[Ailist] Ai and Mental Health

[Mike Sands]

Nick

I will be writing you more - I believe that a core power of AI is to share, 
nourish, inculcate feelings of capability, energy, optimism, relatabilkity 
etc etc etc - not PERFECT harmony but towards it.

To the extent that these ideas are efficacious, engaging in discovery 
conversations, inquiring together etc etc are bound to make moments 
marvelous---- and as the percentage of my (or anyone's) moments that are 
marvelous goes up indications that I have some mental or emotional problem 
must go down.

Now I suppose there are some conditions where no amount of salubrious 
conversation will be helpful - but I choose to think about the vast amount 
of anxiety, loneliness, inactivity, behaviour problems, overweight, eating 
problems  that will be ameliorated by friendly interest, admiration and 
connection  -a nd even more so by helping victims come to comfortable 
knowledge that they can be highly effectiive resources for other people.

This is all a basic FORCE behind the program I run called Winning Words - 
Using Conversations to Excite Life.

What English poet said, "Words are the most powerful drugs used by mankind" 
(and that was in 1923, before we learned how to "farm" a persons own words 
so they could multiply their benefit.)


Well,  I've said it before - that was fun - thanks for opening the subject

Mike




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nick Heap" <nick at nickheap.co.uk>
To: "Appreciative Inquiry" <ailist at lists.business.utah.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 7:04 AM
Subject: [Ailist] Ai and Mental Health


> Dear All
>
> I was wondering if you know of any appreciative work in the area of mental
> health?
>
> I could imagine appreciative interviews of the most mentally healthy 
> people
> you could find would be very illuminating. It would be interesting to try
> and define mental health too. Positive psychology is a counterweight to 
> the
> current deficit thinking on mental illness, but I think this might go
> further
>
> At the moment this is just the germ of an idea, so any thoughts,
> connections, resources or ideas would be very welcome. If you wanted to do
> something, how might you go about it?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Nick Heap
>
> Web: www.nickheap.co.uk
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