People with mental illness can come up against stigmatized attitudes within mental health care, but having a mental illness diagnosis can also make it difficult to access appropriate care for physical health issues. A recent CBC News story provides an example of a man whose physical issues were written off because he was just a …
Just a Psych Patient? Mental Illness Stigma in the ER Read More »
Sadly, there are plenty of incompetent mental health professionals and other helpers out there. A degree, a professional designation, and other mental health credentials are indicators of a certain level of knowledge and skill; however, that doesn’t stop someone from having a bad attitude, having their head too far up their ass to do anything …
Let’s say your back hurts. You go to a chiropractor, over a few visits they crack a few joints, and that’s all she wrote, right? That’s certainly what I used to think about chiropractic. It turns out, though, that quackery has been around from the very beginning of chiropractic. The modern back-cracking that most of …
A nurse that I used to work with developed an addiction a number of years back. When it came out, in order to have any hope of getting his job and his nursing license back, he was required to see an addictions specialist and adhere to the treatment plan that was set out. One of …
Should People with Addictions Be Forced to Attend AA? Read More »
“Drug-seeking.” “Med-seeking.” They’re labels with very negative connotations, but health care providers often use them to refer to patients taking medications with the potential for abuse. Yet isn’t anyone going to see their doctor for a prescription seeking out drugs? Why is seeking medications okay in some instances but not in others? If “medication compliance” …
“Drug-Seeking”: Health Professional Labelling of Patients Read More »
As a nurse in my province (British Columbia, Canada), if I am hospitalized for mental illness then the provincial Health Professions Act requires the hospital to report me to the nursing regulatory college, and the college must treat this as a complaint about my fitness to practice. This ends up with being offered the non-choice …
The Health Professions Act and the Fight Against Stigma Read More »
Let’s think about the phrases “it’s just anxiety” and “it’s all in your head”. Let’s unpack them and consider them in terms of what we know about the brain and the body.
