Project History

The Alternatives in Mental Health project started with an idea that Yan Weaver and I from Lambeth Mind had after attending the 2002 'Big Alternative Conference' held by the Mental Health Foundation's Strategies for Living project. A number of alternative therapists were offering free 'taster' sessions for the people attending. We talked about setting up an alternative therapies day in Lambeth and also about publishing a booklet with details of local practitioners and centres.

Our idea was to enable more mental health service users to access these treatments, and help interested practitioners to reach out more into the mental health field.

Initial research

After a successful application to the Scarman Trust's 'Can Do' Awards for six month's funding, I started researching the various types of therapies. This included reading up about and trying out various approaches myself, as well as asking other local mental health service users and survivors for their views about alternative therapies via discussions and questionnaires (thanks particularly to people at Lambeth Mind and Lambeth User Voice!).

Just about everyone was positive about these therapies. Among the main reasons people gave for trying them were to help with stress, anxiety and depression. Other popular reasons included sleep problems and to help with coming off medication. Comments included: meditation 'increased my confidence and improved my concentration'; exercise therapies 'helped me sleep'; T'ai Chi made it 'easier to relax'; arts therapies 'occupied my mind and stopped me from worrying'.

2004 taster day and booklet

Inspired by this feedback and my own positive experiences, I advertised for practitioners to be involved in the taster-day. Thanks to the energy and support of everyone who got in touch, as well as invaluable input from many others, the taster-day came together and was a great success. This was followed by the publication of a free information booklet with over 500 copies being distributed. The booklet included:

• Brief descriptions of some of the more common types of therapies that I and other mental health service users have found helpful at particular times of distress.
• Further information on the various types of therapy, written by practitioners.
• Details of how to find free or low-cost options.
• Contact details of some local practitioners and centres. Most of these also participated in the taster day.
• Information on some national organisations that can provide details of local qualified practitioners, along with other information on particular therapies.

You can find much of the above information repeated on this website on the therapies page.

The current plans page describes briefly how we aim to continue on from the ground work already done in promoting alternative and complementary therapies to mental health service users.

Renuka Bhakta
Project Coordinator

Renuka Bhakta Coordinator - renbhakta@hotmail.com
c/o Lambeth Mind - 020 7735 3505 | info@slmind.freeserve.co.uk | www.lambethmind.org.uk
www.mhalternatives.org.uk last updated on 13/11/2005 | Designed by Francesco Tirimo