Lets talk about Mental Health.

Over the next few months, myself and some great mental health advocates, will be delivering a series of Mental Health workshops.

These events will be evolving (I love getting feedback from an audience and amending the workshops accordingly), bespoke events exploring topics like Mental Health and young people, Mental Health in the workplace and Nurturing and building resilience.

We will be sharing personal stories and experiences and the workshops will also be examining techniques and strategies, like utilising sport and physical activity that may have a positive impact of a person’s mental health.

Whenever I prepare for a new series of workshops, I devote a lot of time to research. I obviously want to ensure that the information contained in the workshop is accurate but I also want to include any new and updated
material.

A number of my recent workshops have been dedicated to disability, so it was interesting to return to the area of mental health. However, I have been struck by the differences in terminology and perception between how we view disability and how we view mental health. 

We all have a view of what’s considered normal behaviour. We sometimes use the term eccentric to describe someone whose behaviour is slightly odd or pellicular. If this behaviour is non threatening, we might find the behaviour amusing or even endearing. We smile and dismiss the person as harmless, meaning that the person is not a danger to others or to themselves.

The term “Eccentric” is often seen as a polite, non-judgemental term rather than emotive negative words like “Crazy” or “Loony”

In the areas of physical and neurological disability, we talk about, the Medical Model versus the Social Model of Disability. We

speak about the use of appropriate language and are encouraged to avoid terms such as, “suffers from” or frames of reference that define the person by their disability. 

We appreciate that Language is important since it colours how we view the World.

Yet, it seems to me that where Mental Health is concerned, many of us are firmly rooted in the Medical Model view. 

I’m sure that people these days would feel that words like Lunatic are wholly inappropriate and yet we still

use phrases like “suffering from paranoid schizophrenia” or worse, referring to someone as a “schizophrenic” or a “Manic Depressive.” The fact that these are “normalised” medical descriptions does nothing to end the stigma attached to poor mental health. 

Perhaps we should even reflect on words that we take for granted like disorder and illness, used when referring to mental health conditions.

The following definition is from the mind.org website.

“A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioural or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning.  Mental disorders are usually defined by a combination of how a person behaves, feels, perceives, or thinks.”

Ok, that’s fine, but here is my suggestion. Just off the top of my head. I’m sure that it could be improved but it does avoid those negative words. How about we focus on describing the person’s state of being. For example, how about.....

“A person’s mental health refers to their behavioural or mental pattern. A person can experience periods of poor mental health sometimes due to certain recognised mental health conditions. These can cause significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A persons Mental Health is usually defined by a combination of how a person behaves, feels, perceives, or thinks.”

One of the great pleasures of delivering workshops is the wonderful conversation that you can engage in with your audience. I certainly feel that I learn as much as I am able to teach. And only by engaging in the conversation about mental health can we begin to end the stigma.

So, Let’s talk about mental health.