AN EVOLVING GLO OF MENTAL HEALT

The language we use to describe mental health and addiction has evolved dramatically and represents one aspect of the battle against discrimination. Some words have been eliminated from the mental health lexicon and are now used colloquially. Other words persist but are starting to be rejected in favour of those with more positive connotations. An illness or having an illness

“You don’t say someone is cancer, you say someone has cancer,” says Frances Jewell, executivedirector of the Mental Health Rights Coalition. “So, you shouldn’t say someone is schizophrenic, either.” People have illnesses and diseases, but their identity is not defined by it. Patients, clients, consumers

How a person experiencing mental illness defines himself or herself should be left up to that individual, Jewell says. Client is the preferred term at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Other people prefer mental health consumer or service user as more generic terms. Jewell advises to say simply: “a person who has lived experience with mental illness.” Survivors

Some people prefer to be called consumer-survivors or survivors, Jewell says, and again it’s linked to the words we use for other health problems. “No one wants cancer, but we sometimes see it almost as a badge of honour. We know people who are survivors and [say] yes, good for them! But in mental health, we’re not there yet.” Asylum, facility, hospital

Peter Coleridge, national CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association, says that even t h it t p ‘f M c o t t a o e v w c S p il a li c s li h o w s a lo a t L n t b in C m im d b t s w