On Saturday 16^th March, the TYPPEX team attended the Cambridge Festival CAST day at Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology with our trailblazing stall, “Psychotic experiences: everyone has them and so do you!”.

The aim of our stall was to normalise psychotic experiences and raise awareness of what these experiences are, and that they are particularly common for those who experience anxiety, depression or common mental disorders. The TYPPEX team are passionate about working to tackle the stigma around talking about mental health and psychotic experiences, and we believe that events like this make a difference.

We also spoke to people about how our brain understands our world through our experiences and beliefs and how sometimes, when trying to interpret something new or different, our brain can misunderstand or come to a conclusion that might not make sense, which is why we can all perceive situations differently. This can also increase feelings of anxiety or depression when things are interpreted in a negative way.  We illustrated this using our optical illusions and suspiciousness hierarchy games to provide examples of how our brains might misinterpret things, and backed this up with our conference style posters, information leaflet, and had our wonderful clinicians on hand to provide extra information for curious punters!

It was wonderful to see a turnout of all age ranges, young and old, from many different backgrounds engaging with our stall, and we were very flattered that some people came specifically to find us when they saw us on the programme! From origami illusions to the moving Einstein mask and our Suspiciousness hierarchy games, we had so many brilliant interactions and some really interesting conversations.

We’d like to thank everybody who came to see us on the day. If you missed it, check out the video below and the pictures our X, @TYPPEX_Prog!