Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the wellness industry, particularly with regard to mental health. My personal view is that the way mental wellbeing and wellness gets framed, makes it seem inaccessible to many people who could really benefit from it. It’s not so much what is said about mental health and wellness, but who said it and why they said it. The narrative behind it.
In the context of mental health, when we hear stories of peoples struggles, I can’t help but think that demographics make a difference to our perceptions of their struggle and the subsequent offer of support.
Take Depression for example. I am constantly questioning whether depression looks the same in both a black man and a white woman, or an atheist and a person of faith. Does it look the same in a woman whose just had her first child and a woman whose just lost her eldest child. What is it about a persons race, gender or sexuality that influences how we perceive their distress.
I think there is this unwritten acceptance that mental health is universal, it can impact anyone. But within that, there is the misconception that mental health is uniform, that what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another.
Because of this, the way a person’s distress is framed, not the core causes of their distress, are significant determinants in what we offer as healing and who we offer it to.
Take things like yoga and mindfulness. Two approaches that can be incredibly useful for helping people connect their body and their minds in a positive way. But be truthful, who do you imagine when you think of people doing yoga practices or mindfulness.
Are you thinking of the overweight mum of four, who smokes 20 a day, vapes and is surviving on benefits and has had to deal with abusive relationships, one after the other?
Or are you thinking of the mum who keeps in shape despite always stating how much of a struggle it is, the one who has it all to do, the one with two kids, a high pressured job, school runs, a husband and close group of girlfriends?
Better still, do you think of a man when you think of someone doing Yoga or mindfulness?
All these automatic assumptions are based on what we’ve been exposed to, and can really restrict our perception of things.
If left unchecked, it leads to unconscious biases and decisions made that marginalise people and groups. This is never more evident when we look at how "wellness" is advertised and the fact that some of the most traumatised people in our communities are often forced into services that don't consider the trauma they've experienced.
Because of this, it’s difficult for me to think about psychological distress as a discrete set of symptoms that are neatly packaged. Yes there is anxiety, yes there is depression, yes there is personality disorder and trauma and dissociation, fibromyalgia, bi-polar, psychosis and all these different ways we conceptualise mental “illness”. But there is also community context.
There are ways we see people within a community context and sometimes, in fact a lot of the time, it's informed by our stereotypes, judgements and anxieties. There are groups and clusters we place people into and there is a narrative that runs with our perception of the group. While lots of people are abhorred by the idea that we may have these biases that inform our decisions, I’m angered by the fact people think that they don’t. I’m angered by the fact people think they are not influenced by the culture, beliefs and views of those around them. At best its ignorance, at its worst intellectual arrogance.
As a clinician I see your colour, I see your gender, I see your sexuality, I see anything that you bring because that’s what you’re navigating the world with.
Psychology, therapy and wellness in general is often seen as this wishy washy, overly sensitive and placating setting where people just get to complain or do things that don’t solve the problem. But when I think of psychology, its broader than the therapy room. It’s like a complete renewal of the mind. It requires you to challenge yourself and see yourself in a variety of contexts. It challenges you to be aware of who you are and what you are to other people. To have an understanding of what people expect of you and what you expect of yourself. Then with all that, to follow an individual path that you believe is right for you and to really try to follow it, through all its twists of life.
So if we really want to promote a holistic culture around mental wellness, its important that we start thinking about who it is that we are really promoting wellness to.
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