As we all know, there’s a fine line between brilliance and madness. Indeed, perhaps there isn’t really always a line, at all.
MADNESS: But were they, really?

The Process Work Institute in NW Portland has hosted talks about cop training and madness rights over the last two months. Last month there was a forum about the cops’ new Crisis Intervention Training, attended by Lt. Sara Westbrook & Liesbeth Gerritsen, who redesigned the cops’ mental health crisis training, following the death of James Chasse. I happened to go through the cops’ citizens’ academy with Gerritsen, and was struck by her comprehension not just of mental health issues, but of the very real practical issues facing cops out in the field.

“The CIT had a very challenging mandate. Basically we implemented the Mayor’s mandate in the wake of a tragedy which we’ll talk about,” said Julie Diamond at the PWI, introducing the talk. “It’s a very challenging thing, how do we change things and change minds, in a way with a lot of public pressure and public criticism, with a lot of pressure on us? Also training, when it’s mandatory, is often viewed as a punishment [by officers].”

It’s the first time we’ve heard Westbrook or Gerritsen talk in depth about the CIT training, and the conversation is fascinating.

Then last Sunday night, March 9, there was a presentation by Will Hall of the Massachusetts-based Icarus project, about the right of mentally ill people to “self-define.” Hall has himself been diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder and hasn’t taken medication in years. “We believe we have mad gifts to be cultivated and taken care of, rather than diseases or disorders to be suppressed or eliminated,” he says. Towards the end, I asked him what he thought of Britney Spears.

You can download and listen to both conversations, which last two hours each, at The Process Work Institute’s website here.