In March, my new book
Believe Me – Mental Health & Addiction Stories
Imagined Lived Analyzed
will come out.
A woman 
has a conversation with a bowl of ramen, and writes a poem about it. Another woman reads it and muses about her own problems with food, and how they were accompanied with “pretending” and a lack of authenticity. Research invites a third perspective: In addition to ample material on eating disorders, we find accounts of self-silencing and women reinventing themselves through self-narration.
This is an example of the contents of a chapter in this book. The human mind and emotions are usually described in three ways: in stories or poetry; in personal accounts; and in research. Following the concepts of narrative medicine, this book brings these elements together, combining short stories and poems with interviews and summaries of extant research on the topics of mental health and addiction.
For each of the eleven chapters, I presented an individual with one of my short stories or poems that touch on a theme related to mental health or addiction. If they resonated with it, I interviewed them about their experiences and reactions. In the interview, certain themes emerged. Together, we selected one of them; the chapter closes with a summary of some of the research on that selected theme. Thus, each chapter consists of three parts: the story or poem, the interview, and the research. It also includes its own brief introduction, and a bibliography.
Topics include addiction, adverse childhood experiences, authenticity, depression, suicide prevention, post-stroke experiences, the therapist-client relationship, loneliness, recovery from psychosis, friendship in the context of autism, domestic violence, hope, and gratitude.
The book begins with an introduction and concludes with an appendix that briefly explains the history of and intent behind each poem or short story.
The book was written on the basis of thirty years of experience working in mental health and addiction. I have a Masters Degree in Education, and, before my retirement, has worked for 30 years as a counsellor. I was partly inspired by being the co-editor of and regular contributor to Family Connections, a newsletter about mental health and addiction at Vancouver Coastal Health, where I worked from 2013-2024.
In the last few years, the topics of mental health and addiction (or, as many clinicians prefer to refer to it, substance use) are becoming destigmatized and more freely discussed. This is why “Believe Me” is not only timely, but takes an approach that opens more perspectives.
The publisher is Three Ocean Press.