change therapy

on tuesday i had the honour of hosting the #mhsm (mental health and social media) chat. that’s a weekly one-hour conversation about mental health on twitter. the topic we discussed was mental health and addictions. it was very lively, and perhaps the biggest topic was self medication, a topic that sprung up within the first [...]

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tomorrow night at 6pm PST I will be hosting the weekly #mhsm chat on twitter. #mhsm stands for mental health and social media. #mhsm was started by amy kiel, an ardent mental health activist. the topic of the chat will be mental health and addiction. #mhsm typically uses between 5 and 8 questions to stimulate [...]

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in my long-suffering attempts to organize my internet life better, i’m going to see what it’s like if i post the occasional link article.  so here’s a stroll through the links open on august 1, with the first paragraph of each post so that you can get an idea what it’s all about.  you may [...]

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my new-found friend sheldon from the kitzul connection wrote this the other day: given the world we live in with social media dominating our relationshipscapes, why all the love??! i have had this brewing in the back of my mind for a while now. but it really hit home during a recent trip to the [...]

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here’s another report from mental health camp. for some reason, i just can’t bring myself to get all official about it and write it from the point of view of the organizer, so i’ll write it from my personal point of view. so here are a few fragments, which do not do justice to the [...]

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i was going to write this nice first recap about mental health camp but then – well, life happened.  so instead here are the links to some people who have written a little about it.  enjoy! http://katanaville.com/mental-health-camp-at-ubc-honesty-on-the-internet/ http://www.covenanthousebc.org/blog/2010/07/16/mental-health-camp-recap http://theemperorhasnotoque.blogspot.com/2010/07/mental-health-camp-2010-my-view-after.html http://cuntinglinguist.com/2010/07/mental-health-in-which-steff-calls-a-spade-a-spade.html http://www.kidsideration.ca/?p=86 http://www.ridedonthide.com/2010/07/mental-health-camp-2010/

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my talk at mental health camp yesterday: it’s not about mental illness. it’s about mental health. in 1996, 510 murders occurred in canada. taking a prevalence rate of about 3% of violent crimes committed by people with mental illness, at the most, 16 of these people were killed by someone with a mental illness. i’m [...]

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these are my opening remarks for mental health camp today. if you’re on twitter, you can follow the conference via the hashtag #mhcyvr10. this is a conference that was conceived and organized in love, excitement and harmony. while we talk about stigma and silence, what is much more interesting to us is to move forward [...]

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yay! we now have the speakers list and topics for mental health camp, the conference about the intersection between social media and mental health.  more information on the topics will trickle in by the end of june.  if you want to sign up to come to this conference, go to our eventbrite page.  there will [...]

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i commit to writing a blog post exploring the fun in social justice. once again, northern voice, vancouver’s annual blogging and social media conference, was a lot of fun. two inspiring sessions were about making a difference in the world: one about doing good by darren barefoot, and another about social media and social justice [...]

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unable to hear internet legend’s bryan alexander’s keynote address at northern voice (the reverb was awful), i decided to turn it into an experiment. for about 15 minutes, i recorded the words i could hear (maybe every 10th word or so), then i categorized them and turned them into an improv style remix. here is [...]

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is there something you’ve always wanted to say about mental health?  here’s your chance – the call for speakers for MentalHealthCamp 2010. we are looking for session leaders who speak from personal or professional experience with mental health or mental illness. we will have 9 slots for prearranged speakers (e.g. approved by the selection committee), [...]

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very few blogs make much money. in fact, the vast majority make no money whatsoever. but that’s not what you want, is it? you want to make some real money blogging, and that’s why you bought this book in the first place. congratulations! you’ve already completed the first step on your path to becoming a [...]

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a few updates on MentalHealthCamp, the second vancouver conference on the intersection between social media and mental health, to be held on july 10. we have a motto! it is breaking our silence. setting us free. also, there will be a mental health camp in toronto – isn’t that cool?  it’s on may 28.  raul [...]

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i wanted to stop this insanity and pushed and cajoled. myself, of course. no-one else is the maker, the doer, the procreator of this continuous dross. dross, people, is a mass of solid impurities that floats on molten metal. so this dross, it stuck to me in the form of wasting my time, treating it [...]

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