Canada Research Chair in Personality and Health, examines psychological distress, emotional maltreatment and coping responses at 91��ɫ [Faculty of Health]. Flett says while Sheen’s exploits are obviously an extreme case of a stress-related health problem, dealing with pressure and its resulting stress is by no means an uncommon condition.

“I feel badly for the guy [Sheen] because obviously, he’s out there. Everybody is watching him and he’s saying that he’s winning. He’s got millions of dollars to be able to cope with pressure and he has the girls that he keeps around, but mental well-being is not something he’s put a price tag on," says Flett. "There are people that are dealing with all kinds of stress and suffering and they keep quiet about it so nobody even knows what they are going through. They keep it to themselves as opposed to going on national or international TV and letting the world in on it."

And while Fleet doesn’t recommend booking time on "George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight" or "eTalk" to share your story with 34.4 million Canadians, he says heading down to the local pub or the bowling alley with friends for a few hours Friday night after work may be just what you need when it’s time to depressurize.

“Social support is crucial when battling stress. So anybody who is experiencing significant stress, and is also leading a pretty lonely, isolated life, is much more at risk," explains Flett. “If you have supportive people around you, that can really serve as a buffer. I think that’s one reason why people turn to the Internet. They find people there that they can chat with online."

But talking about stress with your partner, friends or co-workers isn’t for everyone. Flett says a lot of people stay quiet about how they feel because there is a stigma attached to it, but if those same people are truly feeling overwhelmed, they should seek psychological assistance.

“Maybe 3-in-10 of the people that should go for some kind of assistance actually goes, while the rest try to cope on their own or they don’t try to cope at all," says Flett. “In the case of stress, people can go for counseling or people can quite easily learn the skills of how to relax whether it’s breathing or yoga or exercise. But usually when somebody is chronically stressed, they need to change some thinking patterns too."

. . .

[ ] unlike blood pressure medication, there is no pill that combats stress, which is too bad, as researchers have charted ‘the silent killer’ through cortisol, the hormone, which is formed in response to stress.

Whether medication is available or not, we can still make moves to help ourselves and minimize stress by first pinpointing exactly where the pressures in our lives are stemming from. Pressure comes from a variety of different sources including major life events like marriage, divorce or even a new job, but wherever it comes from, Flett says it’s usually related to some kind of expectation that’s being imposed on a person to live up to a standard or some other kind of obligation.

“Because the pressure often comes from an external source and it’s weighing on the person, it’s usually a chronic form of stress," says Flett, “so it can have quite an impact because the individual could be thinking about the source of the stress all of the time."

And that’s not good. Paraphrasing the late Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye, considered by many as the father of biological stress, Flett says, “Every day that we have stress; we die a little bit more." Flett acknowledges it’s the small stuff, the daily things that people need to realize fuels chronic stress.

“Experts talk about blood pressure being the silent killer. I think stress is the silent killer. People may not realize how much stress they’re under or if they do realize it, they don’t see any way they can lessen it and it just continues to rack up."

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The unveiling of the memorial wall plaques will take place Saturday, Sept. 25, at 1pm at the corner of Queen Street West and Shaw Street in Toronto.

Right: One of the walls surrounding the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health

The plaques are dedicated to patient labourers of the past, many of whom built the boundary walls which stand on the south, east and west sides of what was once the Toronto Insane Asylum, now CAMH, at 1001 Queen St. W. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the oldest part of the patient-built boundary wall on the south side, constructed in 1860.

This south wall, along with the walls built from 1888 to 1889 on the east and west sides, is a testament to the abilities of people whose unpaid labour was central to the operation of asylums in Ontario during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Left: Geoffrey Reaume

“For the first time in Canada, the unpaid toil of psychiatric patient labourers will be permanently publicly marked at the site where this history took place for all to learn from and remember,” says Reaume. “The plaques will help to challenge prejudices towards psychiatric patients today by pointing out the very tangible abilities of the people who built these walls. Walls of exclusion thus become walls of inclusion by writing into the public record the historical contributions of mostly poor, forgotten people with a psychiatric diagnosis which has been previously unrecognized.”

A professor of critical disability studies and health ethics in 91��ɫ's , Reaume has given dozens of tours of the wall over the years (see YFile, April 19). On Saturday, he will give yet another tour of the wall, along with all nine plaques, following the dedication ceremony.

“The nine plaques are also arranged thematically along the length of all three walls to let people conduct their own self-guided wall tours to learn about patients past whenever they want to,” says Reaume.

The event is sponsored by the Psychiatric Survivor Archives of Toronto and CAMH, as well as many community donors.

For more information, call CAMH at 416-595-6015 or the Psychiatric Survivor Archives of Toronto at 416-661-9975.

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Right: Megan Davies

Davies and University of Victoria Professor E. are in the final stages of a community-informed curriculum project that will provide middle- and secondary-school teachers in Ontario and British Columbia with a set of innovative, cross-disciplinary teaching units they can integrate into the classroom. The Youth & Mental Health project is funded by a Collaborative Faculty Incentive Grant from ResearchImpact, which is a 91��ɫ and University of Victoria initiative. The project is the result of a series of consultations with community groups, educators, and psychiatric survivors and it will offer students a wide range of perspectives on mental well-being. The goal is to facilitate critical thinking on this sensitive – and often controversial – topic, and to explore interrelated themes of diversity and social justice.

Davies got the idea for the project in an undergraduate class she taught at 91��ɫ over five years ago. Her students – inspired by the material they were exploring on the history of mental health in Canada – told her that mental health issues should be tackled in the classroom much earlier in a student’s education. “I really took that to heart,” she notes. “They were right; we need to talk to their younger selves.”

A series of community consultations were held in Toronto and Victoria. In September, Davies and Marshall presented four draft teaching units to middle- and secondary-school focus groups for feedback and criticism. Feedback from the groups was integrated into the units and the researchers began to develop a Web site that would house the teaching units and other resources. launched at the end of January and it is rich with lesson plans, hands-on activities, resources and helpful learning objectives.

Learners explore, across cultures and history, the shifting contours of what is, and what has been regarded as, normal mental health in the first teaching unit, Understanding, Experiencing & Equity. The lessons in the unit encourage students to consider where stereotypes about mental health come from, how they impact individuals and communities, and what can be done to combat these negative responses. In one of the activities, students are asked to discuss passages from the diary of a young woman named Lara Gilbert who lived in Vancouver during the 1980s and 1990s and struggled with depression. “The idea is to get students to think about what life is like for someone with mental health issues,” says Davies. “What better way to provoke discussion than through the writings of someone who has actually dealt with the challenges, the discrimination and the struggle for well-being.”

Traditionally, mental health patients in Canada were sent to live at institutions for extended periods of time, if not their entire lives. In the 1960s and 1970s, improved treatment options and a shift in ideology occurred; governments and health professionals started to advocate for the deinstitutionalization of mental health care. The idea was to integrate – rather than isolate – patients into the community. The second teaching unit, Self-Determination & Activism, provides a snapshot into the conditions of mental health institutions and explores what the shift in practice meant for those living with mental health issues.

As Davies notes, though integrating individuals into the community may have been a noble idea, it has been a difficult and flawed process. Insufficient community services, limited health care, and a lack of funding for resources have prevented mental health patients from getting the support they need. Instead, the most powerful force for positive change has often come from psychiatric survivors themselves who have united against discrimination and pushed for better living conditions. Students in the second unit examine patients’ rights and reflect on the mixed freedoms and hardships that community living can provide.

Housing, Homelessness & Poverty, the focus of the third teaching unit, asks students to think about complex questions such as: Why are people with mental health issues vulnerable to being homeless? Should safe, affordable housing be considered a fundamental right? Highlights of the unit include surprisingly grim figures about the state of homelessness in Canada and an activity that gets students to create skits that portray the real-life stories they’ve read in class.

The last teaching unit, Well-Being, Health Care & Treatment, looks at positive mental health strategies and resources. It also examines mental health care through the lens of human rights. Lessons are complemented by historical archives, cartoons and artwork.

“Each of the four teaching units draw heavily on personal experiences, historical documents, poetry and graphic art in order to help students gain a more comprehensive and personal understanding of the complex aspects of mental health,” says Davies. “The lessons are interactive and designed to encourage a deeper learning experience through personal reflection and engagement in classroom discussion.”

Davies, who teaches in the Health & Society Program in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, continues to exchange ideas with community partners on revisions for the teaching units. She hopes to develop more units in the future and to have them linked to curriculum in other provinces, translated so that they can be accessed by francophone students and reworked for aboriginal communities. Davies also welcomes suggestions for improvement from students. In fact, she says students played a key role in the overall success of the project. “A lot of the work was done by youth – from the original artwork on the Web site to data entry and research,” Davies notes. “This was very much a youth-centred project and it only made sense to involve them at each phase.”

The project has already attracted .

The curriculum project is part of a larger heritage initiative that is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. As part of that initiative, Davies has been active in the creation of another Web site, , which serves as a research, resource and educational hub on mental health issues.

For more information on Davies’ research, e-mail daviesmj@yorku.ca.

By Kristin Taylor, communications coordinator, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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helps young people address the stigma and discrimination associated with mental health concerns and treatment. It provides Grade 7 to 12 teachers, students and parents with four teaching units—covering discrimination and stigma, housing and poverty, rights and activism, and well-being and treatment—that come with activities, lesson plans and resources.

The project garnered coverage in Victoria, BC’s .

Led by , associate professor in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies' Department of Social Science (left) and ,  professor of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies at UVic, the project was , which launched several pilot projects by offering grants to help researchers and their partner organizations address research issues with relevant public policy and/or professional practice implications. , which covers Esquimalt, Oak Bay, Victoria, View Royal and a portion of Saanich and Highlands, is among the project's partners.

Caring Minds features original artwork created by William Willis, a sixteen year-old secondary school student, and help make the site visually appealing while keeping its focus appropriate for a youth-centred project.

Davies and Marshall are now disseminating their research findings, pursuing additional funding to further resource development and expand the program internationally while seeking ways to integrate their materials with other provincial curricula and international Web sites. A more detailed overview of the is available here.

The curriculum project is part of a larger heritage initiative that is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. As part of that initiative, Davies has been active in the creation of another Web site, , which serves as a research, resource and educational hub on mental health issues.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin – and – researchimpact's blog about knowledge mobilization at 91��ɫ and the University of Victoria.

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