Mental Health, Positive Well-Being starts with the feeling of being in control!

If we feel we have a say, we count, we can influence what happens to us, we start to feel alive, we have a reason to exist. The need to have control over your own destiny is the most fundamental need. We rather starve than loose our dignity.

To work toward positive mental health starts with getting back in the driving seat of your own life, or sometimes discovering it for the first time in your life. After all we are born helpless and gradually work towards independence.

Self help is starting from the position that you are in the driving seat! It is my belief that for that reason self help is as effective for most people in regaining mental health. Research on my self-help workbook (The Bubble Gum Guy: How to deal with how you feel) showed that 70% of the children that used it showed significantly less problems after 6 months. Other research points in the same direction on self help (Sanders, M Tripple P , 2000).

Self help might not help as quick as being helped by somebody else. After all meeting with an understanding other makes us all instantly feel a lot better. Self help means you have to absorb the insights and make them your own. While this takes time, your insights will be yours and never leave you again, inlike the understanding other.

I am keen to hear about your experiences with self help and about research on what books and programmes do work, both for children and adults.

I will work towards producing a link-page for you to find the self help materials.