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About Me

I'm a collaboration facilitator, author, and public speaker. I'm passionate about shifting public dialog from mental illness to mental health and speaking openly about my own struggles to overcome OCD and addictions.

I recently published "Web Rehab: How to give up your Internet addiction without giving up the Internet." It's available on Amazon.

I'm currently leading "The Path to Change" project, which is building a user-created guide to succeeding with Exposure-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. "The Path to Change" is specifically focused on overcoming anxiety disorders and addictions. Learn more about the project and find out how you can participate at http://thepathtochange.org

Check out my videos on mental health and neuroscience research at www.youtube.com/everybodyhasabrain

Location:
Canada, Toronto
Gender:
Male
Areas of expertise:
Mental Health Advocate, Health & Fitness, Digital Publishing, Neuroscience, Asian Business, Facilitation and Coaching, Visual Thinking
Languages:
Japanese, Arabic, Korean
My website links:
Anxiety Coaching, EVERYBODY HAS A BRAIN - videos, Twitter
Universities:
University of Toronto, University of British Columbia
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  • A comment on Conversation: How do we break down the Stigma attached to those people who have mental health or psychiatric issue?

    Dec 27 2011: Lots of great points on this thread. I'm glad that Johanna mentioned that more people who recover need to come forward. By not talking about our mental health struggles, we feed stigma by suggesting there's something to stigmatize. Avoiding fear and anxiety, creates more of it.

    My recovery began with a six month course of Exposure & Response Prevention therapy, and I only wish I'd known about it sooner. There are so many evidence-based, effective treatments for proactively preventing mental illnesses and, yet, we have this illness-first approach to mental health, so we don't discuss it until it's too late.

    A project myself and some designers are currently working on and will launch later in the new year is a brand of clothes, books, and a website that involves products to create dialogue around mental health. The reason for this is that objects are easier to talk about than ourselves. I used to work with TEDster Tom Wujec, who has a great talk on how we make meaning: http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_on_3_ways_the_brain_creates_meaning.html
    and in workshops, we would use tangible visualization techniques to help companies overcome anxiety in the boardroom. Objects and visuals allow people to discuss tough topics. With our anti-stigma brand, we're taking the same approach.

    People don't like sickness. But they do like their best friends, their mothers, sisters, brothers, etc. To get over stigma, I think we need to highlight emotional connections between people who are dealing with mental illness. To do that, we need to give those people a means to start the conversation about mental health.

    I just saw this conversation now and it's almost closed, but if you'd like to check out my YouTube videos where I talk about my own mental health stories as well as mental health research, and the books and other projects I have on the go about mental health, I'd love to hear what you think. You can find it all at www.markfreeman.ca

    Thanks for bringing up this topic, Ben!

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