Changing How the World Talks About Mental Health

Mark Henick was born and raised in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in a working-class family. His childhood was marked by the dissolution of his parents' marriage and an unstable home environment, with his mother, a nurse, working long hours as the family's primary provider. From a young age he showed signs of the depression and anxiety that would escalate through his adolescence.

By his teenage years, Henick had been hospitalized multiple times and had survived several suicide attempts, including a night on a Sydney bridge when a stranger pulled him back from the edge. The gap between what he needed and what the systems around him could offer became the defining problem of his life's work.

Henick began his career on the front lines of mental health care before moving into program leadership and national advocacy. He served as National Program Manager of Mental Health Works at CMHA Ontario, where he tripled the program's training capacity across Canada, and later as National Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Canadian Mental Health Association's national office, overseeing major programs including Mental Health Week. He also served as a non-government director on the board of the Mental Health Commission of Canada from 2011 to 2017.

As CBC Radio's nationally syndicated mental health columnist, Henick delivered nearly 1,200 interviews across every market in Canada, and worked as a Senior Writer and Breaking News Producer at CBC News Network. He was Executive Director of Strategic Storytelling and Communications at Kids Help Phone, and today leads his own consulting practice, working with corporations, healthcare systems, schools, and governments on mental health strategy.

His TEDx talk, "Why We Choose Suicide," is among the most watched TEDx talks in the world, with more than seven million views. He hosts the podcast So-Called Normal (formerly Modern Minds), and his bestselling memoir, So-Called Normal: A Memoir of Family, Depression and Resilience, was published by HarperCollins Canada in 2021.

Henick's advocacy pairs public storytelling with systemic change. He orchestrated a national campaign, including a widely covered online petition, that led to the removal of suicide-related products from Amazon. He has been a national spokesperson for campaigns including Mental Illness Awareness Week, Mental Health Week, and Bell Let's Talk.

He is a prominent voice in Canadian policy debates on mental health care access, arguing that telling people to "reach out for help" is meaningless without infrastructure to receive them. He has been a vocal opponent of allowing mental illness as a sole criterion for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), maintaining that equitable access to comprehensive mental health care must come first.

In 2023, Henick was named one of the five "Faces of Mental Illness" by the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health (CAMIMH). PEOPLE Magazine has called him "one of Canada's most prominent mental health advocates." He has appeared on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CBC, CTV, and Global News, with bylines in CNBC, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, and The Globe and Mail.

Henick holds a Master of Science in child development, a Master of Journalism, and a Bachelor of Arts with interdisciplinary honours in psychology and philosophy, along with a Postgraduate Certificate in Neuroscience and Mental Health from King's College London. He lives in Toronto, Canada.