...the reason that I don’t differentiate between service providers in social service and mental health settings and service recipients is simple. Everyone knows someone who receives services. If you’re a therapist, hopefully have your own therapist – thus you provide and receive services. If you know three other people, chances are that one of you (and part of another!) has a mental health-related diagnosis. Our need to push this fact away makes it easy to dehumanize others. What to do? 1. Check your own beliefs. What do you really believe about others, especially others who are diagnosed with mental health concerns? Ask yourself how your beliefs insulate you from the consequences of mental illness while magnifying the consequences for the person diagnosed. 2. Set the example in your work and social settings. Instead of using language and power to push away people with mental health diagnoses, accept diagnosed individuals as common and essential parts of your community. 3. Remember: one in four. One of four people has had, will have, or has, a diagnosis. Look around at the people around you and think this through. Ask yourself: Are these people are to be feared and isolated? Or are they to be care for and loved? 4. Recognize how powerful and healing it is to consciously choose to value the people whom you serve in a deliberate and different way, especially as you advocate for others to do the same.
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 03:37:30 +0000
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