Recognizing Mental Health as Essential to Physical Health

I recently read an article about the importance of viewing mental health as necessary to physical health. In the article the author mentions the following:

The human brain is a wonder. Through folds of tissue and pulses ofelectricity, it lets us perceive, attempt to understand, and shape the world around us. As science rapidly charts the brain’s complex structures, new discoveries are revealing the biology of how the mind functions and fails. Given the centrality of the brain to human health, its malfunctions should be a priority, separated from stigma and treated on par with the diseases of the body (Campo, 2017, from https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/31/mental-health-medicine/).

While this article is written from an American perspective, it got me thinking about the stigma seen within Canada and the children and youth (and their families) that are living with mental health on a daily basis.

Many of you may have seen the following graphic which highlights what individuals with mental health might experience on a daily basis; what things might be like if physical diseases were treated like mental illness:

Below, you’ll find some stats related to the prevalence of mental health in relation to children and youth in Canada:

• As many as 1 in 5 children and youth in Ontario will experience some form of mental health problem.

  • 5 out of 6 of those kids will not receive the treatment they need.

• 70% of mental health problems have their onset during childhood or adolescence.

• 17% of children ages 2-5 years meet diagnostic criteria for mental health problems.

• 28% of students report not knowing where to turn when they wanted to talk to someone about mental health.

• Canada’s youth suicide rate is the third highest in the industrialized world.

(Reference: https://www.kidsmentalhealth.ca/education-resources/facts-figures#_edn3)

These stats are alarming. If 70% of mental health problems occur during childhood or adolescence, then something needs to be different. I’m not sure what … More money. More funding. More awareness. More understanding. More services providers. More individuals reaching out and more people being able and willing to direct them to someone who can support them. Less stigma.

Campo (2017) ends his article by sharing that how we, as a society, think and talk about mental health matters. He writes, “When mental health is ultimately recognized as essential to physical health, not an extraneous element of it, then we will have access to true, complete, modern medicine.”

Mental health is not something that people just “get over”. Just like you wouldn’t tell someone with a broken around to “get over it”, you wouldn’t tell someone suffering from depression either. The more we have these discussions, the more the stigma around mental health can be reduced.

Keep talking … Let’s break the stigma.