Mental Health Mailing Lists - the Power of Email
| Leonard Holmes, Ph.D. http://mentalhealth.about.com |
Email is the oldest application on the net, and more people have access to email than to any other internet application. As much fun as it is to surf the web, it is still much simpler to have useful information show up in your mail box every day.
Mailing lists are simply lists of people who all want to get the same email. Most lists allow you to send a message to everyone on the list, although a few lists are simply ways to receive information (such as a newsletter) on a regular basis. Some tips to manage email lists:
- Most lists have the option of receiving a DIGEST rather than individual messages. This has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that you only get one email message every day from the list. This message contains all of the days messages pasted together with a table of contents at the beginning. The disadvantage is that is more difficult to reply to individual messages, and you always feel like you are a day behind everyone else.
- Be sure to save a copy of the confirmation message that you get when you join a list. This message has important information (such as how to set the DIGEST option, how to "unsubscribe", and how to suspend mail while you are on vacation).
- Replies which may be of general interest are best sent to the list. Replies which address a specific person in a manner which may not be of general interest are best sent to that person individually. Sending to the list usually means sending to hundreds or thousands of people. They won't all appreciate receiving email that says "Nice point, Frank."
Psyber-L is an unusual unstructured mailing list which encourages open interaction among the international participants. It sometimes aspires to be a psychotherapy group. Like all listservs, the command to send is "SUBSCRIBE PSYBER-L your-first-name your-last-name". Send this as the only line in the body of your message. Leave the subject line blank if you can, or put in a few letters if your mail program won't accept blank subject lines. This list is for professionals and non-professionals.
Solution is an unmoderated self-help mailing list which is best described on their web page at this link. It is designed to help people create life changes in themselves. All posts to the list are requested to be in a format called "PSyCHE" which stands for "Problem", "Solution", "Comment" and "HElp".
InterPsych was started by Ian Pitchford as a series of email groups for mental health professionals based in England. The British government cut some of their funding when it discovered that professionals overseas were using the groups more than natives. The email groups are now hosted in various locations, and are bigger and more diverse than ever. You can sign up for many different professional mailing lists from this site.
PsychNews International was formerly known as The InterPsych Newsletter. It is InterPsych's monthly international newsletter for mental health professionals. It is good source of up-to-date internet information. This is not a discussion list, but simply a list to receive a newsletter. To subscribe send the command "SUBSCRIBE IPN your-first-name your-last-name".
ISMHO is a
mailing list sponsored by the International Society for
Mental Health Online which discusses the delivery of psychological services online,
and the specific issue of psychotherapy on the net. While most participants are
professionals, the list is not restricted.
Some others to try:
| Leonard Holmes, Ph.D. http://mentalhealth.about.com |
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