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Joanna Cheek

@joannacheekmd

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Author of It's Not You, It's the World: A Mental Health Survival Guide for Us All. Psychiatrist. Clinical Professor at UBC Medicine. Journalist.

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Helmets Save Lives! Feeling very grateful to the Oak Bay community and amazing ER staff at RJH who took such wonderful care of me on Monday night after I was hit by a truck on my bike as I road home from the seaplane from the vancouver writer's festival. Once again, my helmet saved my life!! I was really confused with a concussion and in shock when it happened, so looking for witnesses to the event --and to thank them! (Oct 26 5pm Bowker and Cadboro Bay) as I didn't get the truck driver's info, and ICBC will replace my totalled bike and pay for medical expenses if I track down witnesses etc. One the bright side, I got a full body CT in the ER and its looking good in there so I'm very very lucky! Just a concussion, soft tissue injuries, and feel like I was hit by a truck...And just bought myself the best quality helmet I could find! Thank you helmet!!! And luckily the weekend's event with @claraannehughes taught me to actually rest and accept care this time around. And thanks to all my beautiful humans supporting me --and all those I'm ignoring on screen rest, I love you too! by @joannacheekmd

by @joannacheekmd

What a special day connecting with Clara Hughes on stage at the Vancouver Writer’s festival. As the only athlete to win multiple medals at both the summer and Winter Olympics and a huge advocate for mental health awareness and fighting stigma, Clara has offered the world so much love and care and inspiration and it’s wildly contagious sharing space with her. Can’t wait for future collaborations and hang outs @claraannehughes!! And check out her gorgeous memoir, learning to breathe. by @joannacheekmd

So excited to have met with @claraannehughes today before our Vancouver Writer's Festival event on Sunday. It's such a special experience to read a book that resonates so deeply that you want to be the author's dear friend, and then you get the opportunity to make it happen in real life (and you happen to live on the same island!) by @joannacheekmd

Thank you Barry Mitchell for translating so many of my answers from the Salt Spring Forum's 90 min Q&A with the brilliant and welcoming Salt Spring Island community into poetic prose! I might need you to help me write my next book as you share my ideas so beautifully! Full article at: https://saltspringexchange.com/a-paradigm-of-mental-health/?utm_source=chatgpt.com by @joannacheekmd

Finally doing a book talk on my home turf in victoria on Nov 12 hosted by the inspiring folks at @human.nature.counselling by @joannacheekmd

As Freedom House’s 2026 Freedom in the World reports that we’ve experienced a global decline in freedom once again, dropping for the twenty first year in a row, I will always cherish my right to vote, even when there’s a 99 percent probability that our riding is going a certain way, and my voting card falls out of my pocket on the ride there and I need to search the city to find it, and I’ve misplaced my ID (and yes, I have ADHD). by @joannacheekmd

by @joannacheekmd

Portuguese edition is out Oct 22! by @joannacheekmd

by @joannacheekmd

What if your #distress is trying to tell you something?

Psychiatrist and psychotherapist @joannacheekmd invites us to think about mental health through an unexpected lens: ecology. Living systems share some fundamental principles. Everything is connected. Diversity helps systems survive. And feedback tells a system when something is out of balance so that it can adapt.

What happens when we apply that same thinking to ourselves?

On this week’s #MasteringChange, Joanna explores whether some of the anxiety, anger, shame and distress we experience can be understood not simply as something within us that needs fixing, but as feedback about the relationships, communities and wider systems we are living within.

We have become familiar with moving from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” Could we widen the question again to ask: “What’s happening around you?”

🎧 Listen now on all major platforms, link in bio
🔔 New episodes every Friday by @joannacheekmd

Elite Canadian athlete Clara Hughes is the only person in history to have won multiple medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. The six-time medalist powered through pain to achieve extraordinary success—with profound consequences for her body and mind.

The Canadian icon shares her healing journey with vulnerability and humour in her memoir, Learning to Breathe, and in this candid conversation with Joanna Cheek.

🗓️ October 25 at 10:00 AM
📍Performance Works
💛 Presented in partnership with @simonschusterca
🎟️ Tickets available now at writersfest.bc.ca by @joannacheekmd