Interesting, I think this self-disclosure would be the same as a health professional who had experienced with legal or ilegal drugs and express it in a drug counseling session. 

Thank you for the rapid reply, but I should have made myself clear. I am asking about professionals who have publicly identified themselves as having experienced schizophrenia (or any other psychotic disorder, for that matter).  

Hello Frederick

Your question intrigued me because I work in service user involvement and have colleagues who have confidentially spoken to me about their own experiences of mental health, but have expressed the fear of stigma at revealing this to the teams they work in. 

As my area is personality disorder, I am more familiar with people drawn to this field of work, and papers that I have read tend to focus on this diagnosis.  I know that there are service user consultants who are 'out' and use their experience alongside high levels of training (see examples here: http://www.schizophreniainquiry.org/inquiry-panel).

I had a very lazy Google and this came up on the first page, Dr Carol North, a psychiatrist who suffered Schizophrenia as a child and into early adulthood.  She is featured on an article in People: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20097542,00.html. I know that it is hardly a peer reviewed paper, but it does give you an example of someone who has publicly disclosed her experiences of the illness.  Also, I found that there is a Carol S North on here who has published many peer reviewed papers, including ones on Schizophrenia.  May be worth taking a look at what she has written? I have no idea if she is the physician who authored the People article but it you could drop her a message or do a bit of your own research into the psychiatrist in the People article if you wanted to find out more. 

I have know that the Chief Exec of one of our UK based NHS Trusts is very open publicly about being a service user - I cannot remember which Trust it is, or what his background discipline is. 

Anyway, I hope that this has helped - it may be worth contacting an organisation that specifically works with service users who have schizophrenia to see if they can put you in contact with someone - try the first link as a starting point.

Best wishes,

Tamar.

Dear Dr. Frese,

You may find interesting the memoirs of Professor Ellyn Saks, although she is author, lecturer, and researcher, but not a clinician.

Also, Key R. Jamison's memoir on her life with the Bipolar Disorder is famous.

I hope this helps.

Aleksandar Dimitrijevic

Dear Dr. Whyte: Thank you very much for your thoughtful and timely reply, particularly for the two links you provided to important material. The People article is about Carol North, who I know, but I had not seen the article before. As an update on Dr. North, she is now a Full Professor of Psychiatry at the U. of Texas, Southwestern, and is the current president of the American Psychopathological Association. The APPA is having its annual 3-day conference in NYC in a couple of weeks. I'm sure I'll see her there and II will give her your regards. Your other link led me to Colin King, Ph.D., who I did not know about, and to Janet Wallcraft, Ph.D., who I knew about from her book, but I did not know she finished her doctorate. I have a book chapter in press identifying some 33 doctoral level survivor/users who are mental health professionals, but I did not include Drs. King and Wallcraft. Thank you very much for the information. All the BeST  in your career as a personality researcher, Fred Frese 

Dr. Dimitrijevic: Thank you so very much for taking the time to respond. As you undoubtedly know,  Elyn Saks and Kay Jamison have both been awarded the MacArthur 'genious award" for their work, and both are highly celebrated for so beautifully and carefully documenting their personal experiences with serious mental illness. My hope is that other such individuals will be willing to be open about having such experiences despite the 'fear of stigma at revealing'  as Dr. Whyte mentions in her 1st paragraph above, All the BeST, Fred Frese     

Eleanor Longden was diagnosed as having schizophrenia and has given a Ted Talk about herself. However, it has been questioned whether she is/was  a real sufferer from schizophrenia. She is/was a hearer of voices but hearing voices is in my view not a sufficient or necessary condition for having schizophrenia. Has she had delusions? Has she had cognitive impairment? Has she had severe negative symptoms? Has she recovered? If so, from what? Hers is an interesting story. As are accounts by "experts by experience" Patricia Deegan and Will Hall. Signed Bill George (Anoiksis)

Carol North wrote a detailed account of her illness experience : welcome silence, a book published in 1987. 

Dr. Glowinski: Actually I attended a book tour lecture by Carol North in 1987, and she quietly encouraged me to become open and public about my own experiences with schizophrenia. I'll see Carol in two weeks at the APPA meeting in NYC. I'll give her your regards.

Dr. Mosolov: Thank you for the information about Dr. Kandinsky. I look forward to looking into his experiences.

BeST,

Fred Frese 

Thank you Dr. Frese. Regarding the general topic of self disclosure narratives: those have been essential adjuncts in my teaching as they provide a critical complement to physician perspectives on illnesses. Since Dr. Mosolov reminded us that we needed an international view: Bulgakov's thinly veiled account of his morphine addiction is very powerful. Also not from physicians but from very talented narrators: "Bubbles" which tells a cartoon artist's perspective on her bipolar illness.

A "must read" is THE ROOTS OF THE RECOVERY MOVEMENT IN PSYCHIATRY: LESSONS LEARNED by Larry Davidson, Jaak Rakfeldt, and John Strauss, in which they document that:

1Jean-Baptiste Pussin, who ran the Bicetre Hospital where Philippe Pinel learned about traitement morale, had been a patient at Bicetre who had recovered; Pinel brought Pussin with him to the Salpetrie in Paris where he is credited with removing the chains from mental patients (see attached picture from the NIMH collection)

2-Harry Stack Sullivan, MD, suffered a psychotic break from which he recovered, informing his work at Shepard Pratt and establishing a school of thought embodied in the Washington School and the William Allison White Institute that persons with psychosis could be treated with interpersonal psychoanalysis--this belief, which contrasts to the therapeutic nihilism of Freudian psychoanalysis vis a vis persons with schizophrenia, is arguably best known in the book I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN by Hannah Green (a pseudonym or nom de plume) describing her successful treatment by Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, MD (who is given a different name in the book)

A SUPERB QUESTION! I agree self disclosure re: one's own journey by professionals is destigmatizing.

It is also inspiring: when you spoke at a NAMI-NYS conference many moons ago, and

I had not yet met you, for me it was destigmatizing, inspiring, and transforming.

Although less articulate than you, I subsequently was able to share with advocates and recipients my own struggles with serious depression and to identify myself as a psychiatrist-advocate-recipient.

THANK YOU!

Wow! Thank you Dr. Opler. I cannot tell you how help your note is. All the very BeST, Fred Frese

Wow! Thank you Dr. Opler. I cannot tell you how helpful your note is. All the very BeST, Fred Frese (My previous note was written too quickly. 'help' should have been 'helpful'. 

....but it is YOU who taught me....so any thanks to me belongs to YOU...

Feed

I gave grand rounds recently on RECOVERY FROM SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS.

If you would like a copy of my PowerPoint slides, email me at [email protected]

Thank you. I would very much like to see your PowerPoint. I'll e-mail you shortly.

Fred

It occurs to me that this presentation is not something I care to keep hidden; so here it is, and anyone on ResearchGate is free to take a look and/or spread the word!