The disconnect between physical health and mental health

I am fascinated as to how we think about mental health compared to how we think about physical health.  Where our physical health is concerned, we have no problem accepting that, during our lives we are likely to have periods were our physical health is not good.

Occasionally we will experience some periods of poor physical health. But when we do, what happens. We TALK to our friends, our colleagues, Goodness me, when it comes to our physical health, WE LOVE TALKING ABOUT OUR ACHES AND PAINS.
We talk to HR and take some time off to recover. Go home, get some rest. Feel better soon

Contrast that with how we view mental health. Ours and others.  If we recognize that we are experiencing poor mental health, and often we do not. So, we do not talk about it. We see it as a weakness and something to be ashamed of.

If we do get to the point where we must take time off, what are people going say? How are they going to react? And what is it like coming back to work when people know the reason you were off?  Your colleagues do not quite know what to say. Should they speak to you? Should they just leave you be?

Unless you work with some amazing, well rounded, well informed, caring, and compassionate work colleagues (Which I am sure you all do). You are unlikely to get a welcome back that is relaxed and positive. At the very least there is likely to be some degree of awkwardness.

So why the disconnect? Our health is our health, whether it be our physical health or our mental health. They are both on a spectrum. Just as we experience periods of good and poor physical health, so we can find ourselves experiencing periods of poor mental health. It should not be a surprise to us. Yet it is.

What influences our view of the World?

Our culture plays a big part on how we react to the World. People talk about our wiring.  If we are men, how we view women and vis a versa. We all have this thing called unconscious bias. If we are white, how we view people of colour and if we are from an ethnic group, how we view white privilege. So, our upbringing and cultural baggage can certainly influence our view of mental health.

However, I also think that outside influences play a big part.  We are being conditioned all the time by what we hear, see, and read. I teach a lot of disability awareness workshops. I find it interesting to see how societies attitude to disability has changed somewhat, whereas it is attitude to mental health has not.

 

 

Here in the UK, we have anti-discrimination legislation called, The Equality Act 2010

According to the Equality Act 2010, a Mental Health condition can be classified as a disability. For those of you that have done any disability awareness training, you will be familiar with the Social versus the Medical model of disability. 

The Medical Model of disability views disability as a ‘problem’ that belongs to the disabled individual.

So, if you take the example of a wheelchair user who cannot get into a building because of some steps, the medical model says that this is because of the wheelchair. The wheelchair is the problem and, therefore the person using the wheelchair is the problem.

The Social Model of disability, on the other hand, recognises the steps as the problem. It sees the steps as the disabling barrier because, perhaps, it is society that disables people through poor design and blinkered thinking.

So, if we apply “Social Model” thinking to Mental Health, perhaps we can start to get a more balanced view of mental health. Stop seeing the person as the problem and accepting that society, environment, working practices and attitudes and just life, in general, can contribute to poor mental health.  We should not be stigmatised because we have a mental illness any more than if we have a physical illness.