{"id":197,"date":"2015-02-18T00:34:41","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T00:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/?p=197"},"modified":"2015-02-19T18:32:39","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T18:32:39","slug":"with-the-best-of-intentions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/?p=197","title":{"rendered":"With The Best of Intentions"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all try our best, we believe that others do so too, and we act accordingly \u2013 if there is a mistake we try to point it out, and we look for reparation. For reform.\u00a0I recently learnt the etiology of the word Repent<\/a> <\/em>is from Hebrew, and later Greek, and it essentially means to alter ones thinking after<\/em>.\u00a0I like that; I really like the idea that repenting isn\u2019t about atonement or demonizing, but about change, about transformation through reflection. Beautiful.<\/p>\n

I have recently had cause to wonder what it is like to say sorry without\u00a0understanding \u2013 to apologize without repenting, without reflecting.\u00a0A search of #MHmasks<\/a> will bring you in-line with an online debate that has been running for some days now \u2013 centralizing on Robert Gordon Uni\u2019s<\/a> usage of prosthetic masks<\/a> to enhance mental health role-play scenarios.<\/p>\n

With the best of intentions they put the masks to use, but the response was once of concern, and even disgust \u2013 service users, advocates, charities, and social workers alike took to social media in an attempt to show the University that people felt stigmatized by the masks, that they were offended.<\/p>\n

Much has been said<\/a> on the topic, including a great piece<\/a> by Nurse with Glasses.<\/a>\u00a0To their credit the University withdrew the use of the masks, released a second statement<\/a>, and this has been reflected in the media<\/a>.\u00a0Success, social justice and advocacy in action.<\/p>\n

But then the next day came, and a curious thing happened. The # became alive again, and in doing so it highlighted The Backfire Effect<\/a> phenomena \u2013 whereby the action of correcting someone can lead him or her to become further entrenched in their belief, increase their Bias. Those from the University, in favor of the masks, took to twitter and used the #MHmasks to strike back at the outcry, to attempt to justify their use \u2013 despite the University itself acknowledging the concern.<\/p>\n

So in relevance to the above, in acknowledging that mental health has come a long way from the well intentioned<\/em> Victorian<\/a> era, I would like to talk about Stigma:<\/p>\n

Mental health is currently making a transition away from the vestiges of mental illness, and into the paradigm of wellness. We are literally coming to an understanding that wellness, including mental health concerns, is a universal issue. It effects and affects everyone, collectively.<\/p>\n

There is no characteristic, no look, no behavior, no trait, no signifier that can be universally applied to mental health<\/a>; it is literally a spectrum upon which people may or may not fall at certain times of their lives. In an attempt to bring reason and measure to the spectrum, we divide it up into sections, into umbrella terms that highlight certain behaviors which indicate that a person may be experiencing a mental health issue \u2013 but these are not complete, they are not certain, and we (as professionals) are trained to understand the crossover between exhibiting symptoms, to look beyond the superficial and to keep digging to find the individual truth for each person. This is how we help people.<\/p>\n

Terms like crazy, nutter, wacko, psycho, etc. are harmful, they are gross generalizations, they elicit painful responses and reactions in people, and they are misleading. There is no truth to them. Equally there is no truth to being able to tell what is wrong with someone simply by looking at them, we might witness some of what is happening \u2013 but without taking into consideration their culture, their medical history, their recent experiences, their circumstances \u2013 we are oppressive.<\/p>\n

So the masks, to the idea that mental health can be represented through applying prosthetics. It doesn\u2019t follow through; of course characterization can be represented through a masks \u2013 that is literally what they are for. To play out the form of an-other. But otherness<\/a> is dangerous. Otherness has no place within mental health.<\/p>\n

I work in a psychiatric hospital; I have been in the field of social work since 2003. I trained both in the UK (co-training with nursing staff) and in the USA – we utilized role-play, recorded interventions, acted videos, documentaries, live placement, and visiting service user lectures. We worked and studied in partnership, taking leads from our service users; from their expertise in their own lives. The greatest skill I have fostered (aside from listening and compassion) is the ability to read subtle indicators in faces \u2013 to hone in on the experience of another human being by not only listening to what they say, but also watching how they say it. It is the action of witnessing a person, of truly seeing them. I could not do that if they were wearing a mask. Of course, it is possible to conduct work over the phone, to listen and to be present, but it is not the same, it is not authentic. Authenticity is the backbone of mental health intervention, if you are not authentic, if you are not present and truly observing a client, then you are doing them a disservice. In a practical sense, it is not possible to be present with someone wearing a mask \u2013 because they are not present with you.<\/p>\n

The practice issues aside, if service users, if advocates, if social workers, nurses, and charity workers are largely unified in a cause \u2013 the probability is that the cause is just. In the simplest terms of it: if you as a practitioner are doing something, engaging in a practice that others (that colleagues and service users) find upsetting or offensive \u2013 then you have a duty to listen, and to consider what can be done to change it, to listen, to repent. The first line of the credence we all ascribe to is Do No Harm.<\/p>\n

Taking that forward, reflecting upon it, and putting it to use benefits us all. Because we are all in this together, or we are falling apart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all try our best, we believe that others do so too, and we act accordingly \u2013 if there is a mistake we try to point it out, and we look for reparation. For reform.\u00a0I recently learnt the etiology of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Akk1-3b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205,"href":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions\/205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.achoiceinthis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}