My name is Daryl Taylor and I’m hosting a major open public forum:
‘Environ-Mental Health’
on Saturday 23 February 2019,
from 1:00 to 6:30pm
Click here for booking
featuring special guest Nora Bateson
Nora Bateson , based in Sweden and the USA, is an award-winning filmmaker, social justice-oriented systems thinker, writer and educator.
Her work asks the question:
“How we can improve our perception of the complexity we live within,
so we may improve our interaction with the world?”
Nora wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary, An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her father, Gregory Bateson. Her work brings the fields of biology, cognition, art, anthropology, psychology and information technology together in a study of the patterns in ecology of living systems.
Her book, Small Arcs of Larger Circles released by Triarchy Press, UK, 2016, a revolutionary personal approach to the study of systems and complexity is the core text of the Harvard University LILA program 2017-18. Her new book, Warm Data, will be released in 2019 by Triarchy Press.
A big shout out to VMIAC – https://www.vmiac.org.au/ – The Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council – who have generously provided their spacious event venue for this independent ‘not-for-profit’ public forum.
The event is ticketed – to book please go to Trybooking – https://www.trybooking.com/BARTZ
Any proceeds will go to the International Bateson Institute – http://internationalbatesoninstitute.org/
Nora Bateson’s father, Gregory, the subject of her award-winning film, ‘An Ecology of Mind’ – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnL0ZB1SzZY and https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bateson
critiqued the biomedical model of mental illness (genetic determinants and chemical changes) and proposed a much broader, more integrated socio-ecological epistemology of mental health.
He developed the notion of the double-bind and contributed enormously to the growth of family therapy, and community and ecological systems approaches to communicative and relational health and our understanding of mental illness.
“Rigor alone is paralytic death, but imagination alone is insanity.”
― Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature
“We are most of us governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong”
― Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind
Gregory Bateson’s first wife was the anthropologist Margaret Mead, who went on to become president of the World Federation for Mental Health.
“Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements
are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.”
― Margaret Mead
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead
Environ-Mental Health will be conducted over four sessions from 1:00 to 6:30pm:
- a ‘scene-setting’ Warm Data and Mental Illness short presentation from Nora Bateson
- a dialogue on resistance to and transcendence of the status quo hegemonic model with VMIAC Human Rights Adviser and mental health advocate and consultant, Indigo Daya
- a dialogue on attachment, love and biological, psychological, socio-cultural diversity with systems family therapist, educator and author of ‘Rethinking Love’, Claire Miran-Khan
- a dialogue on climate/environmental/relational threats/opportunities – mutual self-help, media ecology open dialogue and peer support with MemeFest founder Oliver Vodeb and Laceweb curator Les Spencer.
Intention: The purpose of the event is to engage with and explore the full range of situations, contexts and relationships and determinants and dynamics that influence mental health and mental illness in the 21st Century.
What to expect: to participate in a lively, thought provoking exploration of our current global and local social, cultural, political, economic, ecological and cosmological challenges and opportunities and how they impact our individual and collective emotional, psychological and mental health.
Anticipate: the offering up of many solutions to currently intractable mental health system crises, a broadening and deepening of the context and relationships relevant to mental health and mental illness and much ‘food for thought’ for the forthcoming Victorian Royal Commission into Mental Health.
Consumers: Consumer/survivors of institutional psychiatric services are encouraged to attend; as are mental health professionals; carers, family and community members; as well as human rights and social, cultural, democratic, ecological and climate justice advocates and activists.
Here’s the ticket booking link again: https://www.trybooking.com/BARTZ
Inclusion: If cost is a barrier for you, please contact Daryl Taylor on 0497 097 047 to discuss how you can secure a place.
Nora Bateson’s social media sites and links are listed below:
Engaging Emergence: https://vimeo.com/258433882
Twitter https://twitter.com/NoraBateson?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
WordPress: https://norabateson.wordpress.com/
Medium: https://medium.com/@norabateson
Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nora-bateson-b4a2456/detail/recent-activity/posts/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/norabateson
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/norabateson/
Website: https://batesoninstitute.org/
Film: http://www.anecologyofmind.com/
Reviews: http://www.anecologyofmind.com/reviews.html
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bateson
In 2019 the Victorian Royal Commission into Mental Health will begin deliberations.
‘The royal commission is going to give us the answers we need. It is going to change lives. It is going to save lives.
Only a royal commission will help us build the mental health system our community deserves.’
― Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria
“VMIAC welcomes the Labor Party’s promise of a Royal Commission if re-elected. We believe that an inquiry into mental health services in our state is long overdue and urgently needed. As a peak organisation representing Victorian people with an experience of mental distress or emotional issues, VMIAC hear hourly from people who are hurt and distressed by their lack of access to support, or their treatment within Victoria’s mental health system. The impact of treatment is often worse than the problem people presented with. VMIAC believes that the terms of reference to this Royal Commission must be wide ranging and led by the people experiencing these traumas. We need the Royal Commission to have the same focus as any royal commission: the people who’ve been hurt, not the people with the power to harm.”
― Maggie Toko, VMIAC CEO
https://youtu.be/cC0txyEaRQ0 and: https://www.vmiac.org.au/royal-commission-into-mental-health/
“Mental illness remains a serious health issue in Victoria and throughout the country, with one in five Australians experiencing a mental health illness or disorder, and almost half experiencing a mental health condition at some point in their lives. In addition, the national suicide rate has spiked to its highest rate in the past decade, more than 3000 Australians, and more than 600 Victorians, taking their own lives in a year. In the face of these challenges, however, Victoria also has the lowest funding per head of population of all the states and territories for mental health – despite significant funding boosts from the State Government. This has led to what many refer to as a ‘broken’ mental health system, which is what Premier Andrews has said he hopes to fix with the results of the royal commission.”
― Amanda Lyons, Journalist, RACGP
Source: https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/will-the-promised-victorian-royal-commission-into
“The dominant model of progress and development reflects one particular worldview: modernity. Modernisation is a pervasive, complex, multidimensional process which characterises our era. Industrialisation, globalisation, urbanisation, democratisation, scientific and technological advance, capitalism, secularism, rationalism, individualism and consumerism, all part of the processes of cultural Westernisation and material progress (measured as economic growth) …. In contrast, psycho-social dynamics are all about relationships: between us, separately and together, and with other things or entities, both physical and metaphysical. They describe the ways in which social conditions affect individual psychology and behaviour and vice versa, and how perceptions, expectations and values influence the intrinsic meanings of life events and social situations, and so affect our emotional responses. These interactions can bring satisfaction, happiness, contentment and fulfilment – or cause stress, depression, anxiety, isolation, insecurity and hostility. They frame how we see the world and our place in it, and so what we do in the world, shaping our personal lives and, collectively, the societies in which we live.”
― Richard Eckersley, Is the West Really the Best?