Jason Pegler Introduction

Jason Pegler is one of the most inspirational mental health empowerment speakers in the world. He is probably unique in his openness about using his own mental illness as a positive force, in order to lead a generation of people to be empowered. They can do this by confronting their mental illness and therefore taking the first steps to recovery.
Jason has had a fascinating life, from being the captain of his school chess and rugby team and a potential Oxbridge candidate to being diagnosed with manic depression at the age of 17. He masterminded the leading autobiography on mental health of his generation "A Can of Madness", published in 2002.
Quickly realising that he could encourage others, Jason set up Chipmunkapublishing "The Mental Health Publisher", as a social enterprise, to give a voice to the mental health service users that had not had a real voice before. This led to selling and marketing opportunities in the Mental Health and Corporate Sectors as well as national and international media coverage. In just 5 years Jason has become a living legend in the world mental health survivor movement creating the world's first mental health brand Chipmunka. Jason Pegler is recognised as the leading thinker and activist of his generation in the world of mental health empowerment. Jason Pegler ground-breaking autobiography on living with manic depression "A Can of Madness" has been given a five star review in the Times Literary Supplement. He regards meeting people and public speaking as his forte. He is a dynamic public speaker, lecturer and consultant on a myriad of mental health and related issues. He has written for more than one hundred newspapers, periodicals, magazines worldwide. He regularly appears on television, radio and documentaries discussing mental health issues.
What clients say:
Jason Pegler is a great example to many people. He has a presentable manner and is always inspiring. The Right Honourable Tony Benn
We applaud Jason Pegler's motivation, endeavours and his determination to succeed in this difficult area". Marjorie Wallace Chief Executive of Sane Wow what an inspirational speaker. Makes you feel that you can help the whole world by being a humanitarian. Paul Brandwood - Corporate Social Responsibility at KPMG UK.
Pegler speaks with honesty, openness and integrity. He is revolutionary in the world of mental ill health. Book him now. Andrew Latchford - Co Founder of Chipmunkapublishing, Co Founder of Chipmunka Foundation and European Business Consultant
I regularly advise my students to go and hear him speak. Pegler has a gift that many aspire to. He fundamentally believes that you can change your life and cure yourself from mental illness and he is living proof that you can prove it. Dr. T. Davies - Consultant Psychiatrist and Editor of ABC of Mental Health
A truly amazing speaker. I wish everyone could hear Jason speak. It would change the way they think about people with mental illness. G. Taylor - Astra Zeneca
Having heard Jason Pegler speak I had the confidence to write my own story, which began as a suicide note and ended up a celebration of life. He has helped me more than anyone. Dolly Sen - Film producer and author of four books including the "The World Is Full of Laughter".
Jason Pegler is inspirational to a great many people in the UK service user movement. I am amazed how he does it. Paul Farmer - Chief Executive of Mind

I highly recommend Jason Pegler as a social entrepreneur and public speaker. Fantastic.John Bird - Founder of the Big Issue
One of the most forward thinking and inspirational motivational speakers in the world today. The leader of a new breed of empowerment thinking. Professor Sir Harvey Crichton - Founder of the Crichton Group.
For further information on this speaker, please call: 0870 766 9535
MORE ABOUT THE FOUNDER OF THE WORLD's FIRST MENTAL HEALTH BRAND !
His expertise is mental health. When he was seventeen years of age he spent six months in a psychiatric ward in Coney Hill Mental Hospital in Gloucester in the United Kingdom. After six weeks of mania where he thought he had taken 5 billion Ecstasy tablets to create world peace, Jason's first realisation that he was actually not well and in a mental hospital. He had a vision. He knew that one day he would have to gather enough strength to tell the world how he felt. By doing this he could stop the pain and humiliation that he and everyone else with a mental illness felt. His immediate thought was that his experiences and feelings needed to be recorded as they happened- on the largest platform possible. Then and only then would other people understand and therefore empathise with the "loonies" in Coney Hill. It took Jason four manic episodes before he was bold enough to change his thought processes and act on his vision. Jason graduated from Manchester University with a 2:1 in Classical Studies in 1998 before writing his autobiography on living with manic depression (1998 - 2002) "A Can of Madness", and setting up Chipmunkapublishing with co-founder Andrew Latchford.
Released on April 13th 2002 with help from the British Government's Mind Millennium Award Programme "A Can of Madness" was immediately recognised as a ground breaking text and compared favorably to Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation and Kay Redfield Jamieson's An Unquiet Mind. It also became an underground text symptomatic of saving the ecstasy generation from its own "mental illness" and continues to spread its influence over the globe.
In October 2002 Chipmunkapublishing launched its second author Dolly Sen who was inspired to write her autobiography The World Is Full of Laughter after reading A Can of Madness.
"My goal in life is to tell the truth about my life, tell the truth about how people with mental health issues are treated by society, the mental health system, the state and the status quo. I want others to follow in my footsteps and help me break down the taboo on mental health once and for all." Jason Pegler.
Various documentaries, film versions and scripts featuring Jason Pegler and his related projects are underway. The ultimate goal is for the story to become a feature length blockbuster movie. Then the widest audience will be reached.
Jason Pegler knows from the letters he and other Chipmunkapublishing authors have received that their mental health publishing is making a positve impact in society:
"By telling the truth about one's mental health issues, sufferers are able to deal with the humiliation and carers are able to see how best to help their loved ones. Writing and reading books about mental health users is a cathartic processes that is crucial for the reduction of stigma and discrimination and for the improved state of mind for service users. The books also help give insight to mental health staff as they reveal how thier patient's feel and are a morale booster for staff showing that people do get better".

Jason Pegler has worked recently with:
ITVBBCEMISONYBMWSimon and Schuster MicrosoftUnltd The Big IssueMen's Health MagazineKPMGCommunity Action NetworkEC3 SolutionsRethinkMindSaneThere There MagazineThe NHS Tree EventsDisability Rights CommissionThe European ParliamentThe World Health OrganisationMPs and Lords on The Mental Health BillLondon Development CentreNIMHENHS

Vision: Words from the CEO Jason Pegler:
"The ultimate vision of Chipmunka Group is to prove that everyone on earth has a mental illness at some level. Then and only then will we have normalised mental health so that in fifty years someone with a mental illness will not have to feel humiliated for being mentally ill. At the age of seventeen I was diagnosed with manic depression and my world was turned upside down. After living in a mental hospital for six weeks I suddenly realised that I was not playing the football manager in the computer game. It took me months to realise that a nuclear war was not going on and that I was not God.
The moment I realised I had a mental illness I had a mission and a dream.
My mission was to one day tell the whole world about the humiliation and guilt that i had for having had all those idiotic manic thoughts. Celebrating my madness was the only way I could psychoanalyse myself and become better. I saw my story as a Hollywood movie not for my own ego but because being in a psychiatric ward changed me as a person. It made me more sensitive, I wanted to help people and stop another seventeen year old from going through the same pain that I went through. Until I was living in a mental hospital I couldn't have cared less what is was like for people who lived in places like that and experienced 'mental illness'.
For me then and still today Hollywood was the greatest medium to change the way people thought about the internet. This was in 1993. We are fortunate now that we also have the internet to enable people for the first time in history to be producers and not just consumers of information.
The moment i came down from mania a frisson went through my body that i had to help everyone else in the ward. This is a natural feeling for anyone who goes through this kind of pain. If you doubt it just ask them. It was immediately evident that society was the cause of the humiliation that these people were going through. People are alienated when they are not understood. This is how the status quo operates. Without it there would be anarchy.
The Mental Health Movement is still in its infancy even though 'mental illness' has been around since the beginning of time. People who are different have always been alienated but do not always have to be. In fact is contravenes civil liberties to assume that people are ill when they are not. People need help when they are alienated but their characters are not fundamentally flawed if they behave differently. The status quo throughout history has fed us with propaganda telling that they are 'mentally ill' as a form of social control and then clouding the real voice of those who suffer.
I set up Chipmunka to give a voice to the mentally ill. The plight of the mentally ill improves with every generation in the sense that we are not put in prison with murderers anymore. Yet the facts are that global mental illness will always be on the increase in our life times. By 2020 mental illness will be the second most common form of death second only to heart disease. Mental health is becoming part of the social norm and with this the influence of the patient will increase. We are in a transitional period in history where people who are 'mentally ill' must publically be given approval to control their own lives. There must be no hidden agenda's but an open arm policy calling for humanitarian treatment across mental health services and in society.
For me the role of the mental health patient is exactly the same as that of the civil rights activists in the 1960s. For charities, the media and governments to campaign for the mentally ill without having patients dictate the terms is irrational and ethically wrong. If Martin Luther King JNR was a white man talking about black people's experiences then no-one would have listened to him. The same is true with the history of the 'the mentally ill'.
The role of Chipmunka is to change the way people think about mental health and to treat it as normal. Some people will need to be subliminally influenced, others can be encouraged to be more empathetic or get pro actively involved. The reality is that we are all human beings at the end of the day and are all vulnerable constantly experiencing 'mental distress' or other either consciously or unconsciously worrying about a finite existence whether we believe in existentialist philosophy god, being or the after life itself.
Help us to help more people and donate your energy, time and money to becoming a supporter of the world's first mental health brand. Creating a brand is the best way to stop the rising number of suicides. Remember we feel your pain and/or indifference otherwise wwe ould be dedicating my entire life to something completely different."