wfn.org | Teleconference to focus on mental illness

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Sept. 14, 1998	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
10-71B{524}

By United Methodist News Service

Moving beyond the stereotypes of mental illness is the goal of an
upcoming United Methodist satellite teleconference.

"Mental Illness...Paint a Different Picture" will air from 1 to 4:30
p.m. Eastern time, Nov. 10. Originating from Nashville, Tenn., it will
include a panel of in-studio participants and discussions via telephone
and at downlink sites.

Cooperating organizations are United Methodist Communications; the
Health and Relief Unit of the United Methodist Board of Global
Ministries; the United Methodist Board of Church and Society and
Pathways to Promise.

The purpose is to show "the importance of seeing the person with mental
illness and each family member as individuals with challenges of living
with mental illness, but also with strengths and gifts that can
contribute to the family and faith community," said producer Shirley
Whipple Struchen, with United Methodist Communications.

"Mental illness is an issue that affects all of us in some way," said
Kathy Reeves, a Board of Global Ministries executive. The
teleconference, she said, will show how the church "can be more active
in a positive sense."

The teleconference will review the causes of mental illness along with
various types: schizophrenia and other psychotic disturbances; major
depression and bipolar disorder; anxiety problems, including panic
attack disorder; phobias; obsessive compulsive behavior; and post
traumatic stress illness and dementia, including Alzheimer's Disease.

Other issues discussed will include managing mental illness; recognizing
the fear factor; showing how stereotyping leads to discrimination;
encouraging faith communities to respond to mental illness; dealing with
public policy; identifying ways to change public attitudes and creating
a more welcoming community.

Panel members will be Lynn Swan, Jennifer Shifrin, the Rev. James
McIntire, Angie O'Malley, the Rev. Arthur Pressley and Frederick Frese.
M. Garlinda Burton, a diversity trainer and editor of Interpreter, the
program journal for the United Methodist Church, will serve as
moderator.

Swan, a United Methodist from Cleveland, was diagnosed with manic
depression in 1990. She has become an advocate for the mentally ill and
is involved in church ministry for the mentally ill and their families. 

Shifrin has served as executive director of Pathways to Promise in St.
Louis since 1988. Before that, she was executive director of the St.
Louis Alliance for the Mentally Ill. A founding member of the Religious
Outreach Network of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, she has
worked as a consultant with the Presbyterian and Methodist churches.

McIntire, associate pastor at First United Methodist Church of
Germantown in Philadelphia, also serves as director of the Center for
Spirituality and Disability there. The center encourages the inclusion
of people with disabilities in congregations and encourages the
development of their spiritual lives. He has experience with family
members who have disabilities.

O'Malley, a United Methodist from Lexington, Ky., is founder of CROSS
Ministries, a mental illness-related support group for family members,
caregivers and consumers. She has a doctorate in human development and
family studies at Oklahoma State University and teaches at the
University of Kentucky. She has a family member diagnosed with paranoid
schizophrenia.

Pressley is an associate professor of psychology and religion at Drew
Theological Seminary in Madison, N.J. The United Methodist pastor is a
licensed psychologist,  past president of the New Jersey Association of
Black Psychologists and a consulting psychologist for the Board of
Global Ministries.

Frese became a psychologist after being diagnosed with schizophrenia
nearly 30 years ago, and he speaks frequently on mental illness. He
holds faculty appointments in psychiatry at Case Western Reserve
University and the Northeast Ohio College of Medicine. For 15 years, he
was director of psychology at Western Reserve Psychiatric Hospital, one
of Ohio's largest psychiatric hospitals.

Information about downlink sites for the teleconference is available by
calling (212) 870-3802 and by visiting
http://www.umc.org/umcom/umtc/paint.html on the Internet.
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