Mental Health
The stigma attached to mental health is reflected in the rarity of stamps that feature it, but Canada Post has shown how stamps can best be used to spread understanding and raise funds, as Tina Jackson explains
World Mental Health Day, which takes place every year on 10 October, was established in 1992 as a result of an initiative from the World Foundation for Mental Health. The aim was to bring attention to mental health an its impact on people’s lives. In 1994 World Mental Health Day was first given a theme: improving the quality of mental health services throughout the world. Since then, each year’s World Mental Health Day has been themed.
In 2017, a special World Mental Health Day Disease Medical Brain Special Cover was issued on 10 October at Electronic City Bengalaru by India Post. Further back, in 2005, Israel issued a ‘Medicine in Israel - Mental Health’, Thailand Post touched upon the subject in 1989, but mental health has rarely been so explicitly addressed in philately. Around 600 stamps with medical themes were issued between globally between 1 January 2022 and 31 December 2009, with psychiatric themes including substance abuse, recreational drug messaging and human emotions. The main categories were the mentally handicapped; psychiatric institutions and staff; prevention of alcohol and drug abuse; congresses, and famous psychiatric patients, but not the experience of mental health itself.
The US has a poor track record for addressing mental health on its stamps. In 1962 a stamp was proposed to mark the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Friends Hospital in Philadelphia, the country’s oldest private psychiatric hospital. The proposed design showed a drawing of the hospital with the words ‘The advent of humane treatment of the mentally ill’. The proposal was rejected.
In 1999, a coalition of US organisations lobbied for a series of stamps aimed at reducing the stigma attached to mental illness. The proposal was rejected after only 35 out of 435 members of the House of Representatives endorsed the idea. By 2009, only one US psychologist had been honoured on a stamp. Lillian M. Gilbreth, a pioneer of time and motion studies, appeared on a 40 cent stamp in 1984, more in recognition of her work in engineering than for her work as a psychologist. In 2015, a proposal for a mental healththemed semi-postal was made, with proceeds going to the National Institute of Mental Health to fund research. The proposal had support from the American Academy of Neurology, the American Association for marriage and family Therapy and American Brain Coalition, but remains in committee. The US did issue a Healing PTSD semi-postal in December 2019 in support of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
America could look to its neighbour for an example of how to depict mental health. In 2008, in response to the fact that one in five Canadians would experience mental illness at some point in their lives, Canada Post adopted mental health as its cause for 2008 and established the Canada Post Foundation for Mental Health. Four semi-postal stamps followed, with income generated from sales used by the Foundation to fund research and support people with mental health issues.
The first stamp depicted a person with a megaphone, metaphorically shouting about mental illness. The second, issued in 2009, features a stylised head containing the image of a tree. The 2010 stamp shows a small person gazing towards a tree at the top of a mountain. The most powerful image is on the 2011 stamp, which shows puzzle pieces coming out of, or falling into, a head. Each stamp in the series carries the words Mental Health/sante Mentale. After three years, almost $1million had been raised from their sale.