My adventures "across the pond" ... (part one)

This past Sunday morning, after a really good, long, healing night's sleep, I awoke, walked into my office and logged onto BBC News. I've just started to subscribe. 

I've been feeling a bit claustrophobic lately. All this neuroscience for mental health is beginning to get to me. I'm itching for new perspectives. Fresh ideas. The North American biomedical approach to mental health is beginning to seem oppressive to me.

Out of curiosity, I decided to explore, so I typed "mental health recovery" into the BBC search engine, where I easily found a link to its bright purple and white Mental Health page with a big picture of a dozen or so people of diverse ages and races, smiling, plus dozens the following (unsponsored) section and links:

1. Emotional health 
2. Disorders and conditions 
3. Coping Techniques 
4. Supporting and caring 
5. Therapy and therapists
6. Understanding drugs 
7. See also (This page is filled with all kinds Useful Contacts.)

(I tried this with CBC News and one unsponsored story appeared. Dated May 23, 2008. The headline? More education needed about schizophrenia in teens years: experts.) 

I clicked on every link and my mouth was watering. I knew Britain took a different, more enlightened stand on mental health, but I had no idea it was so dramatically different than what's going on here in North America. Neurosciences and drugs therapies are practically the only option available to people seeking help. No wonder 75% of Canadians who could be helped by some form of therapeutic treatment never seek it. That daunting statistic used to be 66% about 10 years ago. Now it's up 11%. Something is drastically wrong here.

But what really caught my eye on the main BBC.news Mental Health page, right at the top, was this main message. You couldn't miss it:

Maintaining a balance. 

One in four of us will have some sort of mental health problem in our life. This means there are millions of people in Britain who are either encountering problems themselves or know someone else who is experiencing them.

Here's what jumped out at me. The first five words. "One in four of us..." 

Not one in four people. One in four of us.

Now that's inclusive. I love inclusive – it's one of my guiding principles. This message was so humane and inviting. 

I started exploring this front page, clicking on all the links and eventually found myself at Rethink. This national British charity, founded 30 years ago, to give a voice to people affected with severe mental illnesses, now has more than 8,300 members and helps more than 48,000 people every year through a variety of services, support groups and the dissemination of helpful information. 

This enlightened initiative has this mission:

"Working together to help everyone affected by severe mental illness recover a better quality of life."

(Rethink is only one of several large and longstanding Mental Health charities that are "challenging discrimination" and helping and celebrating people with mental health issues. Among them, Time to Change –  Let's End Mental Health Discrimination and Mind for Better Mental Health., which gives out an annual award for Journalist of the Year.

"For excellence in reporting mental health issues in the media... high quality, informed reporting on these issues goes a long way to increase public understanding about mental health. People with mental health problems consistently tell us that negative media coverage only adds to the challenges they face. We hope that this award paves the way to breaking down any remaning taboos around mental health reporting."

I was drooling. Wow, do we have a lot to learn from the Brits.

May I remind you that Canada is still the only G8 country without a national mental health strategy. That, finally, is in the works, thanks to the work of the Canadian Mental Health Commission.

But it's very slow. I'm impatient. My concern is that with several senior psychiatrists there, wedded to the traditional biomedical approaches to mental illnesses, there's an innate bias. I could be wrong.

Back to Rethink, which I first heard about from a British gent named Robert Ashton. He is a veritable "one-man industry" with his own blog, Robert Ashton Unlimited and he's all over YouTube. He accurately describes himself on his website as an established author, broadcaster, experienced social and business entrepreneur, and an engaging speaker. Somewhat unconventional. 

He lives with depression.

Let me scroll back for a moment...

Back on February 18, 2008, I received an email from a man named Robert Ashton. I didn't know him. Never heard of him. It was a few months before I had started blogging here for Healthzone.ca at The Toronto Star. I was teaching part-time at Seneca College. And I was dabbling in blogging and had just launched my own personal blog. Perhaps four people had found it. One of them was Robert Ashton. He had emailed me and said that his Google-Alert on "anti-stigma" had picked me up along with my Groucho Marx quote. That's how we met – through Groucho. 

I wasn't spending much time blogging back then – mostly developing and teaching my then-new Leadership in Society course. I knew how to do it – but hadn't a clue how to teach it. Also, I was far less cyber-savvy. I'm no great shakes, now, but I'm learning fast. So, I confess, I didn't do much homework on Robert. 

However, all that changed on Sunday morning, sitting here in my nightie, my blogging uniform, fresh out of bed at 6:15 a.m. That's when my Dandie Dinmont Terriers wake me up. After taking them out and feeding them, I decided to check out BBC news, re-discovered Rethink and tried to join.

But I couldn't. Only Brits allowed. 

I knew that mental health recovery, rarely discussed here in the North America mainstream media, is big in England. I could see, judging by the BBC Mental Health page, that Talking Therapies are big there, too. Much bigger than Drug Therapies. You know, I'm a strong advocate for "talking therapies" to mental health recovery and very concerned about the pervasive emphasis on drug treatments here in North America.

So, since I have Robert's Skype address, I decided to ring him up and ask him if he could help me join Rethink. 

I never, for a moment expected him to answer. Sometimes I forget about time zones. Timing is Everything, I know, but timing has never been my strong suit!

Anyway... rrrriiiinggggg... and there Robert was – live and in full colour! All dressed and respectable, in his charming brick-walled office, wearing his pale blue Rethink T-Shirt. It was about noon in England. It was 6:15 a.m. here. Oh, dear. He could see me, too, in my pink nightie, my hair unbrushed, barely awake. I forget that I have a camera on my iMac and I don't Skype very often, either.

Oops! I was caught, unawares. Oh, well. What the hell....

But I've gone on too long, so this is going to be a two-instalment post. I know, I'm leaving you here, hanging. I promise on Thursday, I'll continue my story of my conversation with Robert Ashton and my adventures "across the pond..." in Part Two. 

Thanks for your patience. Stay tuned.

Comments

[Robert Ashton]

Yes, folks I really was wearing my Rethink t-shirt on Sunday morning. I wear it when I go running and was planning the day's route when Sandy Skyped me! Amazing coincidence - but then I don't have a pink nightie so perhaps no surprise at all!

[Francesca]

We're dealing with community level fall out from not having enough resources especially in a rural community.

Some of the seniors staff at the agencies my United Way funds, know of my desire for a "life sucks" agency.

There would be no diagnosis, which is what one needs to get help these days, it would be preventative and it would be lots of talking.

It would help people, whose lives are changing through martial breakdown, job loss, being a parent of a teenager - you know - normal life stuff, that can just wear a person down.

There would be healthy food and bright colours.

People could drop in to just talk, to talk through the day to day struggles.

People new to poverty are afraid to ask for help, so full of shame, and we try and leave them with a plan, hope and a sense of self worth. Knowing that they are not the only ones going through tough times, makes it easier - because they don’t' suck - life sucks!

I was at a meeting the other day where we discussed the challenges of housing mentally ill in seniors homes - but no other option in a rural community.

I know a situation where a woman, 60 who has schizophrenia, and as a result has to be on the secure ward. She's on suicide watch 24-7 because she's surrounded by dementia patients and the programming is built around people who don't have much brain function left. She's perfectly capable, but her environment is draining.

Ok I've gone on long enough.

It was wonderful to read about what the UK was doing - how refreshing!

[Sonia]

Hello Sandy,

What a breath of fresh "pond" air!!! I laughed!!! Pink nightie on Skype! Way to go for you. Comfort is valuable in resetting priorities, values, and well-being.

Thanks for all the links, and the light comparison between this and that side of the "pond" ... keep hopping!

Sonia

[Sandy Naiman]

Wait until you see my second instalment!

It goes up at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. (Thursday, May 21, 2009)

Have a calm and peaceful meantime!

I've been outside walking my Dandies and deep breathing. The air is fresh and invigorating where I live. There are lots of trees bursting into bloom. At last.

It feels great and it's good for Lucy and Riley, too!

Wishing you well wherever you are!

Hugs,
sln

[Olivia]

Yeah, Canada is about 10 to 12 years behind what is going on in some of the other Commonwealth countries... Australia seems to have a particularly interesting and progressive approach to mental health. Basically they've gone through 3 or 4 permutations of the system overhauls we are working towards right now. (So maybe we'll catch up with where they are today in, oh, 20 years?)

However, be careful of what you ask for; apparently there is little consumer/survivor/experiential involvement in other nations, whereas Canada is (supposedly) trying to involve the input of all the stakeholders in our system's revamp, which includes those who have been involved with the mental healthcare system on whatever level.

Based on my experience, one of the things that has held us back, and will continue to hold us back, in our development of treatment strategies/healthcare overhaul is the glomming of all conditions affecting mental health under one banner, as if they all represent something similar.

From what I can see (from personal experience and academic education), addiction is different from schizophrenia is different from anxiety is different from personality disorder. (i'm still trying to wrap my head around the concept of personality disorder... but that's another issue for another day!)

My fear is (as someone with a diagnosis of schizophrenia), that the idiosyncratic needs that result from a particular condition will get lost in that broad stroke. My day to day needs are very very different from the needs of a person with depression, since my health condition is very different from the condition of depression. To me it's like saying, "We're going to deal with Cancer, Diabetes, and Stroke in the same manner! With the same approach! With the same expectations! With the same assumptions!! They are all one!"

Now, of course, basic elements of human need, like shelter, food, and income always stay the same for every person (and don't we even fail at this in the present!!), but it's in the details where the issues become very apparent, and have the potential to devolve when all is glommed under one big banner of "mental illness." (Oh, sorry, we are calling it all "mental health now!")

Sorry for my rant, but there's a lot to talk about in the arena of (mental) health, and so few are talking.

We all need to sit down for a chat. A lot of chats.