Northern Overexposure
  • Home
  • Musical Interludes
  • Blog
  • Contact Me

The Intersectionality of Human Rights, Mental Health and Well-Being

2/3/2020

0 Comments

 
Below is a summary and some snippets of a consultation I prepared for my work.

In the last five years, the intersection between mental health and human rights has become more explicit with influential national and international health and human rights institutions issuing reports and recommendations on the topic. These include reports from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Mental Health (United Nations, 2017), American Psychological Association (Asanbe, Gaba, and Yang, 2018), World Health Organization (2017), and the Ontario Human Rights Commission (2017) to cite just a few examples. In addition to these reports, the United Nation’s High Commissioner writes that, “(the) right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is a fundamental human right indispensable for the exercise of other human rights” (United Nations, 2017, para 4). According to World Health Organization, mental health is “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” (World Health Organization, 2018, para. 2).

One of the largest barriers that has been identified around access to mental health services is social stigma. The United Nations High Commissioner writes that "stereotyping, prejudice and stigmatization is present in every sphere of life, including social, educational, work and health-care settings, and profoundly affects the regard in which the individual is held, as well as their own self-esteem. The lack of systematic training and awareness-raising for mental health personnel on human rights as they apply to mental health allows stigma to continue" (United Nations, 2017, para 16).  Given this barrier, the strategy should include support for anti-stigma campaigns across the university aligned with a human rights focus. The World Health Organization (2017) has developed documents "to provide training and guidance on how to integrate a human rights approach in mental health and related areas, based on international human rights instruments, in particular the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" (p. 7).

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner also recommends that services be “culturally appropriate, that is, respectful of the culture of individuals, minorities, peoples and communities, sensitive to gender and life-cycle requirements” (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2000, para 12c).


Finally, as Gemignani, M., & Hernández-Albújar write in the European Psychologist  "focusing only on personal suffering not only promotes a view of psychology as an individualistic discipline, but also distorts its attention from other readings of that suffering that may locate it socially and culturally. For instance, social reconstructions of traumatic memories may not necessarily pass through individual debriefing and may greatly benefit from psychological practices that are based on collective and cul- tural rememberings of the past".

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    My Pensées

    The title of this blog is an allusion to the famous work of Blaise Pascal.  This blog represents the variety of my interests and thoughts on any given day and are  strung together, like Pascal's Pensees, in no particular order. I work in the field of mental health,  education, and human rights. I write and am a human rights advocate. I enjoy poetry, jazz, spirituality, politics and a potpourri of other interests that you will see reflected in this blog.

    Archives

    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.