mental health self-care
Let's talk about how to take care of ourselves and our own psych needs, either in addition to or instead of using more traditional supports of meds, therapy, and so on.
I'll be doing some hands-on demonstration and talking about some things that have been helpful for me and people i know, but i also want to hear from people what has worked for you.
I will: demonstrate how to make your own light therapy box for $40 or less, help walk people through making a mood chart (both a fancy excel/google docs one and one just on paper) and support lists, lead a conversation about talking to friends about mental health, and have time for everyone to share what has worked for them to support their own mental health.
This will not be a place for judgement about people's choices around meds and therapy, either pro OR con. It will be a place to learn about taking our mental health more into our own hands.
details
- when: saturday, april 16th, 2011, from 12:45 pm - 2:15 pm
- to attend: Please see the info page for more information on attending any of the workshops at the 2011 Boston Skillshare.
- facilitated by: eliz
lesson plan
10 min: intro, talking about my background, hearing from other people what in particular they want out of it.
15 min: making a light therapy box. everyone won't get to make their own, but i will make one and have handouts about what you can do to make yr own.
10 min: making a list of signs about yr own mental health (symptoms? whatever you want to call them, about depression, mania, anxiety, psychosis, etc--either warning signs or things that show you are getting deep into things)
15 min: making a list of self-support techniques, and talking to friends about them.
25 min: mood charting! how to do it, why to do it, how to make it graph itself, operationally defining things, etc.
15 min: questions, other things people want to talk about, overflow time, etc.
facilitator experience
i have been in and out of varying levels of psych care and needs for half of my life. i have used all of the tactics that i am going to talk about to support my own mental health.
i have talked with a lot of friends about mental health and what has worked for them.
i have helped a lot of people make mood charts in my personal life.
i make mood charts for my job because i am a behavior analyst. i am NOT doing this as a behavior analyst or in any professional capacity. i am just doing this as someone who is crazy and wants to help support other people. but it felt worth noting that this is actually something i am trained to do also.
intended audience
anyone who wants to take more control over their own mental health.