APACAM Caucus

I'm sitting next to a fire at my friend's house in Carmel. I learned that no one heats their homes in Carmel because heat is too expensive. That wouldn't work in Saskatchewan. It's been raining alternating with hail outside, though it doesn't seem like much of a storm to me, compared to the 12 cm or more of snow that falls in Sask. with temperatures dropping to less the -40. Nevertheless, Monterey is beautiful. Today, we drove down Highway 1 to Big Sur and hiked with James' and Nicole's dogs until we were soaked. Then the rain stopped and we tried Pfeiffer Beach State Park, but as soon as we had ventured out far from the trail, the rain started again. So we were left with a potato frittata as the only food left at the Big Sur Inn and Lapsang Suchong tea. I slowly warmed up.

James has created the Caucus on Complementary and Alternative Medicine for the American Psychiatric Association, and I am going to align my efforts with him and join his Steering Committee. You will see linkages forming from my web site to theirs and vice versa in the next few weeks. His site is at www.apacam.org. We're going to move my discussion group on aboriginal mind and mental health to that site slowly but surely.

The question is, how to change psychiatry. How do we change the underlying assumptions upon which it is based. James and I have arrived at similar conclusions -- him through philosophy and hermeneutical analysis; me through studying with elders. But we have reached the same place through different methods, which seems powerful. I hope that some of you will start to join our discussions on this new website since you don't have to be anyone to discuss -- not a psychiatrist, not a member of APA, not a mental health worker, etc.

The rain and the hail have stopped. It's almost midnight in Saskatchewan and I am dreading my return to my cold bedroom from where I am sitting in front of the roaring fire. Wood heat in a near mansion in Carmel Valley! Oh, well. It's post-modern America, and anything goes.