David Granirer - Canadian stand-up comedy for mental health
Last updated 09/09/2009 11:32:24
David Granirer - Canadian stand-up comedy for mental health
Most people say you have to be nuts to do stand-up comedy, according to Canadian counsellor and stand-up comic David Granirer. But he offers it as a form of therapy.
In David's Stand Up For Mental Health course, participants turn their problems into comedy, then perform their acts at conferences, treatment centres and psychiatric wards.
Stand Up For Mental Health trains groups across Canada, including Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto, also performing at mental health organisations and on college campuses.
"We use comedy to give consumers a powerful voice and help reduce the stigma and discrimination around mental illness," David explained.
"The idea is that laughing at our setbacks raises us above them. It makes people go from despair to hope, and hope is crucial to anyone struggling with adversity. Studies prove that hopeful people are more resilient and also tend to live longer, healthier lives."
David, who himself suffers from depression, got the idea for Stand Up For Mental Health from watching students in his stand-up comedy clinic course.
"I've had students overcome long standing depressions and phobias, not to mention increasing their confidence and self-esteem," he said. "There's something incredibly healing about telling a roomful of people exactly who you are and having them laugh and cheer.
"There's something amazing about having members your community take the stage at an event and rock the house. It's incredibly empowering and a great way of fighting public stigma. Most so-called normal people would never want to go anywhere near stand-up comedy."
David added: "Seeing people with mental illness do it forces the audience to re-evaluate their perceptions of and prejudices against people who have a mental illness."
For more information go to http://www.standupformentalhealth.com
Read also >> Sheffield University researchers find lessons improve teenage attitudes to mental illness