The [American Psychological Association's] Your Mind, Your Body “Mental Health Month” Blog Party represents the aim of APA’s bloggers to bring mental health writing to the web.
We love that the American Psychological Association (APA) has decided to designate today as some sort of “blog party” to increase mental health awareness, but their press release and related marketing materials on this “blog party” make it pretty clear they don’t have a clue. I’ve never seen bloggers “organized” through a press release before.
First of all, it kind of sounds like the APA doesn’t believe there’s any mental health writing on the web. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth… Mental health writing has been on the web for years! Some of the best writing has been in independent blogs, like Furious Seasons (which has sadly gone AWOL), The Last Psychiatrist, The Carlat Psychiatry Blog, Dr. Deb, and The Trouble with Spikol. You can’t “bring” something “to the web” which has already been around for years and years.
And of course, Psych Central has been writing nonstop about psychology and mental health issues for the past 15 years (and blogging about them for 10). We are the relentless, independent (and sometimes cranky) voice in mental health.
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I wrote for the blog party because I think it’s a good idea. I just wish it had been better organized. Simple things like establishing a Twitter hashtag for today’s posts would have gone a long way toward this being a more cohesive event.
As a founding blogger for Your Mind, Your Body, I was disappointed to see PsychCentral’s comments about our Blog Party. As readers of many of the mental health and psychology blogs, websites, and Twitter pages, there was certainly no intention on our part to imply that there isn’t already excellent mental health writing on the web. Instead, we hoped to expand the writing to include other voices that might not typically write on mental health issues, and publicize the event via Your Mind. Your Body., YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and BloggersUnite.org to encourage broad participation. As bloggers, we also reached out to our peers in our practices (including non-psychologists), state associations, and communities to encourage them to participate.
Today we’ve seen personal, parenting, family and other blogs contribute posts to the Blog Party, which is a great step in raising awareness among consumers and the general public who may not otherwise be exposed to mental health messages. At the end of the day I think we share the same goal: spreading the word about the importance of mental health. This was a new event for us, and we’re still learning – but we’re thrilled with the participation we’ve seen. And when we do events like this in the future, I hope we will be able to team with PsychCentral and other established psychology communities to make it even more successful.
As someone who blogs and Tweets daily about psychology — and as an APA member — I would have just liked to have heard about this before I saw it on Twitter a few minutes ago.
Blogging about mental health could help out a lot of people. Helping spread the word about mental health is easier that way too.
“Find one that works for you or your loved one and stick with it. Embrace change.”
How great to see/hear that one way is not better than another and acknowledge the one that works, however it works, WORKS!!
Well done
Paul
Don’t forget your very own, Beyond Blue by Therese Borchard…surprised she wasn’t a part of your bragging rights…
interesting conversation here…
Dr Smith – Perhaps the press release put out the APA was poorly worded then, because that was a direct quote from the press releases — that the APA was hoping to bring mental health writing to the web.
There are 17 bloggers listed who blogged about the online event:
http://www.yourmindyourbody.org/mental-health-month-blog-day-may-18/
(Interestingly, Psych Central is not among them.) I hope next year you bring 10x that number to the “party” by reaching out to individuals — not through a press release — but by personal emails and a greater grassroots effort.
I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade, but a lot of the importance of how to get a message across clearly is what is actually said. I’m sorry I took away a different message than what was intended.
I’ve participated in what are generally called “carnivals.” A topic is announced (widely) by whoever is hosting that week and then, on carnival day, the host lists all of the participating blogs with a brief summary of each. The next week someone else acts as host.
Wikipedia has a description here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_carnival
They can be a lot of fun, but the first few weeks,as participants are being scouted out,can be challenging.
Channel N, hosted here at PsychCentral, does participate in blog carnivals. In Encephalon editions 47 and 73 I compiled videos and blog posts on neuroscience, brain and behaviour. Blog carnivals are a great way to showcase the best blog posts from a variety of writers.
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/channeln/2008/06/encephalon-47.html
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/channeln/2009/07/encephalon-73-with-videos.html