Monday Oct 18^th, 7 -9 p.m.,

SFU Harbour Centre - Room 1400

515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3

Cost: By Donation (Suggested donation is $10, or whatever you can afford)

Kathy McMahon, “How to Stay Sane as the World Goes Crazy: Economic Hard tim­es, Climate Change and the Messy Issues of Oil”

As we’re bombarded with alarming headlines on a daily basis, how do we find the sane space between Doom and Denial?  Is there a place for wit when we examine the major challenges of our lifetime:  economic depression, environmental degradation, and energy depletion?  Is blind optimism itself, a diagnosable mental disorder?

With humor and insight clinical psychologist Kathy McMahon addresses a few of the major challenges of our time and discusses why “all or nothing” thinking is cutting short a more serious conversation about what we value, how our values dictate our behavior, and what we need to do to prepare for a future that may be very different from what’s been predicted.

She’ll introduce Panglossian Disorder with subtypes such as:

·       Rhett-Butlerism – (“Peak Oil? Planetary and economic collapse?  Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn…”)

·       Scarlet O’Hara-ism- (“I’ll just have to think about that tomorrow…”) and

·       Frank Zappa-ism: (“As soon as things get really bad, they’ll come up with something”- a belief that necessity is the mother of invention.)

All of these are popular but ineffective psychological strategies for handling bad news.  What we face aren’t simple problems with clear cut solutions, but rather complicated dilemmas that require good humor, mature thinking and the ability to tolerate both unpleasant emotions and joy in the unexpected.  Come join us as we search for a space where we can all be more human than otherwise.

Bio:  Since 2006, Kathy McMahon, “The Peak Shrink,” has been offering clinical wisdom, common sense, and good humor to an international readership, who’ve shared their stories and sought her advice about managing in these hard times.  Her research project, www.PeakOilBlues.com is a collection of these narratives, investigating the emotional impact on ordinary people, living through dramatic economic, energy, and environmental upheavals.