My (Pretty Nifty) Disclaimer From My Mental Health Blog

Hello! As I noted in a previous iteration of this website's home page, I will be importing posts from my blog, "Mental Health for Humans." Today seemed like a good time to get started, so I went over there to poke around and see whether I could come up with a strategy of some kind to bring them over. Starting at the beginning seemed like an intelligent way to proceed, so I paged over until I arrived at my very first post, which was published on July 30th, 2012. (Two-plus years have gone by very fast.)

As it turns out, the post has nothing to do with mental health, per se. Instead, it's a disclaimer. As I read through it, I clearly recalled my logic and justification for making it my first post; frankly, I'm still rather inclined to agree with myself. (Good job, self!) It boiled down to this: On the one hand, I knew that, given my education and experience, I had every right to produce the content of the blog; on the other hand, however, I was cognizant of the potential for readers to construe my posts as therapy, which they are most decidedly not. In other words, I did not want to cause my readers any harm, and I did not want to leave myself unduly vulnerable to blame. So I did what seemed proper—and, fittingly enough, what follows the beginning stages of the therapeutic process; namely, I elucidated the nature of the blog, and of the relationship between myself and the readers. 

So, here it is. I'm sharing it because, yes, I'm vainly proud of it; but I'm also sharing it to serve the purpose I indicated in the previous paragraph. Click here to link to the original post, and read on for its full text:

Our Writer-Reader Agreement

While I would have much rather placed this agreement of understanding between you (the reader) and me (the writer) in the blog's description, the current Blogger formatting restrictions only allow for a 500 character maximum in that space. And so I must adjust, and kick off this blog with a rather necessary, if somewhat terse, paragraph. Whether a person is paying for a service or, as is the case here, browsing free content voluntarily, I think it's important that expectations and roles are clearly delineated, and that people know what they're getting into. Here goes:

Be advised, Dear Reader: I have an MSW from an accredited institution, so I do have some formal educational background on aspects of the very broad topic of "mental health." However, this is my personal blog, not an academic or professional publication; i.e., the content herein has not been peer-reviewed, fact-checked, or otherwise edited by anyone other than myself. Moreover, the various content of my posts are not intended to represent the views of any other person, thing, or organization. Be advised of this, then, Dear Reader, and note that the onus is on you to take or leave, so to speak, what I write here. You are reading this blog voluntarily, and in so doing, you are neither implicitly nor explicitly being provided professional mental health services. In other words, I am not your therapist, I am not responsible for how you interpret this material, and you hereby release me from any and all liability by continuing to peruse this blog's content. I am writing this blog because I am interested in the topic, I have some things to say about it, and I enjoy writing. 

Ok, that’s more than enough of that for now: I think we understand our writer-reader arrangement. Thanks for visiting the site, folks – enjoy!