My next presentation will be at the joint conference of CCPA (Canadian Counseling and Psychotherapy Association) and ACA (American Counseling Association) in Montreal, Canada, on April 2, 2016. These are two major organizations from Canada and USA, working together to hold this joint conference. I will be making a presentation based on my first book “A Life Interrupted – the story of my battle with bullying and obsessive compulsive disorder”. The topic of my presentation will be “Long term psychological impact of bullying”.
I am excited about this opportunity because this will be my first presentation in Canada. I have heard from various sources that many schools in Canada are also experiencing bullying on a regular basis. I am therefore looking forward to some interesting and thought-provoking discussions.
Two of the most important points I always try to bring out in my presentations are as follows:
- Focusing on acceptance of differences (whether cultural or non-cultural) is a key to prevention of bullying. A majority of the bullying happens because someone is perceived to be different in some ways.
- It is very important to understand why bullies do what they do – if we can address the underlying issues effectively, we will be able to take a major step in prevention of bullying.