“Shame and Silence : Understanding the Stigma of Mental Illness”
This year we have two co-sponsors, the University of Toronto and the Hong Fook Mental Health Association. The first day of this year’s meeting will be a joint session with Hong Fook, an organization that works with Asian communities in the Toronto metropolitan area to keep people mentally healthy and manage mental illness from recovery to wellness through promotion and prevention, treatment, capacity building and advocacy. The opening keynote speaker will be Dr. Heather Stuart from Queen’s University in Kingston, who holds the world’s first chair in anti-stigma research. Dr. Stuart’s talk will be followed by a discussion with the audience.
There will be a large number of symposia and workshops throughout the first day, four of which are being sponsored by SSPC. The topics for these sessions are DSM-V, which will be unveiled a few weeks after the meeting; religion and spirituality in psychotherapy, a cross cultural experience; alternative and complementary medicine and their role in psychotherapy, and research on stigma. In addition to these four symposia, Hong Fook will sponsor about 8 others. All sessions will be open to all registrants. The day will end with a report back session and general discussion, followed by the traditional SSPC reception, which we could not have last year for logistical reasons.
The following two days will be SSPC only days. We have planned symposia on the history and controversies of cultural psychiatry, trauma and the military, the creative arts and, back by popular demand, the case supervision session for the residents. In addition, we will have sessions of free papers and, if there is enough interest, a poster session. We look forward to receiving your proposals.