I first learned about the wheel of wellness recently from Laura at Keeping It Creative. It’s a concept that the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has developed based on the work of Margaret Swarbrick. So let’s have a look! Dimensions of wellness The wheel of wellness includes eight dimensions: Emotional: includes […]
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Recent discussions in the blogosphere have got me thinking about the different ways that different people may use the same words. When it comes to mental health conditions, there are technical medical/psychiatric/psychological definitions of terms, but those aren’t necessarily the definitions that people are using in casual conversations. Then there are connotations to words that
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Unfortunately, mental health professionals are a major source of stigma towards people with mental illness. Recovery-oriented practice is one possibility for transforming mental health care into a less stigmatizing place, so let’s talk about what that might look like. What recovery is Personal recovery, also known as psychosocial recovery, is a different can of tuna
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Manic Man: How to Live Successfully with a Severe Mental Illness by Jason Wegner, with a foreword by Dr. Kerry Barnes, is a memoir of a first episode of bipolar mania and subsequent recovery. The book’s prologue opens with the author’s parents having called paramedics to take him to hospital. It then shifts back in
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From Hardened to Healed by Debi Silber encourages readers to move beyond where they’re stuck right now to a place of greater healing. I learned of this book from Joshua Shea, who you may know from his blog paddictrecovery.com; in the book, he shares his story of recovery from addiction and betrayal trauma. The author
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The Night the Lights Went Out by Drew Magary tells the author’s story of experiencing a traumatic brain injury and the gradual process of recovery. After hosting the 2018 Deadspin Awards, he collapsed, breaking his skull and his brain. In this book, he brings readers along as his life is turned upside down. Since the
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The International Hearing Voices Movement (InterVoice) seeks to normalize, depathologize, and destigmatize the experience voice-hearing, as well as provide support to people who hear voices, see visions, etc. InterVoice is based in the UK. There are also 28 national networks, including the Hearing Voices Network in the UK and Hearing Voices Network USA. The Hearing
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I Will Not Be My Mental Illness: Let’s Recover Together by Karina Pommainville-Odell, a fellow blogger, is an invitation for the reader to join the author in working on a better life with mental illness. The book’s tone is friendly and encouraging, and positive in a realistic rather than over the top way. Chapters are
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A fellow blogger wrote a while back about creating your peace, and it got me thinkng about the relationship between non-acceptance and suffering in the context of mental illness. Mental illness isn’t fun, that much is clear. How we relate to illness, wellness, and recovery can evolve over time depending on the individual illness, how
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From Famine to Feast: My Thoughts About My Eating Disorder is the first book by K. Michelle Pahl, who you may know from her blog, From Famine to Feast – The Journey. The book includes her twelve most popular blog posts, and they were definitely popular for a reason. Together, they offer remarkable insights into
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