Mental Health and Wellbeing with Chris Parsons | E11

Chris Parsons, a lawyer at Herbert Smith Freehills for 36 years and Chairman of their India Practice for the last 16 years, joins Dr. Ruth Allan on the 11th Episode of Brain Health: Unchaining Your Pain.

Chris went public with his struggles in 2015 and since then has made it an essential part of his mission to help understand what mental ill health looks like

In this episode, we talk about how a combination of Chris's unresolved childhood trauma due to an emotionally destructive relationship with his father and the stress of his job resulted in his first major mental breakdown in 1996 after collapsing in the gym.

After being told by the doctor, 'There's nothing wrong with you,' the realization that his struggles were not physical but mental put him into a deep depression. 

At the time, the narrative at work was that 'Chris is overdoing it and needs to recharge his batteries.' The reality was very different as his specialist at the time described his mental breakdown as the equivalent of having a major heart attack

During the discussion, Chris praises the support offered by his firm and talks about the key steps they took to allow him to recover at his own pace without judgment.

In 2018, Chris completed an intensive program in Psychotherapy at Regent's University in London.

Chris's passion is mental health and wellbeing, and he is now a Trustee of MQ Mental Health.

Having suffered from severe mental health issues, Chris knows the stigma. He aims to reduce this stigma so that mental ill-health is treated the same as physical ill-health

For more information, visit:

👉LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-parsons-india-mentalwellbeing/ 

👉Website: www.hsf.com

Connect with Dr. Ruth Allan

👉 Website: https://www.ruthmaryallan.com 

👉 The Academy: http://www.wellbeingwarrioracademy.com 

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