Mental Illness Archives - Page 6 of 38

How We Talk About Mental Illness: Definitions vs. Connotations

December 6, 2021 / Language, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Psychiatry, Recovery, Stigma / 26 Comments

Recent discussions in the blogosphere have got me thinking about the different ways that different people may use the same words. When it comes to mental health conditions, there are technical medical/psychiatric/psychological definitions of terms, but those aren’t necessarily the definitions that people are using in casual conversations. Then there are connotations to words that […]

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Political Advocacy to Challenge Mental Illness Stigma

November 30, 2021 / A Brief History of Stigma, Advocacy, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Politics, Stigma / 15 Comments

A lot of us in the mental health blogging world are already engaged in advocacy in terms of raising awareness, providing information, and supporting others living with mental illness. There’s another kind of advocacy, though, that many of us (including myself) don’t typically engage in, which is political advocacy. Quorum.us says “Political advocacy is an

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A Brief History of Stigma: I am mentally ill and I am also... - circle of puzzle pieces

I Am Mentally Ill, and I Am Also… So Many Other Things

November 23, 2021 / A Brief History of Stigma, Identity, Mental Illness, Self, Stereotypes, Stigma / 28 Comments

I am mentally ill, and I am also a lot of different things. But do people see all of those things, or mostly just the illness? We all have many different identities associated with all the social roles that we play; not identities as in personalities, but bundles of knowledge, expectations, patterns of behaviour that

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Creating serenity-promoting spaces - image of flowers and butterfly

Creating Serenity-Promoting Spaces for Mental Health

November 18, 2021 / Mental Health, Mental Illness, Psychiatric Hospitalization, Wellbeing & Wellness / 34 Comments

I got thinking about this a while back when reading a post by MJ about being put in a seclusion room while on a psych ward as a teenager. While seclusion is sometimes necessary for safety, I think serenity-promoting spaces could be more useful, at least in some cases. In my last nursing job, which

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How effective are awareness campaigns? - illustration of a megaphone

How Effective Are Mental Health Awareness Campaigns?

November 16, 2021 / A Brief History of Stigma, Advocacy, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Social Media, Stigma / 33 Comments

We’re surrounded by awareness campaigns, particularly health awareness campaigns. In the US, the number of designated national health awareness days had reached 200 by 2015 (Purtle & Roman, 2015). In 2017, the Stanford Social Innovation Review published an article titled Stop Raising Awareness Already. Pointing to the great many awareness month designations all for a

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Mental illness and medical assistance in dying

Medical Assistance in Dying for Mental Illness

November 15, 2021 / Death, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Suicide, Treatment-Resistant Depression / 49 Comments

Should people with mental illness have access to medical assistance in dying? In Canada, that’s going to happen in the near future, but exactly what it will look like hasn’t been decided yet. This is something I support, but a lot of people don’t, so I thought I’d write about it. A bit of background

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What Is... Series (Insights into Psychology)

What Is… Reductionism in Psychiatry

November 12, 2021 / Mental Illness, Philosophy, Psychology / 14 Comments

In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is reductionism. Reductionism is the idea that complex theories or phenomena can be reduced down to other theories or phenomena. Essentially, the whole shebang can be boiled down to one thing that explains it all. It’s a philosophical

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Recovery-Oriented Practice and Mental Illness Stigma

November 11, 2021 / A Brief History of Stigma, Mental Health, Mental Health Care, Mental Health Professionals, Mental Illness, Recovery, Stigma / 27 Comments

Unfortunately, mental health professionals are a major source of stigma towards people with mental illness. Recovery-oriented practice is one possibility for transforming mental health care into a less stigmatizing place, so let’s talk about what that might look like. What recovery is Personal recovery, also known as psychosocial recovery, is a different can of tuna

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Book Review: Manic Man

November 10, 2021 / Bipolar Disorder, Book Reviews, Books, Mania, Memoir, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Recovery / 14 Comments

Manic Man: How to Live Successfully with a Severe Mental Illness by Jason Wegner, with a foreword by Dr. Kerry Barnes, is a memoir of a first episode of bipolar mania and subsequent recovery. The book’s prologue opens with the author’s parents having called paramedics to take him to hospital. It then shifts back in

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Is it useful to talk around mental illness?

Is It Helpful to Talk Around Mental Illness Rather than About It?

November 9, 2021 / A Brief History of Stigma, Language, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Stigma / 62 Comments

Mental illness can involve feeling really crappy and having a lot of difficulty functioning. That’s not the experience of everyone with mental illness all of the time, but it’s there in the mix somewhere. Yet sometimes it seems like people want to avoid the ugly bits, and talk around mental illness rather than talking about

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