Chris Mackey and Associates Newsletter

How to Thrive Documentary To Be Screened Nationally

We're excited to announce initial screenings of the positive psychology documentary, How to Thrive, a practical guide to happiness, that will be showing in cinemas around Australia from the 6th of October. This includes a Red Carpet Premiere in Melbourne at 6:30pm on Thursday 13th October. Chris has been involved in the project primarily behind the scenes as a consultant and also with a cameo on-screen role.

There will be two screenings at Village Cinemas in Geelong on Monday 17th October at 7pm and Sunday 23rd October at 4pm. The screening on the 23rd will be followed by a panel discussion including the director Duy Huynh, positive psychology coach, Marie McLeod, Chris and Luke, one of the participants (a Geelong local). We encourage all those interested to attend. It is a compelling and ultimately uplifting portrait of seven individuals struggling with major mental health challenges.

You can also join the How to Thrive Facebook group for regular updates on the progress and screenings of the documentary.

Tickets for can be purchased for upcoming screenings around Australia via the following link.

https://www.howtothrivefilm.com/screenings

Tickets can be purchased for Geelong Screenings via:

The Q&A at Village Geelong Sunday 23rd October at 4pm https://villagecinemas.com.au/movies/how-to-thrive?tab=sessions&cinemaId=121
Screening at Village Geelong on Monday 17th October 7pm (same link as above)
And a regular screening at Reading Cinemas Waurn Ponds Sunday 16th October at 3.30pm https://readingcinemas.com.au/movies/details/waurnponds/7903

Chris to Present at Art of the Minds Festival

Chris will be presenting at the upcoming Art of the Minds Festival, which runs from the 9th to 16th of October for Mental Health Week. The festival takes place on the Surf Coast and aims to activate, educate and engage the community to manage mental health and wellbeing creatively. Chris will be presenting a session with Jules Haddock and Rob Lytzki entitled Self-Compassion - being as kind to yourself as you would be to your good friend and will take place online on Tuesday October 11 at 1pm.

Click here for more information about Chris's presentation

Click here for more information about Art of the Minds Festival

Mental Health Week Starts on October 10

Every year, October 9th to 16th is recognised as World Mental Health Week. This week is set aside to raise awareness about mental health issues and to promote the importance of good mental health for all. Good mental health is essential for people of all ages, and it's especially important during times of stress.

October 10th is also widely known as World Mental Health Day.
By raising awareness about mental health issues, we can help reduce the stigma surrounding these disorders and encourage more people to seek help. In addition, we can also provide support for those who are struggling and let them know that they are not alone.

World Mental Health Week is an important time to come together and reaffirm our commitment to promoting good mental health for all.

Click here to learn more about World Mental Health Week

Psychologists to Attend Workshop with David Cherry

All of our psychologists will complete an in-house workshop on 28th October with David Cherry. David is a Clinical and Forensic Psychologist who has worked as a psychologist and trainer for over 40 years (see David Cherry's website).

David has a great deal of experience in working with adults, children, adolescents and families as well as training therapists and those in helping roles.

As a trainer, David has run over 4000 training events, ranging from brief presentations to small groups and public speaking to groups of up to 500 people.

We also did a podcast episode where we interviewed David. Click here to listen to the episode Building Better Habits (and overcoming bad ones)

Geelong Cats Win the Premiership

In exciting news for those in Geelong who follow the Geelong Cats Australian Rules Football team, The Cats have won the 2022 AFL Premiership. Our Digital Media Manager Rowan also produces the Official Geelong Cats Podcast, To The Final Bell and was lucky enough to be at the club and have his photo taken with the winning trophy following the Premiership win.

Well done to all the Geelong players and staff, particularly Simon Lloyd, the Cats' General Manager – Football, who is the husband of our very own (very proud) Shelagh Lloyd.

The practice opinion pieces for the Geelong Advertiser continue on Mondays monthly.

The most recent article was: Powerful Doco on Mental Health

An article about a raw yet inspiring documentary that involves seven Australians facing their mental health struggles whilst drawing on positive psychology.

We highly recommend this film, for which Chris was a consultant. It is on limited release throughout Australia in October. Times and locations, including several sessions in Geelong, can be found in the link below.

Click here for screening times for How to Thrive.

This article, along with many more, can be read here on our website or via our Facebook Page

The practice podcast, Psych Spiels and Silver Linings has continued to release weekly episodes.

In our most recent episode, Applying Positive Psychology on the Big Screen, we discussed the topic of applying positive psychology interventions in a group.

It follows the release of a documentary that Chris is involved in called How to Thrive. The documentary follows the progress of seven people with significant mental health challenges participating in a positive psychology program during the pandemic.

In this episode, we discuss how positive psychology can be applied in a group and what we can learn from the experiment that took place during the documentary.

The previous two episodes related to schema therapy, which looks at the persistent thinking patterns that can cause underlying personality difficulties. These often relate to our experiences in childhood and contribute to patterns of thinking about ourselves and our relationships with others.

They relate to the self-limiting beliefs we have about ourselves and the patterns of thinking that can stand in the way of expressing ourselves more fully.

In Some Basics of Schema Therapy, we introduced the idea of schema therapy and the schemas and discussed each schema, and how they affect our thoughts and feelings.

In the second episode of the mini-series, Practical Progress in Personality Change, we looked at what can happen when personality difficulties related to the schema have developed over time. We look at how to address some of these longer-term personality patterns like avoidance, perfectionism, lack of trust in relationships and entitlement.

You can listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast player or at psychspiels.com.au

If you've enjoyed the podcast, we would really appreciate it if you could rate and review and share the podcast with a friend as this will extend the reach to others who may benefit.