"The best thing is that I learned a lot about things I'm interested in,
but I didn't have to deny my inner struggle ."
-- An apprentice

Community |

Families and friends
Compos Mentis offers something to apprentices and their families that clinical medicine often cannot: reassurance that other people have learned to live with the challenges of a serious illness, and that if they are willing to make adjustments in their lives, they probably can, too. Doctors, psychiatric nurse practitioners, therapists, and hospital staff are sometimes trusted and helpful, by patients and their families. But at other times, people who are ill or will not face the fact do not learn much or develop useful relationships in clinical settings.

Illness tends to isolate people. Friends fall away, classmates move on. Family members are often left to take care of an ill family member. But even within a family, it is possible to feel isolated. Conventional treatments tend to isolate a person's symptoms and treat the symptoms without offering much to the whole person. Maybe it is not the role of medicine to look after the whole person. But at Compos Mentis everyone -- apprentice, volunteer, staff member, guest, family member or friend -- is treated as a whole person and valued for what he or she can bring to and share with the community.

One of Compos Mentis's main aims is to help restore the whole person: A valued member of a family, an impotant part of the Compos Mentis community, a member of the large community -- in spite of feeling ill. Compos Mentis is not a treatment program. More than anything else, Compos Mentis offers an apprentice a daily destination, a way to structure time, a place of acceptance companionship, and meaningful work.

Rarely can anyone with an illness make it through life alone. When family and friends and colleagues and others know how best to help, the chance of success multiply. Working together at Compos Mentis, guests and family members can move toward a deeper understanding of what it means to live with illness, and thrive. We believe, and we have seen that family and friends are integral to the process of a person's regaining strength and equilibrium.

Ithaca, NY
Ithaca, NY, is a community rich in resources. The number of psychotherapists in this community of 60,000 is more than 200, and that does not count pastoral counselors and a variety of others.This is also a place of exceptional beauty, the centerpiece of which is Cayuga Lake and the streams that flow into it through gorges and waterfalls. This community abounds in musicians, home-grown theaters, exceptional craftsmen. It is a place with many talented gardeners and organic farmers, naturalists, birders, and others who know and love the outdoors.The counter culture never died in Ithaca, so there are people still interested in the hand-made, the hand-crafted, and the hand-some.Anyone who has even visited Ithaca, NY, knows that this is a special place. Compos Mentis draws on all the strengths and beauty of Ithaca. And yet, Compos Mentis is also designed so it can be recreated elsewhere, with local variations.

Local links
Cayuga Nature Center: a not-for-profit organization dedicated to education about the natural world, from which we lease the 40-acred White Farm
www.cayuganaturecenter.org/

Cayuga Medical Center: this area’s local hospital, which has a 26-bed Behavioral Service (Mental Health) unit for care during times of crisis that call for stabilization
www.cayugamed.org/

Mental Health Association: a not-for-profit clearinghouse for information and advocacy
www.mhaedu.org/

Tompkins Country Mental Health Services: State-funded services for people of all ages and ability
www.co.tompkins.ny.us/departments/detail.aspx?DeptID=28

Family and Children’s Service: a large agency that provides affordable, professional services to help children, adults, and families
www.fcsith.org/

Challenge Industries: vocational services for people with disabilities
www.aboutchallenge.org/

National Alliance on Mental Illness: an advocacy organization
www.nami.org/
Nami Finger Lakes
www.namifingerlakes.org

National Depressive and Bipolar Support Alliance: a national advocacy organization with a local chapter known as the Ithaca Bipolar Explorers Club
www.dbsalliance.org/

Community