the University of Washington in 2022. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Victoria worked as a clinical... Read More →

Madi Barber, BS

Doctoral Student, John Jay College/CUNY Graduate Center

Amanda Siriram, MA

Doctoral Student, John Jay College

Amanda Siriram is a rising fourth-year doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology PhD program at John Jay College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Amanda earned both her BA in Psychology in 2020 and M.S. in Rehabilitation Counseling, with a concentration... Read More →

Saturday November 7, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm EST
Breakout Room #1

Breakout Session, In-Person Only

5:00pm EST

Towards a Wider Embrace: Psychoanalytic Approaches to Psychosis (In-Person Only)

Saturday November 7, 2026 5:00pm - 6:00pm EST

Breakout Room #1

The enthusiasm, innovation and sense of discovery that characterized psychoanalytic practice in its early days is experiencing a resurgence, and the energy behind this resurgence has broadened its reach towards greater inclusiveness and wider application. This panel firmly straddles the paradox of psychoanalytic theory as theory-not, as an emergence of new receptivities to what is most human when the therapist exchanges a prescribed agenda for a method of listening, recognition and therapeutic response. The paradox at the heart of the theory-not of psychoanalysis is discussed by the panelists through drawing connections to Zen Buddhist thought, through re-visiting the concept of countertransference in light of the rich and intense relationship-not of the cure-through-love, through a re-appreciation of psychoanalytic work with children, and through an appreciation of psychoanalysis as an antidote to the ways in which our so-called mental health system serves the function of reinforcing the fear of internal life by substituting dissociation for negation. In each of these realms, attention is paid to the opportunities that work with people diagnosed with psychosis offers to the enhanced appreciation of what is possible when psychoanalytic thought allows itself to be lost and re-found within the therapeutic process.

Speakers

Nancy Burke, PhD, ABPP

ISPS-US Secretary, Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/ISPS-US

Nancy Burke, PhD, ABPP is a psychoanalyst, writer and psychotherapy activist in Evanston IL. She is currently vice-president of ISPS-US, co-chair of Expanded Mental Health Services of Chicago, NFP, and a board member, past-president and core faculty member of the Chicago Center... Read More →

Zak Mucha, LCSW

President, Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis

Zak Mucha, LCSW is a psychoanalyst in Chicago and the author of Swimming to the Horizon: Crack, Psychosis and Street-Corner Social Work, Emotional Abuse: A Manual for Self Defense, and two collections of poetry.

Michael Ryzner-Basiewicz

PhD Candidate, Duquesne University

Michael Ryzner-Basiewicz is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Duquesne University. He is a member of ISPS-US and associate clinical faculty at the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. Michael works psychoanalytically with small children, adolescents, and adults.

Adam Weg, LCSW

Primary Clinician, Lenox Hill Hospital

Adam Weg, LCSW practices psychoanalytic psychotherapy in New York City, with a special interest in the psychoanalysis of “serious mental illness.” He also works in the Early Treatment Program at Lenox Hill Hospital, and is an Associate Faculty Member at the Chicago Center for... Read More →

Saturday November 7, 2026 5:00pm - 6:00pm EST
Breakout Room #1

Breakout Session, In-Person Only

11:00am EST

Invisible Partners in Recovery: Social Isolation, Discrimination, and Support Among Mental Health Caregivers (In-Person Only)

Sunday November 8, 2026 11:00am - 12:00pm EST

Breakout Room #1

Family involvement in treatment is one of the strongest prognostic factors for recovery from schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SSD). Yet, while psychotherapeutic treatment for SSD has increasingly emphasized connection, belonging, and recovery through social engagement, less attention has been paid to the social experiences of the family caregivers who actually make that recovery possible. In addition, research on family caregiving has historically focused on dementia, leaving caregivers of individuals with serious mental illness significantly understudied. This panel will incorporate lived experience from a family member supporting a loved one with schizophrenia; clinical and research insights drawn from direct work in psychosis care; population-level evidence from national BRFSS data on mental health caregiving; and a public health and policy perspective informed by decades of leadership in mental health and caregiving initiatives. Together, these perspectives offer a multidimensional view of caregiver isolation, stigma, and inclusion, allowing us to examine these issues through lived experience, clinical practice, research, and systems-level change.

Speakers

Rachel Waford, PhD, ABPP

Mitul Desai

CEO, Co-Founder, The Care Hack

Mitul Desai has spent the past two decades helping care for his brother, who lives with schizophrenia. Driven by a mission to ensure no other family suffers in isolation as his did, Mitul co-founded The Care Hack to provide evidence-based, practical support for families navigating... Read More →

Ke Wang, PhD

Data Analyst, Rosalynn Carter Mental Health and Caregiver Program at The Carter Center

Dr. Ke Wang is a research, evaluation, and data strategy leader with expertise in caregiving, mental health, health systems, and evidence-informed policy. She serves with the Rosalynn Carter Mental Health and Caregiver Program at The Carter Center, where she leads caregiver-focused... Read More →

Neetu Abad, PhD

Director, Rosalynn Carter Mental Health and Caregiver Program at The Carter Center

Dr. Neetu Abad is a seasoned leader who has implemented high-impact public health strategies in mental and behavioral health, vaccine-preventable diseases, and emergency response domestically and globally. In July 2025, she was named the first director of the Rosalynn Carter Mental... Read More →

Sunday November 8, 2026 11:00am - 12:00pm EST
Breakout Room #1

Breakout Session, In-Person Only

1:30pm EST

Holding and Belonging: Relational Approaches to Recovery in Young People Experiencing Psychosis (In-Person Only)

Sunday November 8, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST

Breakout Room #1

Holding and Belonging: Relational Approaches to Recovery in Young People Experiencing Psychosis

1:30-2pm The Holding Environment in Fragmented Systems: Reflections on Therapy in First-Episode Psychosis - Priyanka Padidam, LSW, Madeleine Andrews, LSW
2-2:30pm Held Apart: Loneliness, Psychosis, and the Work of Recovery - Gil Grunfeld, MSc, MA

The Holding Environment in Fragmented Systems: Reflections on Therapy in First-Episode Psychosis - Priyanka Padidam, LSW, Madeleine Andrews, LSW
What does a holding environment look like in a fragmented system? In our roles as community-based therapists at a community mental health center, we work exclusively with young people who have been identified as experiencing psychosis for the first time in their lives. All of our participants are Philadelphia residents on Medicaid who are navigating a variety of the city’s structures and systems in and outside of our program. Psychosis, which is often understood in contexts of fragmentation and dissociation, is diagnosed in individuals, but it is intertwined with individuals’ experiences of their families, neighborhoods, and city – structures that themselves are ripe for fragmentation.In this context, we have found the Winnicottian concept of the 'holding environment' to be imperative as we strive to be stable, predictable, and empathic containers for clients. But our individual ability to create a holding environment is limited by fragmentation and dissociative elements in the systems to which we are bound. When, as a result, our own fragmentation arises, pressure mounts to pull in external and literal holding environments (i.e. hospitalization, or at times, medication) as an attempt to protect ourselves and our clients from falling to pieces without a safety net. These temporary holding environments function as last-ditch, often coercive attempts to protect people within a malfunctioning environment. In a city where presenting as psychotic puts one at greater risk of becoming unhoused, arrested, or killed, and within a mental health system that largely functions to protect itself and manage risk, these efforts create further social isolation by weakening trust in one’s social and familial supports and the mental health system at large. It is our observation that these responses to psychotic experiences end up creating psychotically organized systems, as well as dissociation and fragmentation in the inner life of the therapist. We hope to increase understanding of these (dis)organizations through investigating both clinical and agency-level instances that reveal the simultaneous necessity and insufficiency of the holding environment.

Held Apart: Loneliness, Psychosis, and the Work of Recovery - Gil Grunfeld, MSc, MA
This presentation integrates theoretical insights with contemporary research to examine loneliness in psychosis, with particular attention to early psychosis experiences in youth. Drawing on a recently published integrative review, the presentation highlights underexplored developmental processes (e.g., narrative identity, stigma, social preferences) that can shape the course of recovery. Building on this foundation, findings from an ongoing mixed-methods study illustrate how these processes operate in daily life. The presentation concludes by considering clinical implications for psychotherapy, with particular attention to supporting meaning-making, trust, and relational connection as central to recovery.

Speakers

Priyanka Padidam, LSW

Resilience Counselor, Horizon House, Inc.

Priyanka Padidam, LSW received her Master of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania in 2023. While completing social work training she worked with adults in an inpatient psychiatric hospital setting and provided individual outpatient therapy at a community mental health center... Read More →

Madeleine Andrews, LSW

Resilience Counselor, Horizon House, Inc

Madeleine Andrews is a social worker who graduated from the GSSWSR in 2024. While in school, Maddie worked with young children and their families in community mental health spaces, using child centered play therapy modality. She has worked at a community mental health first episode... Read More →

Gil Grunfeld, MSc, MA

PhD Student, Boston University

Gil Grunfeld, MSc, MA, is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at Boston University. Previously, She received a MSc in Transcultural Psychiatry from McGill University. Gil's research on loneliness draws from phenomenology, psychoanalytic theory, and philosophy of psychiatry... Read More →

Sunday November 8, 2026 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
Breakout Room #1

Breakout Session, In-Person Only

3:00pm EST

The Therapeutic Power of Community: The Fountain House Clubhouse Model and Beyond (In-Person Only)

Sunday November 8, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm EST

Breakout Room #1

The Therapeutic Power of Community: The Fountain House Clubhouse Model and Beyond

3:30-4:15pm Therapeutic Community: The Clubhouse Model - Kevin Rice, MA, Nicole Patton, Jamarne McGill, Brandon Daniels
4:15-5pm A Schizophrenic Walks into a Bar: Interpreting the Institutional Unconscious through In Vivo Social Interventions - Jesse Newberg, LMSW, Chloe Murtagh, LMSW

Therapeutic Community: The Clubhouse Model - Kevin Rice, MA, Nicole Patton, Jamarne McGill, Brandon Daniels
This panel will consist of clubhouse members living with serious mental illness (SMI) as well as clubhouse staff. This panel discusses the clubhouse model of psychosocial rehabilitation as a community-based response to the needs of those with SMI and its alignment with contemporary understandings of psychosis as socially embedded and shaped by disconnection and alienation. Drawing on over 75 years of practice and recent longitudinal findings, we describe how core elements of the clubhouse model (voluntary membership, shared governance, and the work-ordered day) function as social therapeutic mechanisms that restore connection, agency, and belonging. We present recent evidence demonstrating meaningful reductions in loneliness and improvements in quality of life and interpret these outcomes as indicators of changes in the social conditions that underlie recovery. The panel further explores how community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) and member-led advocacy initiatives have structured a model of community work, rehabilitation, and advocacy that is co-produced with people with lived experience. Finally, we situate the clubhouse model within broader systems of care, considering its role in addressing stigma, social determinants, and the structural conditions that contribute to marginalization in serious mental illness.

A Schizophrenic Walks into a Bar: Interpreting the Institutional Unconscious through In Vivo Social Interventions - Jesse Newberg, LMSW, Chloe Murtagh, LMSW
For the past five years we have facilitated a weekly “Happy Hour” for our clients with serious mental illness at a bar nearby the psychosocial clubhouse program where we work. All program participants and coworkers are invited to meet at the bar after work starting at 5pm and order one free drink (alcoholic or not). Though we only provide free drinks to our group – about 30-40 participants and a handful of coworkers show up each week – the bar is open to the public.We found that this space created potentials that did not seem to exist in the Clubhouse’s day program or its other recreational events. We noticed participants acting in new and surprising ways, including reaching out to others, taking social risks, mediating conflicts, revealing hidden parts of their personality, and, for some, just being out in public. Even more unexpected was the shift in attitudes towards our group; bar tenders and regulars that initially tolerated our group eventually came to appreciate us as “regulars” too.Borrowing from the lessons of Institutional Psychotherapy, we propose that the potency of this event is attributable to its position within a specific institutional context, the Clubhouse. In particular, this event acted as an interpretation of the unconscious questions that have continued to vex the institution’s members and staff. Through the careful consideration of institutional and social contexts, unspoken or repressed tensions can be unearthed. Our hope is to give practitioners a direction in creating therapeutic spaces in vivo that respond to and interpret these unconscious questions in order to disalienate our clients, cure our institutions and fasten the social link.

Speakers

Kevin Rice, MA

Senior Director of Research and Knowledge, Fountain House Inc.

Kevin Rice is the Senior Director of Research and Knowledge at Fountain House. He has worked at Fountain House since 2017 where he started as a social practitioner for two years in Fountain House’s Research Unit. Upon completing his graduate degree in psychology, Kevin transitioned... Read More →

Jamarne (Jay) McGill

Mental Health and Clubhouse Advocate, Fountain House

Jamarne "Jay" McGill is a mental health and clubhouse advocate at Fountain House, where he advances recovery-oriented practices through training, outreach, policy advocacy, and public education. A native New Yorker, Jay draws on his lived experience with mental health challenges and... Read More →

Nicole Patton

Manager, Policy & Advocacy, Fountain House Inc.

Nicole Patton is a policy and advocacy professional with extensive experience advancing disability rights, legislative strategy, and government relations at the state and federal levels. She serves as Manager of Policy & Advocacy at Fountain House, where she oversees the organization’s... Read More →

Brandon Daniels

Fountain House

Brandon Daniels is a Caribbean American who holds the position of a psychiatric survivor, justice impacted individual, peer support specialist, organizer, and educator. He is a graduate of Howie the Harp Advocacy Center, a NYS peer specialist, and a harm reduction specialist. Brandon... Read More →

Chloe Murtagh, LMSW

Social Worker, ACT Team, NYC H+H / Woodhull

Chloe Murtagh, LMSW, is a social worker and union organizer based in New York City. She currently works on the ACT Team at NYC H+H/Woodhull, a large public hospital in Brooklyn, and previously spent eight years at Fountain House, a psychosocial clubhouse for people with serious mental... Read More →

Jesse Newberg, LMSW

Mental Health Social Practitioner, Fountain House

Jesse Newberg, LMSW, is a Mental Health Social Practitioner at Fountain House in New York City, where he helps facilitate a therapeutic community for people living with serious mental illness. He helped lead the unionization campaign at Fountain House, secured its first collective... Read More →

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