Building mental wellness on a foundation of strength
A recent post by Shira of ShiraDest about debt forgiveness got me thinking about some of the barriers that people living in poverty face when it comes to managing their finances. So, let's consider what it might look like to be living in poverty here in British Columbia, Canada, where I live. Provincial income assistance… Continue reading Poverty Can Be Very Expensive
I don't have the economics background to speak to the feasibility of universal basic income, so I won't try; however, after a conversation on the topic with Shira of ShiraDest, I wanted to explore the potential benefits for people with mental illness. What universal basic income is While various implementations have been proposed, at its… Continue reading The Benefits of Universal Basic Income for People with Mental Illness
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is intergenerational trauma. Trauma that occurs at an individual level is devastating enough, but when it occurs on a collective level, the effects of that trauma may not stop with the people who directly experienced the traumatic events.… Continue reading What Is… Intergenerational Trauma
We're all familiar, at least to some extent, with the sex trade. If nothing else, you may have seen the movie Pretty Woman. The level of desperation in the survival sex trade, though, is galaxies away from what you see in Pretty Woman. The vulnerable I used to work at a community mental health team… Continue reading The Survival Sex Trade
Black feminist researcher Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw first proposed the concept of intersectionality in 1989 by to represent the many different layers of social stratification that can combine to disadvantage people. This includes factors like race, sexual orientation, social class, age, disability, and gender. Expanding on this concept, sociologist Patricia Hill Collins described the intersectional points as… Continue reading Intersectionality and What it Means for Mental Health
National Library of Medicine If you were around in the 80's, you are probably very familiar with the message to "just say no" that was part of the overall war on drugs. In 1991, Saved By The Bell got on board with an episode that told viewers "there's no hope with dope." There was also… Continue reading The Failure of the War on Drugs
Risk factors for homelessness According to the Homeless Hub, 30-35% experiencing homelessness have a mental illness. Among women, that figure jumps to 70%. How does society allow this to happen to some of our most vulnerable people? Housing is a basic fundamental need that all people should be able to access. Why are people with… Continue reading We All Deserve a Roof Over Our Heads: Homelessness & Mental Illness
