We start with a brainstorm and a group activity to explore the ways we and others name and understand mental distress. We then introduce mental distress through a holistic lens and use pictures as prompts to discuss how we view it ourselves. In two groups we explore the different ways others such as families, friends and services respond to distress, and document what responses help and don’t help us. Using a helpful-harmful continuum participants rate different mental health interventions, then rate the same interventions on a freedom-coercion continuum. We also fill in the PeerZone StarChart as a self-assessed tool to evaluate how our lives are going. We fill in the StarChart at the first and last workshop and compare the two.