Conference May 15: “Facing Our Fears: Managing Anxiety about Life’s Uncertainties”

Virtual Ability’s 14th annual Mental Health Symposium will take place on May 15, 2025.  The theme of this year’s Conference is “Facing Our Fears: Managing Anxiety About Life’s Uncertainties.”

Fear is a built-in human reaction. Fear of large carnivores, fire, dark, starvation, and strangers likely contributed greatly to the survival and early evolution of humanity. The modern world has given people even more causes for fear: community violence, biased public institutions, horrific war, climate change, racism, gender violence, and artificial intelligence, among many others. Fear can at times be useful, but it can also negatively impact the quality of life for some people. Disabling fear is a treatable condition. The varied causes and levels of intrusiveness of a fear demand individualized therapeutic approaches. The broad theme of this conference allows us to look at the topic of fear from a number of different perspectives.

The Symposium will take place in the virtual world of Second Life, at the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability island.  The conference will also be live-streamed on Virtual Ability’s YouTube page.

Virtual Ability hosts this annual Symposium to share information about mental health and mental disabilities with the general population. Within our cross-disability community we have members who deal with a variety of mental health issues. Not only is this an opportunity for our community members to learn more about topics related to mental health from experts they probably would not have a chance to meet otherwise, it allows the general public to attend a professional conference at no cost. The current schedule for the conference is here: https://virtualability.org/mental-health-symposium-2025/