Monica Ross
@drmonicaross.bsky.social
Clinician–writer. A humanities-based project exploring story and identity. Honoring chosen names and lived identities. Interested in where explanation helps and where naming begins to do harm. drmonicaross.com 🏳️🌈
A diagnosis can offer language, structure, and belonging—and that can matter deeply. But diagnoses are also limited tools shaped by institutions, culture, and history. Naming its limits is about widening the frame, not closing it.
January 22, 2026 at 1:21 PM
A diagnosis can offer language, structure, and belonging—and that can matter deeply. But diagnoses are also limited tools shaped by institutions, culture, and history. Naming its limits is about widening the frame, not closing it.
Not trauma memoir.
Not recovery narrative.
Not anti-psychiatry polemic.
Not abstract philosophy.
Critical narrative work with next piece forthcoming in The Polyphony.
Not recovery narrative.
Not anti-psychiatry polemic.
Not abstract philosophy.
Critical narrative work with next piece forthcoming in The Polyphony.
January 18, 2026 at 11:30 PM
Not trauma memoir.
Not recovery narrative.
Not anti-psychiatry polemic.
Not abstract philosophy.
Critical narrative work with next piece forthcoming in The Polyphony.
Not recovery narrative.
Not anti-psychiatry polemic.
Not abstract philosophy.
Critical narrative work with next piece forthcoming in The Polyphony.
The language of illness shifts responsibility
away from systems
and onto individuals
as if individuals were not living inside
the very structures
that shape their lives
away from systems
and onto individuals
as if individuals were not living inside
the very structures
that shape their lives
January 13, 2026 at 6:07 AM
The language of illness shifts responsibility
away from systems
and onto individuals
as if individuals were not living inside
the very structures
that shape their lives
away from systems
and onto individuals
as if individuals were not living inside
the very structures
that shape their lives
Reposted by Monica Ross
The 2026 Colgate Writers Conference will take place June 7–13.
With expanded workshop offerings designed to support both emerging and established writers, as well as enhanced scholarship opportunities, the 2025 conference drew writers from more than 20 states and three countries.
bit.ly/4stmUkF
With expanded workshop offerings designed to support both emerging and established writers, as well as enhanced scholarship opportunities, the 2025 conference drew writers from more than 20 states and three countries.
bit.ly/4stmUkF
January 7, 2026 at 12:04 AM
The 2026 Colgate Writers Conference will take place June 7–13.
With expanded workshop offerings designed to support both emerging and established writers, as well as enhanced scholarship opportunities, the 2025 conference drew writers from more than 20 states and three countries.
bit.ly/4stmUkF
With expanded workshop offerings designed to support both emerging and established writers, as well as enhanced scholarship opportunities, the 2025 conference drew writers from more than 20 states and three countries.
bit.ly/4stmUkF
Reposted by Monica Ross
🚀 Delighted to announce the publication of our new #MedHums101 brochure: ‘What is Medical Humanities?’ We hope it sparks your imagination, inspires your curiosity & encourages you to engage in our vibrant interdisciplinary field! tinyurl.com/what-is-med-...
Med Hums 101: What is Medical Humanities?
The Polyphony is delighted to launch the publication of a new brochure – MedHums 101: What is medical humanities?
tinyurl.com
March 31, 2025 at 11:10 AM
🚀 Delighted to announce the publication of our new #MedHums101 brochure: ‘What is Medical Humanities?’ We hope it sparks your imagination, inspires your curiosity & encourages you to engage in our vibrant interdisciplinary field! tinyurl.com/what-is-med-...
Diagnosis is unstable. Institutions pursue stability because it is administratively useful. When unstable human experience is forced into stable categories, people adapt to survive. The costs increase when labels carry stigma, are treated as final, and systems resist acknowledging error.
January 3, 2026 at 11:04 AM
Diagnosis is unstable. Institutions pursue stability because it is administratively useful. When unstable human experience is forced into stable categories, people adapt to survive. The costs increase when labels carry stigma, are treated as final, and systems resist acknowledging error.
For a time, my life intersected with a sociologist. Thirty years a professor. Critical theory: Marcuse. Alice’s Restaurant each Thanksgiving on San Diego radio. “You can get…” Eagleton, Jameson, Baudrillard, Berger. Postmodern theory in the air, in the arts. Today the meta-. Aware, reaching anyway.
December 24, 2025 at 11:12 AM
For a time, my life intersected with a sociologist. Thirty years a professor. Critical theory: Marcuse. Alice’s Restaurant each Thanksgiving on San Diego radio. “You can get…” Eagleton, Jameson, Baudrillard, Berger. Postmodern theory in the air, in the arts. Today the meta-. Aware, reaching anyway.
Reposted by Monica Ross
The “Clinical Ceiling” Blocking Lived Experience Leadership
Lived experience workers describe a “clinical ceiling” that confines peer roles to the margins while hospitals and services preserve traditional chains of command
By Kelli Grant
www.madinamerica.com/2025/12/the-...
Lived experience workers describe a “clinical ceiling” that confines peer roles to the margins while hospitals and services preserve traditional chains of command
By Kelli Grant
www.madinamerica.com/2025/12/the-...
The “Clinical Ceiling” Blocking Lived Experience Leadership in Mental Health
Lived experience executives describe a “clinical ceiling” that confines peer roles to the margins while hospitals and services preserve traditional chains of command.
www.madinamerica.com
December 4, 2025 at 12:23 PM
The “Clinical Ceiling” Blocking Lived Experience Leadership
Lived experience workers describe a “clinical ceiling” that confines peer roles to the margins while hospitals and services preserve traditional chains of command
By Kelli Grant
www.madinamerica.com/2025/12/the-...
Lived experience workers describe a “clinical ceiling” that confines peer roles to the margins while hospitals and services preserve traditional chains of command
By Kelli Grant
www.madinamerica.com/2025/12/the-...
Reposted by Monica Ross
6 Suggestions for DSM-6
Making the next DSM look less like a house of mirrors
www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/6-suggesti...
Making the next DSM look less like a house of mirrors
www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/6-suggesti...
6 Suggestions for DSM-6
Making the next DSM look less like a house of mirrors
www.psychiatrymargins.com
November 20, 2025 at 11:55 PM
6 Suggestions for DSM-6
Making the next DSM look less like a house of mirrors
www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/6-suggesti...
Making the next DSM look less like a house of mirrors
www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/6-suggesti...
Design thinking starts with empathy.
Empathy isn’t sympathy, pity, or even sincere concern.
It’s curiosity.
It’s the practice of stepping into another’s shoes.
Empathy isn’t sympathy, pity, or even sincere concern.
It’s curiosity.
It’s the practice of stepping into another’s shoes.
December 18, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Design thinking starts with empathy.
Empathy isn’t sympathy, pity, or even sincere concern.
It’s curiosity.
It’s the practice of stepping into another’s shoes.
Empathy isn’t sympathy, pity, or even sincere concern.
It’s curiosity.
It’s the practice of stepping into another’s shoes.
Clinicians know this tension well.
You can recognize that a diagnosis is provisional and still be required to treat it as stable.
That gap between what you know and what the system demands is not a personal failure.
It is a structural problem we have not named clearly enough.
You can recognize that a diagnosis is provisional and still be required to treat it as stable.
That gap between what you know and what the system demands is not a personal failure.
It is a structural problem we have not named clearly enough.
December 15, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Clinicians know this tension well.
You can recognize that a diagnosis is provisional and still be required to treat it as stable.
That gap between what you know and what the system demands is not a personal failure.
It is a structural problem we have not named clearly enough.
You can recognize that a diagnosis is provisional and still be required to treat it as stable.
That gap between what you know and what the system demands is not a personal failure.
It is a structural problem we have not named clearly enough.
Not everything that resists classification is awaiting a better name. Some experiences are asking for care without capture. #CriticalPsychiatry
#EthicsOfCare
#EthicsOfCare
December 12, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Not everything that resists classification is awaiting a better name. Some experiences are asking for care without capture. #CriticalPsychiatry
#EthicsOfCare
#EthicsOfCare
St. Edward’s University, Austin, 2013.
A counseling psych MA program.
Prof: “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
A little over a decade later: For the Misnamed.
A call to restore the narrative.
A counseling psych MA program.
Prof: “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
A little over a decade later: For the Misnamed.
A call to restore the narrative.
December 10, 2025 at 11:26 PM
St. Edward’s University, Austin, 2013.
A counseling psych MA program.
Prof: “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
A little over a decade later: For the Misnamed.
A call to restore the narrative.
A counseling psych MA program.
Prof: “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
A little over a decade later: For the Misnamed.
A call to restore the narrative.
Open Dialogue also sits on my internal map of alternative forms of care. An approach grounded in relationship.
Open Dialogue: A New Approach to Mental Healthcare
Guest blog by British psychiatrist Dr Tom Stockmann.
www.psychologytoday.com
December 8, 2025 at 3:13 AM
Open Dialogue also sits on my internal map of alternative forms of care. An approach grounded in relationship.
Reposted by Monica Ross
Just a few months before the release of the results of 9 years of research into the Open Dialogue method of supporting mental health. There will be headlines & global impact #ODDESSI #MentalHealth
October 10, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Just a few months before the release of the results of 9 years of research into the Open Dialogue method of supporting mental health. There will be headlines & global impact #ODDESSI #MentalHealth
We use many languages to describe human difference. Some rely on diagnosis; others resist it. I’m interested in how these stories shape who we believe we can become.
December 6, 2025 at 7:26 AM
We use many languages to describe human difference. Some rely on diagnosis; others resist it. I’m interested in how these stories shape who we believe we can become.
Reposted by Monica Ross
James Baldwin: “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” Sometimes the work is learning what we inherited, what we chose, and what we can name differently without losing ourselves.
December 3, 2025 at 11:44 AM
James Baldwin: “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” Sometimes the work is learning what we inherited, what we chose, and what we can name differently without losing ourselves.
Systems simplify. People don’t. That’s our saving grace, the part that keeps us whole.
December 2, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Systems simplify. People don’t. That’s our saving grace, the part that keeps us whole.
UT. Abnormal Psychology. Psych 352. 1994. First day: “Who here can define normal?” Decades later, Grinker’s Nobody’s Normal (2021) made the question feel even louder. We keep studying “abnormality” without ever agreeing on what normal is.
November 25, 2025 at 6:44 PM
UT. Abnormal Psychology. Psych 352. 1994. First day: “Who here can define normal?” Decades later, Grinker’s Nobody’s Normal (2021) made the question feel even louder. We keep studying “abnormality” without ever agreeing on what normal is.
Some focus on diagnostic architecture. I’m working on the epistemology beneath it.
November 25, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Some focus on diagnostic architecture. I’m working on the epistemology beneath it.
Biopsychosocial:
A framework. Human health and behavior as shaped by the interaction of three domains:
• Biological factors (genetics, physiology, neurobiology)
• Psychological factors (thoughts, emotions, beliefs, coping)
• Social factors (relationships, environment, culture, systems)
A framework. Human health and behavior as shaped by the interaction of three domains:
• Biological factors (genetics, physiology, neurobiology)
• Psychological factors (thoughts, emotions, beliefs, coping)
• Social factors (relationships, environment, culture, systems)
November 24, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Biopsychosocial:
A framework. Human health and behavior as shaped by the interaction of three domains:
• Biological factors (genetics, physiology, neurobiology)
• Psychological factors (thoughts, emotions, beliefs, coping)
• Social factors (relationships, environment, culture, systems)
A framework. Human health and behavior as shaped by the interaction of three domains:
• Biological factors (genetics, physiology, neurobiology)
• Psychological factors (thoughts, emotions, beliefs, coping)
• Social factors (relationships, environment, culture, systems)
Reposted by Monica Ross
Just had our fondly nicknamed "pretty pictures" paper published in Psych Medicine: doi.org/10.1017/S003...
We mapped the repetition among the 1419 symptoms described in 202 diagnoses of adult psychopathology in Section II of the DSM-5, finding some cool results (and bad news for MDD) along the way.
We mapped the repetition among the 1419 symptoms described in 202 diagnoses of adult psychopathology in Section II of the DSM-5, finding some cool results (and bad news for MDD) along the way.
September 4, 2023 at 11:48 AM
Just had our fondly nicknamed "pretty pictures" paper published in Psych Medicine: doi.org/10.1017/S003...
We mapped the repetition among the 1419 symptoms described in 202 diagnoses of adult psychopathology in Section II of the DSM-5, finding some cool results (and bad news for MDD) along the way.
We mapped the repetition among the 1419 symptoms described in 202 diagnoses of adult psychopathology in Section II of the DSM-5, finding some cool results (and bad news for MDD) along the way.
Another place where classification shapes access is mental health law.
SB 1164 in Texas keeps the danger requirement but broadens how danger is inferred through “lack of insight.” Anosognosia codified.
Interpretive standards can be unevenly applied, especially to people without protection.
SB 1164 in Texas keeps the danger requirement but broadens how danger is inferred through “lack of insight.” Anosognosia codified.
Interpretive standards can be unevenly applied, especially to people without protection.
November 20, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Another place where classification shapes access is mental health law.
SB 1164 in Texas keeps the danger requirement but broadens how danger is inferred through “lack of insight.” Anosognosia codified.
Interpretive standards can be unevenly applied, especially to people without protection.
SB 1164 in Texas keeps the danger requirement but broadens how danger is inferred through “lack of insight.” Anosognosia codified.
Interpretive standards can be unevenly applied, especially to people without protection.
The old LGBTQ debates about who counted were never only about identity. They were about rights. Marriage. Protections. Safety. Stakes also feel high around diagnosing. Whenever rights hinge on a label, people draw tight lines. But lived experience is wider than the definitions built to contain it.
November 19, 2025 at 7:17 AM
The old LGBTQ debates about who counted were never only about identity. They were about rights. Marriage. Protections. Safety. Stakes also feel high around diagnosing. Whenever rights hinge on a label, people draw tight lines. But lived experience is wider than the definitions built to contain it.