A Day in the Life

Over at MAGMH we have just started our "Local People, Local Lives" campaign, a new and innovative campaign which seeks not only to bring about a change in attitudes to mental ill health amongst the population of Stoke-on-Trent, but also to enlist and empower volunteers by making and distributing various anti-stigma materials. The campaign will, perhaps, not be like the already existing "Time to Change" in that we will be using new "social marketing" techniques to get our messages across. That is to say our messages will be more subtly conveyed and less direct. I could, for example, talk about my love of cinema, only bringing in an anti-stigma message later in the piece. So, that is exactly what I am going to do here. Indeed, I am what you might call a " cinephile ". Once again, I must point out, that this term has nothing to do with the molestation of the young, the suffix " phile " merely, in this instance, referring to a lover of fi...

As a user of mental health services and volunteer, I have now been involved with The Media Action Group for Mental Health for around two years. My involvement with them, I believe, has allowed me to work through a number of personal issues related to stigma. Although when I started working for MAGMH , many people (my dad mostly, I think) thought that I was an "angry young man", I now find that I am infinitely more sanguine about my own situation and of the whole predicament regarding stigma. Indeed, as MAGMH themselves might point out, their organisation is not one which is intended as a voice for personal anger against so-called discriminators. One is, on the other hand, invited to channel such feelings into a determined and defined effort to combat stigma in constructive or non- aggressive ways. At MAGMH we all seem to agree that being angry is a phase, a moment to go through, a necessary coping mechanism for acknowledging the sort of unusual grief and loss that mental i...