Mental Illness – Towards Understanding & Compassion
Today
on Listen Up – mysteries of the ailing mind – moving
towards understanding and compassion for the mentally ill.
Canada
has joined the other G-8 nations in establishing a National Mental
Health Commission. Meanwhile, Canadian researchers are also on the
cutting edge of diagnosing the causes of mental illness.
Today,
Listen Up visits the Toronto lab of a leading neuro-scientist who’s
recently pinpointed one of the genetic causes of schizophrenia and also
talks with the CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association to
understand the scope and impact of mental illness.
We’ll also
hear from two extraordinary people living with Mental Illness – and how
their lives are one of courage and compassion.
The Roder lab investigates mental illness – a cause
long-stigmatized, marginalized and misunderstood, and which has yet to
attract the kind of big money that leads to bigger staffs and research
facilities.
And yet, the research conducted here is ground-breaking.
The lab is named for this man: Dr. John Roder, a former cancer
researcher who switched his specialty to mental illness, when his son
Nathan was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Alyse Schacter lives with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Tourette
Syndrome – disorders that cause her to go through an incredible
6-thousand rituals every single day.
The 16-year-old is an honour student and has just been honoured by the
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health with their “Courage to
Come Back Award.”
Glenn Thompson
CEO, Canadian Mental Health Association www.cmha.ca
One in every four or five adults will experience mental illness in any
given year. Diseases and disorders of the mind affect people of all
ages, cultures, educational and income levels.
Interview with Glenn Thompson:
LU: Let’s start by defining the problem. What exactly is mental illness?
Thompson: … mental illness is a very serious matter and
isn’t to be confused by the people who say, I’m stressed
out … a serious mental illness we believe is caused by brain
chemistry – it certainly can be induced by stress on individuals
but stress alone isn’t the cause of m.i. It’s a very
serious medical condition. One in 5 of us will have a serious mental
illness in our lifetime – those figures are universal –
that doesn’t mean you have the serious m.i. for all of your life,
but at some point in your life, you’ll have a serious depression,
a serious anxiety disorder, … and for some people those become
lifelong disabilities and things that need to be coped with.
LU: How does mental illness manifest?
Thompson: Well I use the analogy with cancer. When I was a kid growing
up, cancer was thought of as one kind of disease. Now we know
it’s many, many kinds of diseases with all sorts of ways to
intervene and mental illness is the same. Schizophrenia is a different
disorder than depression is a different disorder than anxiety
conditions and so on.
Thompson: So it’s many things, and all of them would now be thought to be connected to brain chemistry.
LU: How big is the problem of mental illness?
Thompson: Well, three percent of the folks in Canada at the moment will
have a serious mental illness, and then another seven percent will be
in that mild to moderate category of m.i. And that might be
schizophrenia, it might be anxiety, it might be depression – and
depression is the one we hear so much about these days, because
it’s so prevalent.
It’s not only prevalent. It’s costly. Mental Health issues
have surpassed heart disease as the fastest growing category of
disability costs for employers. And
Health Canada estimates the economic burden of mental illness and
addiction adds up to a whopping 30-billion dollars. Every year.
Multiply that number by ten in the U.S.
Thompson: We’re in business in the CMHA – not just to help
care for people – but a very important part of the history of
this org since 1918 is to try to persuade people to handle mental
illness. in a different way – to de-stigmatize it. To help people
create an environment in society that helps to prevent the incidence of
mental illness. And assists people who are developing those
illness to have them not develop to the same degree. So public
education and prevention activities are really important. We know now
how imp. Exercise is for people who are prone to depression.
There’s good evidence now that minor medication for a minor
depression is not much better than exercise is for that same person
– so there are lots of tradeoffs these days and lots of different
ways to intervene and we’re very anxious for the public to be
more understanding so there can be a circle of support for individuals
when they’re in difficulty.
Thompson: There’s a whole lot going on right now at the federal
government level. The government in its most recent budget provided for
the creation of a mental health commission – they’re just
about to announce the location of it in Calgary and in Ottawa and the
senior people in it – Senator Michael Kirby is the chair –
and it’s main job is to develop a national mental health
strategy. We’ve never had one. We’re the only G-8 country
without a national mental health strategy and here we are with one of
the most expensive and often destructive illnesses that we know of and
we don’t have- as we do with cancer and heart – and major
campaigns – at every level – we need the same sort of thing
in the mental health field- both for preventive kind of work and for
care-giving work – research and care.
LU: As you look to the future – are you hopeful?
Thompson - Oh very. Yes. But all the keys on the piano have to be
played here. We have to have research. Terrifically well-trained Profs
in the field. We have to have tremendous volunteers helping out. We
have to have school systems – teachers and students who
understand what mental illness is about and don’t shy away from
it. So it has to be – all the parts have to be put together or
any one of those groups will just struggle on their own.
Schizophrenia is youth's greatest disabler; striking most often in the
16 to 30 year age group and affecting one person in every 100. At
19-he was living his dream, working as a professional diver in the
South China Sea. Within 5 years, Bill MacPhee’s life had become a
nightmare. Bill MacPhee was 24 when he was diagnosed with
schizophrenia. A commercial diver, he lost years of his life to the
disease. He also lost his friends, his home, and his will to live.
Today, he is a husband and father, and publisher of this magazine,
Schizophrenia Digest.
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On April 30, 2005 Lorna was privileged to receive an honorary Doctorate of Christian Ministries from Canada's largest Christian university, Trinity Western University. Lorna was recognized for the witness and leadership that Listen Up TV has provided in public messaging: "a leader in the voice of evangelical life in Canada."
