I'm quite pleased with the developing community of support that my new forum has become. Membership grew this month in the Talk Your Heart Out online forum, and LOTS of people are reading it. It tells me that this resource is hitting its mark and there are people that can benefit from having a safe place to talk maturely about difficult issues without having to pay for professional counseling.

It's easy to sign up. Your email is totally private and your identity is not only private but may simply be an avatar for additional anonymity: JOIN THE FORUM

I plan to keep running raffle give-aways to forum participants in the form of travel vouchers or fun adventures. Have a raffle idea or know a business that might like to be a forum sponsor? Please pass it along.

If the only source of our information about sexual frustrations was TV, you would believe that the only problem that exists is erectile dysfunction. Conveniently, you would also notice that the only solution is to give men pills to take. Then, presto, you end up holding hands with your partner in separate bath tubs on the top of some mountain view (I've never figured out that ad!)
 
Yes, there are physical and physiological issues that sometimes need to be addressed to improve sex in your relationship. But forget the plumbing for a moment. There are a lot of factors that all contribute to whether sex is meaningful and satisfying for a couple.

Mismatched libido and sexual communication are two good places to take a look if you want to address sexual frustration.

This short article on WebMD addresses both of these areas and lines up with my own experience with helping couples improve sex.

Stand Up for Mental Health presents comedian David Granirer


TC Williams High School Auditorium
3330 King Street
Alexandria, VA 22302
Thursday, May 21, 2009
6:30 pm


Book signing following the presentation


David Granirer is an internationally recognized counselor, stand-up comic and author of The Happy Neurotic: How Fear and Angst Can Lead to Happiness and Success.

This hilarious presentation is part comedy and part education. David, who lives with depression, looks at how humor can fight the stigma around mental illness.

For this presentation, David taught five local people to become stand-up comics! Their acts look at the lighter side of taking meds, seeing counselors, and surviving the mental health system. Through video clips, you'll see examples of other comics breaking down barriers by finding the lighter side of their mental health journeys. If you live with a mental illness or if you have an interest in mental health, you'll love this show!

This event is offered free to the community in recognition of National Mental Health Month as part of the Partnership for A Healthier Alexandria's HOPE Campaign to fight the stigma
of accessing mental health services.

On May 4, 2006, Congressman Patrick Kennedy crashed his car into a security barrier on Capitol Hill at 2:45am. His subsequent entry into drug treatment and his prior admission of living with bi-polar disorder set the stage for what came next.

Rather than duck into the shadows of his struggles to let the issue pass, he embraced a different aspect of his family's legacy by championing mental health care in this country. The culmination of this was his leading role in the creation of a law that, beginning in 2010, requires insurance companies to charge the same co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses for addiction and mental health treatments as those for all other illnesses.

Last month, the Washington Post chronicled Kennedy's personal and political alignment with mental health issues in an article titled Personal Low, Career Peak.

Excerpt from the article:

"In turning his crash into a crusade, Kennedy, who at age 41 is serving his eighth term, performed an act of political jujitsu that transformed one of the lowest moments of his life into his greatest political achievement. And he made a powerful argument for mental-health parity as a civil-rights issue for his generation, giving voice to the idea that the stigma surrounding alcoholism and mental illness is akin to the prejudice experienced once upon a time by gays, African Americans and Irish Catholics back in his uncle John's day."