A photo of the fire area in the circular bar at Coed Hills. Taken at night with fairy lights and comfortable sofas arranged around a large woodburning stove. There is a large, striking painting on the wall and it is a very evocative image of a magical place.

Not Just a Dream: Finding the Mental Health Community I’d Been Longing For by Robyn Thomas

This piece was first published in Mad in America – read the original here 

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Banner with words Compassionate Mental Health Light the Lamps 23-26 October 2023, Coed Hills, South Wales, UK. An image of a lantern on the floor of a wood with autumn leaves and a book open on the ground, scattered with leaves.

Towards Compassionate Mental Health by Brigid Bowen

30 years ago I walked into hospital as a voluntary patient in the middle of a manic episode.

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Why we need more Soteria Houses by Brigid Bowen

I wrote this piece to deliver as a talk for the Soteria Network UK AGM in 2021 – online due to the pandemic.

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Navigating Suicidal Thoughts Together by Kevin Hall

One World Suicide Day 2022, read this powerful post by Kevin Hall, first written in 2018 after fashion designer Kate Spade and TV chef Anthony Bourdain died by suicide

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close up of young woman smiling at another person with their back to us, in countryside setting

Googling for Compassion by Joanne Parker

I’ve always had my mental health, but sometimes it’s been a bit dodgy.

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Social Connectedness and the Future of Compassionate Mental Health by Dr Charlie Heriot-Maitland

Our brains are naturally very good at adapting and responding to our environments. That is, after all, how we’ve survived (in an evolutionary sense), but these built-in adaptive processes are still very apparent day-to-day. Read more

We are all Seekers, we are all Guides by Serena Jones

Compassion (noun): a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

Towards the end of last week in deepest west Wales, something remarkable happened. It was a gathering of people who share a passion for compassion and a hunger to see more of it in the way we approach health, specifically mental health. It seems a cruel irony that at a time when people most need a compassionate response, all too often feel unheard, disconnected and disempowered from the very systems supposed to help. Read more

Healing my Human Soul by Sophie Robinson

Feeling disconnected and misunderstood I took a last minute decision to go to the Compassionate Mental Health Conference  in Wales last week.  I’d had such an affirmative experience there back in March I felt It would be just the medicine I needed to restore me and nurture me. Read more

A Heartbeat of Hope by Gary

Not long out of hospital again, where I received little care.
Feeling powerless and hopeless and so full of despair.
My ‘life’ has been traumatic, distressing, I long to be free.
Yet, I don’t deserve kindness from others, let alone me! Read more

Does a Psychiatric Diagnosis Have the Impact of a Medical Curse? by Michael Cornwall, PhD

Over the last 40 years as a dissident therapist and activist, I’ve known many people who were so negatively impacted by their subjective experience of receiving and indefinitely enduring a psychiatric diagnosis that I’ve come to see such dehumanising labeling as the infliction of what amounts to a medical curse.

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