Friday 29 January 2016

Promotion, Prevention, and Recovery: Let’s Talk About How We Talk About Mental Illness

By Janet Phillips
E-mail: jmp3@ualberta.ca
Twitter: @Jan_Phill

It's that time of year again. On January 27, Bell Canada held its annual ‘Let’s Talk’ campaign with the social media hashtage #BellLetsTalk. The goal of ‘Let’s Talk’ is to combat stigma while raising money for mental health initiatives across Canada. Aided by a cast of Canadian heroes such as Clara Hughes Michael Landsberg, Mary Walsh and Michel Mpambara, this year Bell raised a whopping $6 million. 
 
  

As many of you know, ‘talking about’ mental health is a relatively new practice. As recently as twenty years ago, the subject of mental health was taboo. Granted, some of us have had family members or neighbours who were ‘unwell’, and who may have needed to ‘go away’ for a little while. But, no one talked about why.