I’m teaming up with Mind Matters to do a workshop at The Drake Hotel in Toronto on May 15th, at 6pm, all about techniques for cutting out online compulsions and learning how to make the internet work for you (instead of you just clicking away on a mouse for little hits of dopamine like you’re in some start-up’s lab experiment). Tickets are $45 and you can get them here: www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/1472846?utm_medium=bks Space is limited so grab tickets quickly. I had so …
Tag: systems thinking
I often get questions about the “right” foods to eat for mental illness recovery: What are the best foods to prevent intrusive thoughts? Will eliminating gluten lower my anxiety levels? Can a detox fix the chemical imbalances in my body? But if you’ve struggled with your mental health, be very careful about searching for a magic solution by drastically restricting or changing your diet, even if it’s temporary. Before you get started on a detox/cleanse, consider these three questions:
Over at the CivicTechTO meetups, I’ve started up a project with a bunch of awesome volunteers to tackle a simple question: How do you find effective, accessible mental health services in Toronto? The answers, however, have been anything but simple. Each answer typically comes in the form of a story. And we’re finding that these are stories full of hope, frustration, tragedy, failure, success, challenges, kindness, inequality, complexity, barriers, and perseverance.
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 all of us. There were many ideas and experiences from MedX that had a big impact on me but for the sake of keeping this article relatively …
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 be active, driving forces in their care. I’ll be participating in the conferences as an ePatient Delegate to share my experiences using technology to support …
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 the coping, checking, and controlling compulsions we engage in are a tiny part of a much bigger system. If you don’t learn address the beliefs …
I recently attended a workshop discussing cross-sectoral collaboration amongst mental health service providers in Ontario. As a former Executive Director of a mental health services agency, and as a consumer of mental health services, I think it’s very necessary that we improve our collaboration skills. And when it comes to improving collaboration, I suggest we look to restaurants as our guide. I wrote about this on Medium: COLLABORATE LIKE A RESTAURANT