In the Mood: Playing Smart with Mental Illness and Mood Disorders

In the Mood: Playing Smart with Mental Illness and Mood Disorders
Presented by Cynthia

Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
8:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Doors open at 7:30 PM

Center for Sex and Culture
1349 Mission Street, San Francisco

$5 Janus members and reciprocal organizations, $15 all others

Please note: you do not need to be a member to attend. Janus programs are open to all attendees 18 years of age and older who have a personal, positive interest in BDSM.

About Our Program

Mental disorders are common in the United States. In a given year,
approximately one quarter of adults (26.2%) are diagnosable for one or more disorders, and one in ten adults are diagnosable for a mood disorder (9.5%). Mood disorders are those that affect the mood or emotional state (e.g. bipolar and depressive disorders).

Think of your favorite play partners. It could be one of them that is experiencing a mood disorder, or it could be you. With these statistics, playing smart is advantageous to all of us.

This is a useful class no matter what your experience and exposure is with mental illness. In this class, you’ll answer some of these questions: Is it symptom, stigma or snark? How do I discuss mental illness in negotiation and aftercare? What tools does the psychiatric community have to offer kinky players? How can I use my mental illness to an advantage with my play? How can I be a compassionate play partner and offer great aftercare to my partners with mood disorders?

This class will be part lecture, part discussion and part tips and tricks.

About Our Presenter

Cynthia is best known as co-host of SF Citadel’s Tryst party and as the Social Activities Director for Society of Janus, bringing the vanilla to the kinky and vice-versa. In her non-kinky life, she has personal and professional experience with mental illness. Though not a clinician, she has worked in a best practices psychiatric mood disorders clinic and has learned to adapt tools to enhance her personal BDSM play experiences, such as perverting the National Institute for Mental Health mood charts for predicting patterns and creating best play outcomes.