“Can there be value in mental illness?” asks new website
MEDIA RELEASE
9 February, 2009
New Zealanders often hear only about the negative aspects of ‘mental illness', but that's about to change. A new website is about to launch, featuring successful artists, performers and thinkers with experience of madness or mental distress, exploring the value of their experiences.
Launching on February 9, OutoftheirMinds.co.nz is the brainchild of the Like Minds Like Mine campaign, which aims to counter stigma and discrimination associated with ‘mental illness'.
"A lot of discrimination stems from people thinking of mental distress as primarily an illness, something that robs you of something and makes you less complete than everyone else," says Graham Panther, Like Minds Project Worker at Mind and Body Consultants, which provides the campaign to the Auckland region. "By featuring successful and talented people talking about the very real things they've learned from their experience of mental distress, this website offers people a chance to rethink what they've been told about mental illness, to look at it as an experience that people can actually get something out of."
The twist of the site is that those featured actually interview themselves. In the inaugural feature, Katherine Mansfield award-winning author Judith White is interviewed by the impatient characters of her latest unfinished novel.
As Panther explains, "madness is an experience utterly unique to any individual, so it makes sense that people speak about it entirely on their own terms. Plus it's more interesting that way. And that's kind of the point - madness or mental distress can of course be really tough, we hear about that all the time, but there's more to it than that, and that's what this site will help show people. Who better to lead a discussion about mental distress than people with direct experience of it?"
The site will be of interest to anyone looking to better understand madness, mental distress or ‘mental illness'. In addition to the monthly features of higher profile New Zealanders, Outoftheirminds.co.nz will also present self-interviews and opinion pieces from people with experience of mental distress who work in the mental health sector, as well as further reading about different aspects of mental distress, aimed at making sense of what can often seem an overwhelmingly complex subject.
Like Minds Like Mine is New Zealand's Ministry of Health funded programme to counter discrimination against people with experience of mental distress. www.likeminds.org.nz
A provider of this programme to the Auckland region, Mind and Body Consultants is an NGO staffed, led and owned entirely by people with experience of madness or mental distress. We view madness as a philosophical challenge that people can learn much from, a challenge that effects who we are not what we are, and something that is, ultimately, very much a part of life. www.mindandbody.co.nz
For more information
Graham Panther
Like Minds Project Worker
Mind and Body Consultants Ltd
09 630 5909 ext. 870 or 027 655 2786
graham "at" mindandbody.co.nz
or visit outoftheirminds.co.nz
