Steven Morgan, who was well known for his activist efforts in challenging conventional psychiatry, which included writing for Mad in America, recently passed away. We would like to share some of his writings, music, and art, and some memories of Steven from our editors who knew him.

Articles on Mad in America by Steven Morgan:

“Reviving the Myth of Mental Illness” (2012)
“The Wind Never Lies” (2012)
“Stranger” (2014)
“The Helping Room” (2016)
“To See An Atom: Psychosis and Ecology” (2017)
“Is Psychosis Natural?” (2018)
“The Censors Are Coming for Mental Health” (2022)

Steven Morgan on Madness Radio with Will Hall:

Reinventing Bipolar (2008): Steven Morgan talks about his experiences with spirituality and meditation, including healing through dream work.

Visionary Ecology (2024): Do grieving goats lick psychedelic lichen? Altered states are part of nature, used by plants and animals for survival(!). How does ecology reveal the evolutionary – and spiritual – purpose of psychosis?

* * *

From Kermit Cole, MIA founding editor and board member:

Among Mad in America’s most important roles is bringing the world’s attention to the inspiring people who exemplify alternatives to the dominant paradigm of mental health care. People who, in many cases, would have been lost had they followed the path that a diagnosis had once laid out for them. There is no better example than Steven Morgan; a paragon of healthy living, even as he contended with illnesses that made daily living a challenge and took his life this week.

Steven emerged from a psychiatric hospitalization in his early 20s by immersing himself in the relevant research and realizing the diagnosis he had been given did not resonate with his actual experience. Meeting him in 2012, soon after we started MIA, when he was director of Soteria Vermont — a facility that fostered mutual support among residents for healing — he gave me hope that we would succeed in changing the standard of care for mental health crisis. When he went to work with Intentional Peer Support I felt confident that Shery Mead’s model could take on the establishment — and in many ways it did, offering training to significant projects around the world.

Steven shined so brightly it was hard to imagine he wouldn’t eclipse the mainstream model entirely. He was uniquely able to weave the scientific, social and spiritual threads of critical psychiatry, smiling while he navigated the politics and preparedness of his audience to understand — and ultimately accept — what he was saying. I often marveled at his ability to land a complicated argument in a hostile environment, like a crack pilot flying a plane through craggy mountain passes during a storm and landing safely. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen better. His abilities astonished me.

However, his greatest accomplishment may be the life he lived. When pursuing his passion for introducing people to the power of mutuality brought him near to collapse, he moved his life to a custom-built trailer so that he could spend his days and nights among mountains and streams, making music and art, carving spoons, fly fishing, and — via satellite — continuing to train people around the world. His life might be called homeless or nomadic by some, but my experience was that for Steve it meant that home was where he wanted to be, and wherever he was.

I am grateful for the times he called our property home. Initially he came to recover from exhaustion and plan next steps. Sitting by the fire with Steve, under the bright New Mexico sky, I learned to pay extra attention when his beliefs were different. More often than not he succeeded at what psychiatry still struggles to do: he changed my mind.

Steven was — or so we thought — on his way to us, when his spirit flew into the wilderness to stay. The world keeps turning, but more darkly for now. I hold on to the feeling he is on his way still, his kind smile one daybreak away.

Please spend some time with Steven now, in his writings, his website, his interviews and the many tributes to be found on his memorial page on Forever Missed. Please also share any memories or appreciation you might wish to as well.

* * *

From Emmeline Mead, MIA personal stories and art editor:

Steven was a prolific artist and craftsman who worked in many mediums, most of them natural or wild in some way. He captured stunning, National Geographic-worthy photos of the natural environments he passed through and lived within — photos so deep you can dive into them. He designed and built a beautiful and practical tiny home on wheels, completely lined with wood. He made wooden spoons that he carved and sanded by hand, washed in a mountain stream, finished in oil and beeswax and then cured in the sun “so that starbeams absorb into the color.” He hand-stitched leather bags that he called “Messenger Owls.” He spoke to coyotes and crows in their own language. While exploring the interface between animism and Christianity, he produced his own version of the Gospels without distracting verse and page numbers, subheadings or red text — “Just the Word, crystalline” — and offered them free online.

All of his work was created with a great deal of thought and care. And it was the same with his writing, every word carefully chosen and placed, sometimes agonized over. Working with him as an editor, I remember him asking me to remove a “the” before “Earth,” because he wanted Earth to become an entity, grammatically. I loved that.

Steven also created music. He’d post videos of himself playing ukulele on Facebook, shirtless, with mountains in the background. Last year he shared an album he’d created, writing: “This album is the culmination of thirty years ‘trying to make the thing I always wanted to make,’ and now that I have, I plan never to touch an instrument again. Please have a listen, share, throw a chair across the room. I certainly did. Godspeed.”

Myriads Teeming by Steven Morgan

I really admired Steven and felt he was a kindred spirit. We never managed to meet in the physical realm, as our forays outside of our respective hermitages never seemed to line up. I regret that. But I continue to be inspired by his beautiful soul, and hope that our readers will be too.

The post Remembering Steven Morgan appeared first on Mad In America.

 

IPAK-EDU is grateful to Mad In America as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More