How To Speak The Language of Mental Health
dear walt
let’s get out of here let’s take a trip
to paris and lose ourselves in the
cobbled parisian streets
without a worry of time or a sense of
direction in mind
let’s follow the sounds of accordions
wrapped around the leafy alleyways
and pick pastries along the way let’s
get an appreciation
of those fine culinary arts let’s get an
appreciation
of the arts why don’t we take a tour of
the louvre
and immerse ourselves into its extensive
trove
of art monuments and history like for
example
de la crois liberty leading the people
where
classically modelled figures are painted
in the gritty realism
of the french revolution or caravaggio’s
death of a virgin where the consensus of
biblical representation in art is
rejected
to paint people in a down-to-earth way
or what about ingress’s la grande
obelisk
where formulaically we’ve created a
distance between
us and the painting using her gaze
to draw us in and that concludes the end
of the tour of the louvre
now i want to ask a question if we were
now to step outside
and speak to any person that we might
find on the street
and ask this french local to ask us
about the paintings themselves and to
tell them the stories of the paintings
without speaking french how would we
communicate this
or in other words without speaking the
language of mental health
how do we know when and how to help a
friend with depression
learning the language of mental health
requires a set of rules
syntax and grammar that we have to
follow
and learning any language has the
culture of such a language
shape the nature of its communication
learning french or german or spanish
follows this and with mental health the
words
that we so carefully choose or
carelessly choose
has an impact to impact those on
something
far greater than just ourselves
the term mental health awareness has
become so ubiquitous as a phrase
many believe it will soon start to lose
its meaning
so with this what is the next step it’s
one thing to be able to help a loved one
but to provide support to a colleague at
work
or someone across you on the bus
requires mental health
action and by learning the steps of
mental health language
we can take this action we can be the
link
necessary to provide support to those
around us that we love
and need to support so what’s the first
step
while it may sound a little
counterintuitive the first step requires
no talking
whatsoever but we will still be
communicating
here we need to understand that we
require empathy
and not just sympathy and the art of
active listening can help us with this
this is where we provide feedback in a
conversation
showing that in a comprehensive and
responsive manner we’re not just
listening to someone
but also understanding their feedback
and their key
parts of what they’re telling us so to
do this
consider your posture your proximity to
the person that you’re speaking to
the eye contact that you’re making are
we nodding our heads
and repeating key parts of the
conversation that they feed to us
research has shown that distress can
increase in times of isolation
and when our experiences are so
different from one another
and facing a mental health challenge can
make us feel
so alone being an honest listener can
provide the space necessary
to open up and it all takes just a bit
of listening
people commit crimes people
commit moral atrocities but people
die by suicide
the definition of suicide and its
description
was based on the fact that originally it
carried an illegal status
today however it carries criminal
connotations to say that people
commit suicide
because of this today our use of
language has not yet changed
and nor have our perspectives of those
today
that may suffer these mental health
conditions
many professionals advocate for the use
of people first
language where we see past labels
removing the agency of the effects of a
mental health condition
and instead see people as
people we have labels today that we
attach
that define people who they are today
and instead
we should be looking past these as not
definitions of who you are today
or who you will be tomorrow so
stigmas can be very sticky and in these
cases
they can prevent us from getting jobs
they can have us
treated differently and sometimes they
could even prevent us
from recovering research has shown
that stigmas that carry connotations of
their shame
and illegality can put us in a position
where we will prevent the seeking of
helpful behaviors
and even sometimes increase the
likelihood of them occurring
in these instances the power of just one
word
can change this and change the world of
someone through the careful
selection of language
in the same way we challenge these
stigmas that are perpetuated by society
but we also have to challenge the self
stigmas that come
from just within us as a species
we are meaning makers pattern seekers
and also
storytellers and our understanding of
the world around us is shaped
by these qualities however within the
context of mental health
we don’t tell stories we keep things to
ourselves
we cling to self-stigmas as a result
we don’t explain we don’t learn and
therefore
we can’t help this is why we have to
claim our own narratives and tell our
own stories
to challenge these self-stickings
ten years ago today my mum jacqueline
passed away from suicide
it was the hardest thing to ever happen
to my family and i and only by telling
our stories
by being there for one another were we
able to understand the gravity
of the situation outside of the family
however
i wouldn’t talk about these stories i
would learn to dodge questions
to ignore mum jokes and also
to stay quiet when people spoke about
their mums
i was scared and as a result of being
scared i didn’t mention it to anyone at
all
only until i started hearing from people
with direct experiences with suicide
all of them having stories that they
wanted to tell but also stories
that they needed help understanding
by challenging the cell stigma by taking
it upon yourself to narrate your own
story
you can break down these barriers and as
a result
see growth
the next step is to notice if someone is
at risk
as a species we are meaning makers and
pattern finders
and you’re probably picking up on the
fact that i’ve now said this twice
that’s because we’re really great at
spotting anomalies
and inconsistencies that’s because we’re
really great at spotting anomalies
and you see the human brain
receives so much information that we
need to use a process
of separating the signal from the noise
and this filtering mechanism
is simply called attention some of it is
automatic
but some of it is also controlled
so have a think where do you control
your attention
in the morning is it to the papers is it
to your breakfast cereal
or is it to the person that sits across
you in the table
there’s a technique that we can use to
overcome this
and it’s called effective perspective
taking
and this is where we use our attention
by trying to empathize with others
considering the inference of their
emotions
by doing so not only can we better
understand
the context of someone’s behaviors and
why they might occur
but it also improves interpersonal
relationships
with others so think about it
friends that you don’t see as often what
might be happening with them
people at work who seem always tired
what might they be going through
even people who don’t start as many
conversations as they once
used to why might not they want to
these are questions that we have to
consider when we look at
such symptoms of mental health behaviors
because
even though symptoms can be different
across different conditions there is a
lot of
information out there that we can use
such as self-help articles and online
courses
to have a look out for some of these
signs and even though it’s important to
focus on these
spotting the anomalies and
inconsistencies doesn’t require a
medical license
or a psychology degree once we do this
the next step is knowing how we can make
a connection
and asking a vital question
recent research has shown that the best
way to try and begin to help someone
with this
is to collaborate with them in a
co-constructed manner
that can help have some some beginnings
within a conversation where we show
what they’re where to help and not just
to listening taking active listening
one step further in these situations
we have to ask questions such as what
has happened to you
that look further and invite a
conversation where a multitude of
factors
can start a discussion rather than
looking at just
one defining feature and problem
which may be centered and critical
in such cases we have to look past this
and consider the individual
and everything around them and not just
one mental condition
which they may be suffering from next we
need to understand
how to keep support close to us
we live in a digital age in an
interconnected society
where information super highways can
transmit self-help articles
research reports and also online phone
books of all mental health care
practices
close to us and
to be able to change the world all we
need is a keyboard
and an internet connection to get all of
this
it’s an empowering thought to consider
that with only these tools
all of us can do it or even easier with
a more common denominator
such as a mobile phone that all of us
have in our pockets
however while all of us may have one we
don’t all use it in the same
way the language of mental health that
we use
has to be carefully considered for other
people but also for machines
search engines are very sensitive to the
information that we feed them
with keywords changing the results that
we get to see
so what are we searching for are we
considering the symptoms
of certain mental health challenges is
our language emotional
or is it more clinical are we looking
for articles which have clickbait in the
titles
or are we looking for something which is
referenced by medical guidelines
in this interconnected world we can find
this and support other people
but we can also dive a little deeper
self-care strategies are preventative
and professional support
can help be protective and these are two
different sources of help
which we need to provide people at
different stages of when a mental
condition might be faced
and this is because mental health flows
like a river
in the upstream the waters run much more
slowly
and it’s much shallower when we’re there
as a result
it’s easier to swim to the shore however
the further downstream that we head the
more turbulent the waters become
and the harder it is to take ourselves
out from this river
at different stages in our lives all of
us will be
at different points down within this
river and it depends
on how we know which access of support
to provide
to be able to get out of there we’re all
equally susceptible
to these mental health challenges and by
understanding when we need preventative
care
and when we need professional protective
care we can know
how is best to be able to take ourselves
out of this part
in the river
so looking towards the future how can we
build a world where we democratize
mental health support and how can we
make it so that we’re all bilingual in
the language of mental health
this year i’ve been working on a project
with a few other students called i speak
mental health
where we’re building evidence-based
mental health first aid kits
to support those in need that may find
themselves floating past the upstream
of the river in these cases
it’s really important to consider the
psychology of design
but our goal is to focus on the design
of psychology
how we can build resources that are
capable of challenging these stigmas
using a more appropriate vocabulary and
also
building confidence to provide support
to those in need
and all of these can come together so
that we ourselves
can be the necessary link to provide
support to other people
when speaking the language of mental
health
in a world so large but also
so interconnected sometimes it can seem
difficult
as just one individual trying to make a
change like this
but i want to share with you the results
of a fascinating study conducted by
psychologists in the 1960s
they sent out letters to people all
across the corners of america
asking them to forward the letter to a
mr jacobs in boston
now these people were from all over the
states
and despite living in a country with
hundreds of millions of people
and sending out hundreds of letters they
made a fascinating discovery
and that is that it took only an average
number
of six correspondencies to get the
letter to mr jacobs in boston
regardless of who you were six degrees
of separation
here in university we live in the midst
of a social explosion
where we’re capable of seeing people all
around us
in much more frequent time periods for
example
have a look around the audience today
how many people do you know
or even just recognize because of this
we’re capable of sharing things such as
freshers flues
or trends or even ideas here in glasgow
in the west end
which i consider to be a two degree of
separation city
so like this as individuals we can be
that link necessary
to set off the chain reaction to a
greater network of people
within our small two degree of
separation cities
that is capable of providing support
where they need it
and in order to achieve this in order to
provide mental health action
when speaking the language of mental
health i think we need
some much bigger picture thinking so
that we can turn
this dear world into dear you thank you