About

The psychological therapies are full of virtue, however their medical origins shape a relation to lay persons that has some limitations. Too much psychological expertise is held within tightly-controlled professional walled gardens; there is an over-arching preoccupation with the treatment of pathology that leaves out thriving and flourishing; access to psychological expertise requires a crisis; admission of a crisis is likely to be labelled as a form of 'mental illness' with associated stigma; there is chasm between professionalised psychological expertise and the rest of the population that inhibits or disallows the development of existing psyCommons awareness and skills.

Alongside this, knowledge and expertise about physical fitness is very widespread to the extent that hundreds of thousands of people can run a marathon and many more run, walk or cycle a little or a lot. The basic premise of psySavvy is that psychological fitness can and should be similarly diffused into the psyCommons of daily life.

With some exceptions, because the division between professional and peer to peer may not always be very sharply defined, the initiatives listed here feature grass roots, self help, user-led, organisations. Through myriad ways of supporting and building resilience, they actively promote thriving. Becoming psySavvy isn't only a legitimate aim, outside the gated professional communities it is already happening.

I hope you will find the listing useful and maybe even a vital resources in your navigation through the human condition and its works. Let me know how it goes and if you have recommendations of other related initiatives, let me have details of them.

Denis Postle