THE JOURNEY WITHIN:
Demystifying Mental Illness | Promoting Mental Health
Helping health professionals understand mental illness so they can better relate to and support the people they work with.
You’re not just learning about mental illness, you’re understanding it.
With over 25 years of walking both sides of the mental health journey as a clinician and as someone living with bipolar disorder, Stephen Nawotniak breaks down complex experiences into real, relatable stories. He speaks to the heart and the mind, helping professionals, educators, and caregivers build authentic connections, deeper understanding, and lasting impact.
THE KEYNOTE EXPERIENCE
From Pain to Purpose: One Occupational Therapist’s Story of Recovery and Meaning
How do you find yourself when you are dealing with inner chaos?
In this deeply personal and professionally grounded presentation, Stephen Nawotniak shares his transformative journey from being hospitalized with bipolar disorder to becoming a licensed occupational therapist and mental health advocate. Drawing from four distinct perspectives he experienced through his mental health journey, Stephen explores the intersection between recovery, identity, and purpose, offering a unique perspective that blends client and clinician.
This session will illuminate the inner landscape of bipolar disorder and challenge attendees to consider how purpose can emerge from pain, how identity can evolve through adversity, and how lived experience can be a source of clinical strength. Attendees will walk away with renewed insight into their clients’ journeys and perhaps their own.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1) Understand the internal experience of bipolar disorder from a first person and clinical lense.
2) Explore a practicle tool to help clients (and practitioners) transform difficult experiences into personal action.
3) Leave with a renewed sense of empathy, purpose, and possibility for your clients and your own personal journey.
Sometimes gesturing loudly, and other times quite reflective, Steve led us crying and cheering through the story of his life journey. Steve brought new meaning to “being stuck between a rock and a hard place” while showing us how he birthed meaning and purpose from pain. There wasn’t a dry eye at Steve’s exceptional keynote presentation at the 2025 New York State Occupational Therapy Association conference!
Beth Chiariello, OTR/L, President, New York State Occupational Therapy Association
Stephen Nawotniak, OTR/L, CPRP, NYCPS, is a dynamic speaker, author, and occupational therapist with a background in mental health. He combines his expertise as a licensed healthcare professional and his personal journey with a bipolar condition to demystify and destigmatize mental illness and to improve the understanding and treatment of it.
In his talks, Steve draws from the content discussed in his books Handbook for Healthy Living with a Mood Disorder and Bipolar Life Hacks: Keys to Loving Life with a Bipolar Disorder to provide practical strategies that help individuals with mood disorders navigate life with confidence and fulfillment. His Mom’s Choice Award-winning children’s book, Mubu the Morph, shares that the journey of finding one’s purpose is in our heart’s whisper.
Whether speaking to healthcare professionals, educators, or individuals seeking inspiration, he delivers actionable strategies and heartfelt motivation that leave a lasting impact.
Meet Stephen
CONTACT STEPHEN FOR AVAILABILITY!
It was such an eye-opening and moving experience inviting Stephen into my virtual classroom! It was very inspiring... Stephen is very approachable, interactive, and down to earth. He was undoubtedly transparent in his ability to discuss bipolar disorder in a manner that allows the audience to understand what the symptoms feel like, as well as raise awareness that it can happen to anyone.
Mica Allen, MS, OTR/L- Instructor - Occupational Therapy Assistant Program, Keiser University
Mental Health Books by
Stephen Nawotniak
Handbook for Healthy Living with a Mood Disorder
Relying on his experience as an occupational therapist, Steve focuses on constructing a meaningful quality of life using life skills that are effective and important for everybody while addressing and accommodating the needs unique to a bipolar disorder. He explores the approaches that allowed him to differentiate his diagnosis from his personality, discern problem areas, and restructure his lifestyle so that he could successfully live with the condition and not simply manage or cope with it as an illness. Using his methods, you can do the same.
Bipolar Life hacks: Keys to Loving Life With Bipolar Disorder
So I have a bipolar condition…now what? If you are like me, simply coping with the symptoms of the condition gets old. Living life in the paradigm of being sick gets old. So since we have a condition that is going to be with us for life, how do we live life without thinking we are sick all the time? The pursuit of that question led me to the following conclusion: It is about building life skills, not coping with symptoms that lead to a fulfilling life