PATRICIA E. DEEGAN, Ph.D.
P.O.Box 208
Byfield, MA 01922, USA
Pat@patdeegan.com
http://www.patdeegan.com

Patricia E. Deegan Ph.D. is an independent consultant who specializes in researching and lecturing on the topic of recovery and the empowerment of people with psychiatric disabilities. She is an Adjunct Professor at Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at Boston University and a Principle Investigator with the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Duquesne University. She worked as a clinical director of community based programs for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health from 1983-1987. In August of 1988, Dr. Deegan took a position as a program director with the Northeast Independent Living Program. In this capacity she designed and implemented a model for working with people with psychiatric disabilities in Independent Living/cross disability settings. Pat is an activist in the disability rights movement and is a co-founder of the National Empowerment Center Inc. - a federally funded, national technical assistance center run by people who have recovered after being diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. Between 1992 and September of 2001 she held the position of Director of Training at the NEC. Pat has given keynote addresses, lectures, and workshops across the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. Pat specializes in developing trainings and lectures on the concrete application of the concepts of recovery, empowerment and peer support. Her papers have been published in many peer reviewed journals and books, and have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Hebrew, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Japanese, Danish, Icelandic and German. Pat’s current projects include the development of a recovery-based approach to using psychiatric medications, software to promote shared decision-making in psychiatry, development of curricula to retrain the mental health workforce in recovery-oriented practices, consumer-oriented technical assistance to states on the Olmstead/New Freedom Initiative and research into ex-patient perspectives on the history of mental health services, including state hospital cemetery restoration. Pat has also made 3 films of interest to the field including: Inside Outside: Building a Meaningful Life After the Hospital; The Politics of Memory; and From Numbers to Names: State Hospital Cemetery Restoration. Pat has lived a personal journey of recovery, having first been diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager.