Out of My/Your Box - The Arts and Mental Health Steven Whinnery, 24 January 2015 Attended by an interesting and engaging group of people some of whom left their contact details some who did not: so this is not an exhaustive list of those who attended. Hope you don't mind that I have put your email addresses up here. It means that those who were at the session can contact one another: Who ran the session: Steven Whinnery: [email protected] Those lovely people who came: Sarah Ball: [email protected] Verena Leonardini: [email protected] Colin Campbell: [email protected] Jane Ensell: [email protected] What was good that came out of our discussions was the desire to work in a creative ways that allows play to be the place that we come from enngaging with one another. To bring humanity to the whole process. Offering to people working in the arts different types of approaches, therapy and self managment that is affordable, available, and consistent. Empowering artists to be open about their mental health problems and be a resource and repository of collective wisdom to share with the population as a whole. We talked about the stigma of mental health. Working in mental health settings. Dealing with mental health, the slashing of funding to day care help for people with mental health problems. The dismantling of the NHS. What came out was to pull resources of expertise and to work together to offer our expertise to create tailored and focused self management for performers. Appropriate to their profession and thinking style and their finances In the group: a hypnotherapist, a drama therapist, a feldenkrais practitioner, and other skills not disclosed, other depths still to be explored. Thank you A topic that needs further discussion and we only really scratched the surface…watch this space. Thanks everyone for coming. Keep in touch. Best wishes Steven Tags: hypnotherapy, feldenkrais, NHS, self-management, the arts, mental health, coping strategies, play