Five big take-aways from MedX 2015
Stanford’s Medicine X conference was definitely the best health-related event of any kind I’ve ever attended. Launched by Dr. Larry Chu and an incredible group of collaborators a couple of years ago, it has grown into a special experience bringing together patients, healthcare practitioners, researchers, and technology companies to create change around major healthcare challenges that affect…
Counselor Troi is not Scalable
In anticipation of this year’s Medicine X Conference, some reflections on one of the stickiest problems in mental healthcare innovation… In less than a month, the Medicine X and Medicine X | Ed conferences will kick-off in Palo Alto, exploring the intersections of emerging technologies, healthcare, and design, with an emphasis on empowering patients to…
Beliefs, judgments, desires, compulsions…
When we’re struggling with mental illness, it’s often the compulsions that get all of the focus, both when we’re trying to figure out what’s going on and when we’re getting treatment. Many disorders are defined only by the superficial characteristics of the compulsions they’re engaging in when they show up to get a diagnosis. But…
Don’t make unhappiness a prerequisite for happiness
When we’re struggling with mental health issues, they can come become a filter that defines how we see the world. We can’t imagine seeing it any other way. Everything revolves around the mental health challenges and we begin to rely on them. We can start to believe that not feeling anxiety means we don’t care…
Mental Health Service Collaboration Across Sectors and Agencies
I was recently part of a design workshop with local government and mental health services, exploring how to collaborate better around delivering effective mental health services. As a former Executive Director of a peer support charity, and a former mental health service user, I’ve had the opportunity to be on both sides of the equation.…
OCD FAQ: What’s the best natural supplement to cure OCD? (video)
I often get asked what supplements I took or what medications I took to recover from OCD and all of the things that went along with that. But I didn’t take any supplements or any medications. So this is how I usually answer the question:
Anxiety Disorder Relapse Prevention (video)
Recovery isn’t something you do once and are finished with. Taking care of your mental health is a lifestyle, just like taking care of your physical health. To keep from sliding back into relapse, I’ve found it helpful to put distance between myself and the way things used to be cutting out the “normal” coping,…
Anxiety infiltrates everything (but you can beat it at everything).
If you struggle with anxiety, you’re very likely going to work in a way that’s built around trying to avoid anxiety. So you’ll do things like: Not delegate or let other people handle things for you. Try to fix problems alone before anybody finds out. Avoid leading because you’re worried about things going wrong. Avoid…
Avoiding Anxiety Triggers (video)
When it comes to avoiding anxiety triggers, approach them in the same way you would if you had a physical injury: understand what’s causing the pain and stop that, do specific exercises to recover from the injury, and then gradually but consistently reintroduce the trigger, learning to embrace it in a healthy way so you…
If running is difficult, run more.
It really is the Swiss-army knife of lessons. Take it everywhere. Use it on everything.