M O O D S

MDSG started out “like a mom-and-pop store,” said co-founder Betty Mackintosh, and in the early days, it was run from the apartment of Mackintosh and her husband, past MDSG chair Rich Satkin. The two and a handful of others returned phone calls, typed the newsletter, sorted all the mail. Mackintosh remembers licking “many, many stamps” and having “work parties” with pizza and soda. Satkin recalls the mosaic of paper spread out on the floor while the mail was sorted by zip code to save money on bulk rate postage.

Twenty years later, MDSG sends out more than 7,000 newsletters and runs more than eight hundred support groups a year. We’re still an all-volunteer organization, but we reach approximately 10,000 people annually. People find us via the Internet, and are sent by their doctors — the name MDSG invokes wide respect. Recently, Satkin and Mackintosh, along with past board members Marylou Selo and Ngaere Baxter, Ph.D., (also a cofounder) sat down and talked about why, when and how this remarkable organization got started.

In 1981, Satkin and Mackintosh wrote a letter to Ronald Fieve, M.D. at the Foundation for Depression and Manic Depression inquiring about a support group. At the time, Dr. Baxter (formerly Dr. Goldring), a psychologist, was clinical director of the foundation, and the letter peaked her interest in starting such a group.

“I invited the two of them to my office…We immediately found that we shared many common ideas about how valuable a support group would be in an era when treatment of depression and manic depression had become heavily ‘medicalized’ and ‘clinicized.’ Many people couldn’t afford psychotherapy, but they needed some support in addition to medication,” said Dr. Baxter. “It seemed incredible to me then that there was no support group in the city that dealt with patients’ and family members’ issues,” she added. 

Meanwhile, in May of 1981, Selo was released from Roosevelt Hospital after she suffered what was called “a nervous breakdown.” “A social worker there told me I would never work again, and that I could forget about returning to my career as an interpreter, translator and tour guide,” Selo said. “I was told the best I could hope for would be volunteer work somewhere. Quite by coincidence, I found the foundation of Dr. Fieve. He was looking for someone to work the telephones, and I remember I never did a job as badly as I did this one. 

“One day Dr. Fieve came storming down the stairs, because I had misconnected him again, and he said: ‘What did you do before this?’ … I told him a little bit about my history, and he said, ‘I think it would be very good for you to be in a support group,’” recalled Selo. “I had never heard of a support group. I didn’t even know what one was.” She attended the very first meetings of MDSG. (Oh, and by the way, eventually she did work again, and her career now takes her around the world.) 

In the early years, psychiatrists were suspicious of mental-health support groups, according to Satkin and Selo. “In 1984, we had very simple brochures, and we wanted to give them to psychiatrists attending the American Psychiatric Association Convention at what was then the Americana Hotel,” recalls Selo. “We had to stand on the sidewalk or out on the steps of the hotel to hand them out, because we were seen as evil—as anti-psychiatry.” That has changed, said Satkin. “Today there are many more psychiatrists open to support groups. . .Doctors want to come to us. They’re our friends, but they weren’t in 1981.” 

Looking back, our founders say that their early goals have not only been met, but surpassed. “The initial goal was to form a place where we could meet and talk and learn something,” said Satkin, but the group quickly branched out to offer lectures and extensive training for the volunteer facilitators who lead our support groups. The mission, however, has remained the same.

“When I first got sick in 1976,” said Selo, “I thought, ‘Okay, they tell me this is going to take six or eight weeks. Then I’m going to be able to go home, take the cast off, so to speak, and walk again.’ No one told me that this illness might come back. No one told me I would have to stay on my medications to keep the episodes from coming back—that I was in this for the rest of my life—that there was no cure.” 

All say that establishing MDSG has been personally rewarding. “MDSG has helped me take the complete disruption of my career and aspirations and turn it into something positive,” said Satkin. “It was a healing experience for us after the trauma of the years of illness before. It was a way of putting ourselves back together again.” Mackintosh said.

“My work with MDSG has brought me enormous fulfillment,” said Selo, who helped set up the National Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, which became MDSG’s “parent” organization. “But most of all,” Selo added, “now that my family is gone, the friends I’ve made at MDSG have become my family.”

by Jane Cartwright   February 2001  

Therapists Discuss Therapy

June 6, 2006
Panel of Psychologists 

Almost everyone struggling with a mood disorder eventually ends up on the couch. Not only the one in front of the television, but the one that Freud made notorious. Numerous studies have shown that in addition to the right medication, psychotherapy gives mood disorder patients a far better chance of getting better. 

Yet in spite of therapy’s proven efficacy and popularity, lots of folks still have questions. For starters, what the heck does word “therapy” refer to exactly? How do you know it will benefit you? How do you find the right therapist? Must it take so long to work? What type should you chose? 

Whatever your question, this discussion will provide answers. Four prominent New York therapists will be on the panel and they will take all questions from the audience.

Healing Your Brain: Can Your Mood Disorder Go Into Long Remission?

September 12, 2006
David Hellerstein, M.D. 

Exciting new evidence in neuroscience and psychiatry suggests that successful treatment can reverse —not just improve— depressive illness.

Dr. David Hellerstein is a psychiatrist, researcher and psychopharmacologist. He is the Medical Director of the Columbia University Psychiatry Clinical Trials Program, a research psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Hellerstein is also Director of the Mood Disorders Research Unit at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York, which conducts studies on the medication treatment of chronic depression. He specializes in the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders, with a particular focus on the medication treatment of dysthymia, or low-grade chronic depression.

Making the Best of Depression: You Can Do Better Than Coping?*

October 10, 2006
Richard O’Connor, PhD

Learn how setting the bar higher can help you recapture true enjoyment and pleasure out of life. Dr. O’Connor is one of our most popular speakers—don’t miss him!

Richard O’Connor, PhD. Celebrated author of Undoing Depression and Undoing Perpetual Stress, and practicing psychotherapist. 

*Note: This is fundraising lecture. Admission is $10 for non-members, $6 members.

MDSG provides award-winning services to New York’s entire mental health community---over 600 individual support group meetings a year, the distinguished lecture series, our telephone information service, web site and this newsletter. And all at the lowest possible cost, through volunteers.  The $4 contribution for meetings doesn’t cover all our expenses. We need your help to pay the phone bill, print the newsletter, promote MDSG in the media, and meet other needs.

Annual membership is $45 for individuals, $65 for families. Your membership card is a free ticket to support groups and most lectures. Contributions are tax deductible. So be a friend of MDSG--support us as we support you! Memberships and contributions to MDSG are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. MDSG is an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) organization.

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Ivan K. Goldberg, MD
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