“Acting As If” to Educate about Mental Illness
In “Roles that shine a light on the dark: Mental Health Players educate public about mental illnesses“, Harriet Comfort is the director of the Mental Health Players, in which actors educate the public about mental illnesses by performing how someone with a particular mental illness may interact with a family member or colleague. Some members of Mental Health Players suffer from bipolar disorder, though others in the group do not suffer from a mental illness.
This is a wonderful concept, not only from a humanistic point of view, but from an educational point of view. The best way to learn something thoroughly is to be able to teach it. From Mental Health Players’ outreach efforts, the best way to impart understanding of an illness commonly assigned to character weakness may be to “act as if”, and walk in the shoes of someone who suffers from the illness.
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