Attending the Time to Change Organisational Healthcheck training and away day I recently attended a training and meet up day for Time To Change Organisational Healthcheck Consultants. As I mentioned when posting about the work I did on an anti stigma campaign for Richmond Borough Mind, there is still a lot of discrimination, misunderstanding and silence…
Category: Mental health & emotional wellbeing
What exactly IS Mindfulness? Chatting with young people on TheSite.org
Earlier this month I found myself back at YouthNet Towers, this time as an expert for one of their expert chats. The Engagement and Support team at YouthNet oversee the running of a number of types of online chat. These include support chat (I also moderate support chats as a volunteer), general chat, film and…
Articles for ONEinFOUR
I’ve written four articles for lifestyle, health and mental wellbeing magazine ONEinFOUR. Spring-Summer 2013 – managing depression and anxiety in relationships The first was published in the Spring-Summer 2013 issue. It was one of the cover stories and explored managing anxiety and depression in relationships. Autumn-Winter 2013 More recently I’ve written three pieces for the…
Mental health information articles for 16-25 year olds
Information on recent mental health support writing for young people I recently completed two articles for TheSite’s new Anxiety and Depression section. Trouble getting help for mental health and Online Counselling. Writing for young people The aim of The Site.org content is to provide clear, straight talking and supportive information for young people. Articles respond to…
Mental Health Awareness Campaign Support
This summer I provided interim support for the CEO of Richmond Borough Mind in the initial stages of organising a campaign for World Mental Health day in October 2013. Reducing stigma around mental health The campaign was focused on reducing stigma around mental health with an emphasis on encouraging employers to consider mental health and…
Online consultation with Mind’s Elefriends community
I first came across the Elefriends community after attending their online peer support training. I was interested in online peer support for adults and wanted to find out more about the impact of providing community members with peer support training. How does this affect their experience? I wrote about this training here. Online community consultation…
What do we need to get help from our GP for mental health? Reassurance, realistic expectations and a plan.
Helping you get help from your GP “NHS services think that they are a series of entrances – but actually they are a series of barriers“ Yesterday, I went down to Brighton for the launch of Doc Ready – a new digital tool (a website and soon to be app) that helps young people get…
Happiness – an emotion, a mood, a goal or a way of life?
What would we describe as a ‘happy life’? “The idea that humans can capture a mere mood – ‘happiness’ – and somehow preserve it seems absurd. As an aim for life it is not only doomed but infantile.” Sebastian Faulks – A Possible Life The idea of ‘happiness’ seems to have been popping up everywhere…
Managing depression and anxiety in relationships; early days and long term.
Tips and suggestions for managing depression and anxiety within relationships. A version of this article was published in the Summer 2013 edition of ONEinFOUR magazine. Managing mental health when meeting someone new; the early days of uncertainty and strong emotions. Four years ago I was pretty happy. I felt I was finally managing to keep all life’s…
Compliments and wellbeing – #passonacompliment!
Yesterday and today, a twitter friend @TheAgentApsley and I were engaging in small scale hashtag creation #passonacompliment. It started with a TheSite.org member sharing an ‘emergency compliment’ website. While I love it, and it brought a smile to my face, it’s a little impersonal. Unless of course my hair does smell like a lawn –…
Wilderness, jungle or ecosystem? Does the language often used to talk about ‘online’ encourage unhelpful assumptions and distinctions?
The power of language Language is a powerful tool. I’ve written before about the value of metaphor in mental health support and how it can reframe and change perception as well as helping people understand subjective experience. Language is also a tricky thing – the way we frame things in words can influence how we…
Finding a breathing space – eight weeks of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy
Over the past month I have been working on a series of posts for Mind about my experience of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). My own original post about Mindfulness – ‘Keeping the beast asleep’ is by far my most popular – and Mind are interested in how users of their services can develop resilience…
Who’s in agony? – problem pages today and through history
Teen magazine problem pages I recently had reason to remember a scene from my childhood – my friend Jess and I in a tent in a field, surrounded by old copies of teen magazines, reading the problem pages with a strange mix of awe and derision. There was the frisson of excitement caused by the…
The Elephant in the online community – mental health peer support for adults
Online peer support for mental health at Mind Yesterday I attended a session run by Mind on online peer support – helping users of the ‘Elephant (in the room)’ community on Facebook develop their skills in supporting each other. I was interested in attending as I had been chatting to Eve, one of the trainers…