Mental Health Information
The label mental illness is highly stigmatising. It encourages people to think
of 'the mentally ill' as an entirely separate category from 'people like us',
rather than as ordinary people who have, for whatever reason, more severe emotional
difficulties to cope with. Popular misconceptions, fuelled by the media, depict
mentally ill people as violent and dangerous. These stereotypes are contradicted
by ordinary people's experiences of mental health problems affecting themselves,
their family members, friends or work colleagues.
Mental Health Tips & Questions
What are mental health problems?
Mental health problems range from the worries and grief we all experience as part
of everyday life, to the most bleak, suicidal depression or complete loss of touch
with every day reality.
On average one in four of us will experience a mental health problem in the course
of a year. These problems can cause real and lasting damage, both to the individual
and to the community. Fortunately the majority of people who experience mental
health problems can get over them or learn to live with them especially if they
get help early on.
Unfortunately
many people experiencing a mental health problem don't receive the right kind
of help and some don't receive any help at all. In fact many people with mental
health problems are shunned or discriminated against by their families, friends
and the professionals who are supposed to be caring for them.