I want to point you toward something I think a lot of families and clinicians in this space will find valuable: a three-part live webinar series called Humanizing Psychosis, led by schizophrenia advocate, writer, and trainer Sally Littlefield.
Sally teaches from lived experience — her own psychosis, hospitalization, treatment, and recovery — and the series is built around a question I don’t think gets asked enough: what does it actually feel like to be on the receiving end of care during a psychiatric crisis? Not what clinicians intend, not what caregivers hope is landing, but what the person experiencing psychosis actually perceives.
The three sessions:
- Being Seen, Not Managed — August 27
- Supporting Clients Through Psychosis — September 24
- Crisis De-escalation from Lived Experience — November 5
Participants can register for one session or the full series, and recordings are available for anyone who can’t attend live.
Why this connects to the work I do
Connected Care is fundamentally a book about technology — apps, monitoring tools, telehealth, AI-assisted supports — and the gap that opens up between clinical appointments, when families are the ones holding things together. But every tool in that book only works in service of something more basic: trust, dignity, and a person’s sense of control over their own life.
That’s exactly the territory Sally’s series is working in. Her framing of de-escalation isn’t just “how do we calm someone down” — it’s about reducing fear, increasing safety, and restoring choice. Those are the same outcomes I care about when I look at how technology gets introduced into someone’s care. A reminder app, a symptom tracker, a telehealth check-in — any of it can either support a person’s autonomy or quietly chip away at it, depending entirely on how it’s used and who’s driving the decision.
I also appreciate that this series isn’t about placing blame. Sally is explicit that the goal isn’t to villainize clinicians or caregivers — it’s to help everyone understand the emotional logic behind behavior that can look irrational or oppositional from the outside, so that support (technological or otherwise) actually lands the way it’s intended to.
If you’re a caregiver, a clinician, a peer supporter, or anyone navigating psychosis alongside someone you love or serve, I think this series is worth your time. Lived-experience education is a different kind of knowledge than clinical training, and both matter.
Registration: Humanizing Psychosis Webinar Series
