[MelK]

I don't know what other people think, but I was thinking of asking about a subforum of mental wellness for different types of therapy, with a thread for each one (eg EMDR, group therapy, somatic experiencing, art therapy, music therapy) where people could share their experiences. Maybe like the different types of SA forum?

Questions about different therapies often come up but in different threads at different times. I wondered if it would be helpful to have a place to keep posts about them together, where people could have a single place to look up what's been posted before and add if they wanted to.

Only if other people would find this useful...

[Onetofortynine]

I think it is a good idea too MelK.
I often find myself thinking a EMDR question like that comes up often.
I guess it is just a matter of time for some lovely person to sort though them.
Might be easier said than done.

[SurvivingTheStorm]

It would be nice to have therapy posts seperated from other posts on the board... would keep things more organized and such.

[MelK]

Onetofortynine, on 17 March 2011 - 02:16 PM, said:

I think it is a good idea too MelK.
I often find myself thinking a EMDR question like that comes up often.
I guess it is just a matter of time for some lovely person to sort though them.
Might be easier said than done.

Oops, maybe I wasn't clear. I just meant to start it from scratch now, not to try to bring all the previous threads into it. That really would be a lovely person who would do that!!!

[Onetofortynine]

:hi5:/> Oh then l could see it working then... :thumbsup:/>

[Susan]

Hi Mel,

Thanks for the suggestion! I'm going to take this over to be discussed. We'll let you know what is decided as soon as possible.

Take care,
Susan

[Susan]

Hi Mel (and others!)

Thanks so much for this suggestion - we've had quite a discussion about it and think it is certainly a valid idea. Our concern with it though is that the sub-forums may not get enough traffic from members, being a very specialized type of forum, and members would post and leave feeling unsupported if they didn't receive replies. The Section mods from the Mental Wellness forum have attempted to utilize pinned threads in the past but unfortunatrly have not had much response. Additionally, we also predict it would be inevitable that some would use the forums to recommend or promote certain types of therapy to others without knowing their individual situation, and that would conflict with our guidelines regarding medical advice.

For the time being, we feel the Mental Wellness forum provides an opportunity to discuss therapy and types of treatment without as much of a risk of the reasons outlined above. We hope you'll consider starting your own thread by asking members to share their experiences about a specific type of therapy should you feel the need. In the future though we can certainly reassess this and please do not hesitate to bring it up with us again, or come to us with another suggestion - we really appreciate the ideas from people using the boards!

Take care,
The Moderating Team

[Onetofortynine]

That makes perfect sense.
I hope that having the discussion on it was worthwhile. :thumbsup:/>

[Ash]

Onetofortynine, on 20 March 2011 - 12:33 AM, said:

That makes perfect sense.
I hope that having the discussion on it was worthwhile. :thumbsup:/>

Discussions are always worthwhile! That's how we get all of our ideas and make decisions about the board!

[MelK]

Yes, it does make sense. Thank you so much for considering it.

[astralvigilante]

This might sound weird but I was almost wondering if maybe we should have mental wellness be a topic and then have therapy discussions be separate subforums of it. The reason I say this is because I'm having to heal without a therapist for the time being and a lot of times it seems like the assumption is made when people post in mental wellness that everyone has or can get a therapist and replies often focus on encouraging the poster to go to therapy. It might help to clear up confusion if conversation about therapy and therapists could be separate from general questions and topics about mental health related issues.

[Kate]

Hi Astral,

We've had a chat about your suggestion, but we can't see any way of easily separating therapy and mental wellness into distinct topics - so often they are combined, as you've already mentioned. If you are unable to access therapy as a tool of healing, or indeed, if you prefer not to use traditional therapy methods to heal (which is just as valid), it's okay to point out in your posts that you would prefer to get advice on self-healing or non-traditional methods of healing, or even that you aren't interested in advice about traditional therapy - a lot of people will suggest the things that have helped for them but that doesn't necessarily mean it will work for you so it's okay to be clear about that. I know for myself, traditional therapy was very helpful in my healing but I also believe my self-healing work through reading books, keeping a journal, and using art to express emotions played as big a part. There are many ways to heal and the important thing is to ask for what kind of advice and suggestions are right for you.

Take care,
Kate