Tonight, I’ll be heading to Vancouver to attend tomorrow’s all-day Mental Health Camp (Un)Conference.

I’m very excited to be in a place with others who will be talking about erasing stigma towards mental illness and how social media can expand the possibilities for healing and support. Can blogging, Twittering, and Facebooking provide therapeutic healing?

Isabella Mori and Raul Pacheco-Vega will be presenting the Keynote on Social Media and Mental Health. After that, twelve sessions will follow. It’s always a challenge at conferences to choose between two fascinating sessions, and Mental Health Camp will be no exception.

Some of the panels I’m most excited about are Sandra Kiume’s presention on Mental Health Marketing using Social Media which, of course, is going to be at the same time as Lorraine Murphy’s presentation on Anonymity, Pseudonymity: Freedoms, Dangers, and Responsibilities. Both of these topics interest me and I will sadly have to choose between them.

Karen Quinn Fung will be presenting on Mental Health and Cultural Sensitivity: Services and Stigma in Vancouver’s Ethnic Communities. While I don’t live or practice in Vancouver, I’m interested in this topic. But it also is during the same time as Airdrie Miller’s ERROR 404 Page Not Found presentation which is a personal story about choosing to take her blog down.

If you want to know more about the panels, you can read the full descriptions or just see the schedule.

I know the organizers are taking steps to protect people’s privacy while also sharing information that comes out of the conference with the web community at large. I know many people will be blogging about it, and I will try to link to some of those blogs when I return.

If you want to follow Mental Health Camp on Twitter, you can look for hashtag #mhc09 or just follow all Twitter conversations about Mental Health Camp.

I just found out that my proposal for Mental Health Camp has been accepted. My panel is called, “Social Networking, Visibility, and the Therapeutic Alliance.” It will be in conversation format and will address issues related to the therapist-client relationship and how both clients and therapists feel about sharing online social spaces.

I first heard of Mental Health Camp when I was in Austin and one of the primary organizers, Isabella Mori, contacted me. I was immediately interested in attending, but I wasn’t sure how I could best contribute to such a forum. I wanted to offer something useful to attendees who might be both clients and therapists working within the intersection of social networking and mental health. I kept returning to questions that feel current for me in my own practice as a therapist who is heavily plugged into social networks.

I plan to cover the following topics:

• How do clients feel about their visibility to their therapists online?

• How do clients feel about their online lives being a part of therapy?

• How do clients feel about their therapists being visible online?

• How do therapists feel about being visible to their clients online?

• Do clients desire more therapist transparency online? Or would they prefer more neutral and veiled behavior from their therapists?

• How are these issues coming up in people’s therapeutic relationships?

I recognize that many of these questions will have answers as unique as the various people responding to them. I’m hoping for a lively conversation in which people involved in different aspects of clinical care will get to express their opinions and desires.

Mental Health Camp will take place in Vancouver, British Columbia on Saturday, April 25th from 9:00am to 6:00pm. It is a one-day unconference about social media and mental health with an emphasis on how blogging can help remove the stigma of mental illness. If you’re interested in attending, check out the registration page. Note that admission is by donation and nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.