THE AUTHORITIES
16 leading authorities in the mental health community were interviewed for this 60 minute documentary. They share their knowledge of Serious Mental Illness and give support to families struggling to save their loved ones with SMI.
Xavier Amador, PhD is an internationally renowned clinical psychologist and leader in his field. His books, published clinical research, worldwide speaking tours and extensive work in schizophrenia, bipolar and other disorders have been translated into 30 languages. The originator of LEAP Listen-Empathize-Agree-Partner, he is also the CEO of the Henry Amador Center on Anosognosia and a family caregiver of two close relatives with serious mental illness. Author of many popular books including I am Right, You’re Wrong, Now What?; and I am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help!
Lisa Dixon, MD, MPH is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center and the director of the Division of Behavioral Health Services and Policy Research within the Department of Psychiatry. She also directs the Center for Practice Innovations (CPI) at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.
Dr. Dixon is an internationally recognized health services researcher with over 25 years of continuous funding from the National Institute of Mental Health and the VA. As CPI director, she oversees activities for the New York State Office of Mental Health in implementing evidenced based practices for persons diagnosed with serious mental illness. She is leading the innovative program, OnTrackNY, a statewide initiative designed to improve outcomes and reduce disability for the population of individuals experiencing their first episode of psychosis.
Ken Duckworth began his journey into psychiatry when he was a boy. He grew up with a dad who experienced severe bipolar disorder. His father was loving, kind and periodically quite ill, hospitalized for months at a time. Ken became a psychiatrist in part to help his father. Ken is double-board certified in adult and child/adolescent psychiatry and has completed a forensic psychiatry fellowship. Ken recently authored NAMI’s first book, You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health. This is the essential resource for individuals and families seeking expert guidance on diagnosis, treatment and recovery, featuring inspiring, true stories from real people in their own words.
Miriam Feldman is an artist, writer, and mental health activist. Her adult son, Nick, was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2004. After publishing her memoir, He Came in with It, in 2019, she took her first-hand knowledge of our mental health system’s woeful state and decided to be an advocate for those who have no voice. She serves on the advisory board of Bring Change 2 Mind, Glenn Close’s organization, and writes a monthly blog for the website. Miriam is active in leadership at NAMI Washington and co-founded the wildly popular podcast Schizophrenia,3 Moms in the Trenches. She can be found painting on her farm in rural Washington or rabble-rousing for change all over the country.
Dr. Robert Laitman is an internist who specializes in the use of clozapine for individuals with schizophrenia or other psychotic spectrum disorders. When his son was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2006, Dr. Laitman became an expert on the treatment of psychosis and expanded his practice to include taking care of people with psychotic disorders. In 2017, he co-authored the book Meaningful Recovery. In 2023, Dr. Laitman co-authored with Dr Matcheri Keshavan, EASE: A model for optimum use of clozapine. EASE applies a biopsychosocial approach which maximizes the benefits of the clozapine, mitigates the side effects and actively supports community and family support. A social worker is part of the treatment team. He is a past board member of NAMI NYS and is on the S&PPA
(previously SARDAA) board.
Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman’s groundbreaking research on the neurobiology and pharmacology of behavioral brain disorders has advanced our understanding and treatment of mental illness, and pioneered a transformative strategy for the early detection and prevention of schizophrenia. Dr. Lieberman is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and recipient of the Lieber Prize for Schizophrenia Research from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the American Psychiatric Association’s Adolf Meyer Award, and the Research Award from the National Alliance of Mental Illness, among others. Dr. Lieberman has contributed to health care policy and federal legislation to improve access and quality of mental health care while reducing the stigma associated with mental illness. He is the author of Malady of the Mind: Schizophrenia and the Path to Prevention and Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry, which became the basis for the four-part PBS series, Mysteries of Mental Illness.
Ann Mandel Laitman is a physician and mother who practiced internal medicine for over 30 years before slowly transitioning her practice to care for patients with treatment resistant psychosis who need clozapine and an integrated approach to treatment. This decision was based on interactions and observations while one of her four children, the inspiration for Team Daniel Running for Recovery from Mental Illness, was being treated for treatment resistant schizophrenia. The realization that this underutilized medication could give so many patients with serious mental illness their life back, and save so many lives lost to suicide, made her a strong advocate for optimal clozapine use in most cases of psychosis. Dr. Mandel serves on the boards of Greater Mental Health of New York, Pibly Residential Program Inc., and Team Daniel Running for Recovery from Mental Illness. She is a co-author of the book Meaningful Recovery from Schizophrenia and Serious Mental Illness with Clozapine.
Dr. Jonathan Meyer is a Voluntary Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at University of California, San Diego, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Meyer is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Meyer has lectured and published extensively on psychopharmacology and is the sole author of the chapter on the Pharmacotherapy of Psychosis and Mania for the last 3 editions of Goodman & Gilman’s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. Along with Dr. Stephen Stahl he is co-author of The Clozapine Handbook published in 2019, The Clinical Use of Antipsychotic Plasma Levels released in 2021, and The Lithium Handbook published in 2023, all three by Cambridge University Press.
Lynn Nanos is a licensed independent clinical social worker who has years of experience as a full-time mobile emergency psychiatric clinician in Massachusetts. After graduating from Columbia University with a Master of Science in Social Work, she worked as an inpatient psychiatric social worker for approximately seven years. The author of Breakdown, she is an active member of the National Shattering Silence Coalition that advocates for the seriously mentally ill population. She serves on its steering committee and co-chairs its communications committee.
Michael Orth serves as the Commissioner of the Department of Community Mental Health (DCMH) in Westchester County. He was appointed to serve as the Commissioner in January 2018 after serving as Deputy Commissioner since 2009. He has workedwith the DCMH since 1993, spending over 16 years in Children’s Mental Health Services. In this capacity he led the development of Westchester’s System of Care for children with emotional, social and behavioral challenges, and their families. He served as both the first CCSI and C-SPOA Coordinator for the county and also was responsible for Westchester’s successful SAMHSA – System of Care grant. Michael leads several planning efforts including serving as Co-Chair of the Suicide Prevention and Awareness Task Force, Coordinated Children’s Services Initiative (CCSI) Committee, Developmental/Intellectual Disabilities Committee, Psychological Mental Health Response Team, and Westchester County’s Response to Opioid Task Force.
Michaele Rizzuto, LCSW graduated from Columbia University, School of Social Work with a Masters of Social Work and a Bachelor of Social Work from the Dominican University of New York. She has over 20 years experince working at Montifiore Medical Center, Pathways to Housing and CDTP. An avid runner, skier hiker, Michaele volunteers in Youth Ministry at Corpus Christi Church and is a Group Facilitator for NAMI.
Elyn R. Saks is an esteemed professor, lawyer, and psychiatrist and is the Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, Psychiatry, and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Law School, yet she has suffered from schizophrenia for most of her life, and still has ongoing major episodes of the illness. The Center Cannot Hold is the eloquent, moving story of Elyn's life, from the first time that she heard voices speaking to her as a young teenager, to attempted suicides in college, through learning to live on her own as an adult in an often terrifying world. Saks discusses frankly the paranoia, the inability to tell imaginary fears from real ones, the voices in her head telling her to kill herself (and to harm others), as well as the incredibly difficult obstacles she overcame to become a highly respected professional.
Rachel Streiff, B.S. is a chemical, biomedical and industrial engineer who holds a Legacy Six Sigma Black belt certification in technology statistics. She is a legal guardian for KD, a talented artist whose life and livelihood have been restored through clozapine treatment, AOT, and strong family advocacy. Rachel holds an administrative role with Team Daniel Running for Recovery from Mental Illness and is co-founder of The Angry Moms, a grassroots advocacy movement dedicated to ending FDA-mandated barriers to clozapine treatment.
Edwin Fuller Torrey, MD is an American psychiatrist and schizophrenia
researcher. He is Associate Director of Research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute (SMRI) and Founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), a nonprofit organization whose principal activity is promoting the passage and implementation of outpatient commitment laws and civil commitment laws and standards in individual states that allow people diagnosed with severe mental illness to be involuntarily hospitalized and treated throughout the United States. Dr Torrey is the author of
Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual and 22 other books.
Bethany Yeiser is mental health advocate. Her memoir Mind Estranged (2014) follows her trajectory from the onset of mental illness, through acute psychosis, homelessness, two brief incarcerations, and full recovery. As a motivational speaker, Bethany inspires positive change in the way people diagnosed with schizophrenia are characterized and treated in the health care system and by society. Bethany holds a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology with honor from the University of Cincinnati. In July, 2016, she partnered with Dr. Henry Nasrallah to establish the CURESZ Foundation. She Co-Authored Awakenings with Dr Nasrallah in 2024
Karen Yeiser is a registered nurse, author, and mental health advocate. She spent the majority of her nursing career in service to individuals diagnosed with developmental disabilities and co-occurring mental illness. She is a former employee of both Lake and Butler County Boards of Developmental Disabilities in Ohio. Additionally, she is the mother of a young woman whose life was devastated by schizophrenia during her college years. Karen’s memoir Flight from Reason (2014) intimately portrays the insidious nature of emerging schizophrenia, the damage untreated mental illness can inflict on individuals and families, and the challenges faced in pursuit of effective treatment.
DJ JAFFE 1954 - 2020
DJ Jaffe was an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org, which produces non-partisan policy analysis for legislators, the media, and mental-health advocates. He was the author of Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill (2017). Jaffe helped lead the campaign to pass New York State’s Kendra’s Law, and he was influential in shaping the 21st Century Cures Act, passed by Congress in 2016. He appeared frequently on television and his articles appeared in, among others, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, and National Review.
LEWIS OPLER, MD, PhD 1948 - 2018
Lewis Opler served at New York State Office of Mental Health in various capacities over 20 years, including director of the research division, and chief medical officer. Among his other accomplishments, he was one of the developers of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), a gold-standard instrument used to measure symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Created in collaboration with Drs. Stanley Kay and Abraham Fiszbein in the Bronx, PANSS was quickly adopted as the gold-standard measure for clinical research, and helped revolutionize the development of new drugs that have helped millions of patients worldwide. Aside from several other books, he Co-Authored Meaningful Recovery with Dr Rob Laitman and Dr Ann Mandel Laitman.