About: Stand Up For Mental Health

Stand Up For Mental Health (SMH), founded in 2004, is a program based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in which people who have mental illness (e.g. bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder) are taught stand-up comedy as a form of therapy and then present to the community as a way of addressing the stigma, discrimination, and prejudice surrounding mental health problems. SMH does not consider itself a replacement for medication or conventional therapy, simply as a supplemental way for people with mental illness to feel better about themselves while educating others. The classes are taught by counselor, stand-up comic and author of The Happy Neurotic: How Fear and Angst Can Lead to Happiness and Success, David Grani