Laura Joy Palma

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Bridging Faith and Mental Health, One Story at a Time
Laura Joy is the author of Fearfully, Wonderfully, and Bipolar-ly Made: From Shame to Sanctuary — a best-selling memoir on living with bipolar II disorder and Christian faith. She studied biblical theology under Dr. Sam Storms at Wheaton College, has taught middle and high school English for eighteen years, and has managed bipolar II disorder for over seven years. She speaks to faith communities, treatment programs, and mental health audiences about what it actually takes to hold faith and clinical care together — and what it costs when we don’t.

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SIGNATURE TALKS

Six topics drawn from the spine of the book. Each is grounded in published material — audiences can hold the chapters in their hands. All talks available as keynotes, workshops, or facilitated discussions.

Six topics drawn from the spine of the book. Each is grounded in published material — audiences can hold the chapters in their hands. All talks available as keynotes, workshops, or facilitated discussions.

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1. Shame and Disclosure: When You Can’t Tell the Truth

For years, I hid my bipolar II diagnosis from the people in my faith community. I had absorbed the message that needing psychiatric medication meant my faith was weak. This talk traces the cost of that silence — what it does to a person, a family, and a church — and what it takes to break it. We look at how shame is taught, how disclosure becomes possible, and who needs to be safe before truth-telling can happen.

Ideal for: Churches, women’s events, mental health awareness gatherings, NAMI and DBSA contexts Anchored in: Chapter 1, Do You Have a Secret?

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2. The False Choice: Medicine, Faith, and the Theology of Psychiatric Care

The Church has too often forced people with mental illness to choose between pews and psychiatrists. This talk makes the theological case that they don’t have to. Drawing from Scripture, my training under Dr. Sam Storms, and seven years of managing bipolar II with both medication and faith, I argue that psychiatric care is part of God’s provision — not a failure of belief — and offer practical language faith communities can use to stop forcing the choice.

Ideal for: Pastoral care training, seminaries, Christian counseling practices, church leadership retreats Anchored in: Chapters 3 and 8

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3. Family Systems and Mental Illness: What We Inherit, Deny, and Learn to Name

Mental illness rarely emerges in a vacuum — it moves through families, often in silence, often for generations. This talk explores how families pass down both the conditions and the patterns of concealing them, what it costs the next generation when no one names what’s happening, and what it looks like to be the person who breaks a silence that has been kept too long.

Ideal for: Family ministry programs, support group settings, Christian counseling staff trainings Anchored in: Chapters 2, 7, and 10

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4. Sanctuary: What It Is and How It’s Built

The title of my book points to a thesis I had to live my way into: sanctuary is not a feeling, it is a practice. This talk walks through what daily sanctuary looks like for someone with a brain that resists stability — the routines, the rituals, the relationships — and what makes the difference between sanctuary that survives when it gets tested and sanctuary that doesn’t.

Ideal for: Church retreats, spiritual formation contexts, women’s conferences, mental health awareness events Anchored in: Chapters 9 and 13

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5. Identity in the Long Run: Living With a Diagnosis Without Being Defined by One

There is a difference between being bipolar and having bipolar. This talk explores how the relationship to a diagnosis shifts over years, not weeks — how clinical identity and spiritual identity can fight each other and how they can cooperate, and what it means to hope for stability rather than cure in a condition that doesn’t have one.

Ideal for: Mental health awareness events, recovery-oriented Christian programs, support groups, peer-led ministries Anchored in: Chapters 2, 5, 10, and 11

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6. Advocacy and Stigma: Carrying the Message Forward

What changes when a person stops hiding a diagnosis and starts speaking from it? This talk walks through four practices the book identifies for reducing stigma — modeling, reframing, informing, and normalizing — and challenges audiences to take on one specific practice for the next ninety days. It is designed for groups ready to move from learning about mental illness in the Church to actually changing how their community talks about it.

Ideal for: Conferences, ministry leadership trainings, NAMI and DBSA chapters, faith-based mental health programs, podcast partnerships Anchored in: Chapters 11 and 12

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FORMATS AND FEES

I keep formats and fees transparent so you don’t have to ask twice.

FORMATS

Keynote Presentation (45–60 minutes) A single talk drawn from the topics above, with Q&A.

Workshop or Half-Day Session (90 minutes to half day) Deeper-dive on one theme with discussion, reflection prompts, and group exercises drawn from the book’s discussion guide.

Author Visit and Q&A (45–60 minutes) Suitable for IOP/PHP patient groups, recovery support groups, book clubs, and church small groups.

Panel Discussion or Podcast Interview (no fee) Always glad to participate when the framing fits.

FEES

Keynote: $750 for churches and nonprofits / $1,500 for conferences and professional events Workshop or half-day: $500 for churches / $1,250 for professional development contexts Author Q&A: Sliding scale; often free for recovery and support group settings Travel: No travel fee within two hours of Yorktown, VA, for half-day or longer engagements; standard rates outside that radius

Sliding scale and reduced or waived fees are available for treatment centers, NAMI and DBSA chapters, churches, ministry contexts, and any setting where the audience is people in active recovery. A portion of every speaking fee is donated to mental health advocacy.

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ABOUT LAURA JOY

Laura Joy Palma is a sixth-grade English teacher in Yorktown, Virginia, with eighteen years of classroom experience — including seven years at Nashville School of the Arts, and the years since in Hampton Roads at Kecoughtan High School, the Kilgore Gifted Center, and Yorktown Middle School. She studied biblical theology under Dr. Sam Storms at Wheaton College before completing her B.A. at Belmont University and her M.S. at Wilkes University.

She has lived with bipolar II disorder for over seven years. Fearfully, Wonderfully, and Bipolar-ly Made: From Shame to Sanctuary is her first book; her second, Two-Hour Tuesdays, releases June 16, 2026. She blogs at writersgrowth.com on mental health, faith, and the writing life, and is active in NAMI and DBSA.

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ENDORSEMENT

“Her brutally honest and vulnerable acknowledgement of bipolar disorder will serve well others who find themselves wrestling to understand their swings from melancholy to mania… Perhaps the most helpful truth she articulates so very well is that being a Christian does not insulate one from being diagnosed with a mood disorder. I cannot recommend it too highly.”
— Dr. Sam Storms, Ph.D. President, Convergence Church Network · Past President, Evangelical Theological Society · Author of 37+ books

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READY TO INVITE LAURA JOY?

I’d love to hear about your event, your audience, and what you hope your people walk away with. Email is the best first step.

Book Laura Joy Request Media Kit

You can also order the book directly: Amazon · Barnes & Noble · Bookshop.org · or ask your local independent bookstore to order it (ISBN 979-8-9955469-0-0)