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A Blueprint When Feeling Blue: How A Mental Health Diagnosis Can Be Empowering
A Canadian study that was facilitated in 2001 explored factors in the lives of adults with a mental illness that influenced the degree of empowerment felt in their lives. Every participant was in some kind of mental health treatment (either therapy, medication management, a peer support group, or a combination of more than one treatment method). The study revealed that the two factors below had a significant influence on empowerment:
1.) Personal motivation: When consumers of mental health services were able to take more initiative in making choices, it resulted in improved confidence, skill development, and greater sense of control over their lives.
2.) Supportive Relationships: Consumers of mental health services reported feeling more empowered when their personal and professional relationships were supportive and fair. This resulted in increased participation and involvement in the community, particularly if they were able to connect with a community of peers who they saw on a regular basis.
I have actually witnessed the peer support models become increasingly common in the past decade and know of individuals who have discovered a sense of purpose once they become involved in peer support. These kinds of groups and relationships have the potential to offer mental health consumers a sense of connection that may be difficult to find elsewhere.
Giving and receiving mutual support to other with a mental illness can provide empowerment and a sense of purpose.
A Canadian study that was facilitated in 2001 explored factors in the lives of adults with a mental illness that influenced the degree of empowerment felt in their lives. Every participant was in some kind of mental health treatment (either therapy, medication management, a peer support group, or a combination of more than one treatment method). The study revealed that the two factors below had a significant influence on empowerment:
1.) Personal motivation: When consumers of mental health services were able to take more initiative in making choices, it resulted in improved confidence, skill development, and greater sense of control over their lives.
2.) Supportive Relationships: Consumers of mental health services reported feeling more empowered when their personal and professional relationships were supportive and fair. This resulted in increased participation and involvement in the community, particularly if they were able to connect with a community of peers who they saw on a regular basis.
I have actually witnessed the peer support models become increasingly common in the past decade and know of individuals who have discovered a sense of purpose once they become involved in peer support. These kinds of groups and relationships have the potential to offer mental health consumers a sense of connection that may be difficult to find elsewhere.
Giving and receiving mutual support to other with a mental illness can provide empowerment and a sense of purpose.
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Child Sexual Abuse in the Etiology of Depression;
Depression and Anxiety;
27(2010), 631 - 642
This article addresses the best available scienti?c evidence on the topic, by providing a systematic review of the several reviews that have investigated the literature on the issue.
Seven databases were searched, supplemented with hand search of reference lists from retrieved papers.
Four reviews, including about 60,000 subjects from 160 studies and having no limitations that could invalidate their results, were analyzed.
There is evidence that child sexual abuse is a signi?cant, although general and nonspeci?c, risk factor for depression.
Additional variables may either act independently to promote depression in people with a history of sexual abuse or interact with such traumatic experience to increase the likelihood of depression in child abuse survivors.
For all victims of abuse, programs should focus not only on treating symptoms, but also on reducing additional risk factors. Depressed adults who seek psychiatric treatment should be enquired about early abuse within admission procedures.
This article addresses the best available scienti?c evidence on the topic, by providing a systematic review of the several reviews that have investigated the literature on the issue.
Seven databases were searched, supplemented with hand search of reference lists from retrieved papers.
Four reviews, including about 60,000 subjects from 160 studies and having no limitations that could invalidate their results, were analyzed.
There is evidence that child sexual abuse is a signi?cant, although general and nonspeci?c, risk factor for depression.
Additional variables may either act independently to promote depression in people with a history of sexual abuse or interact with such traumatic experience to increase the likelihood of depression in child abuse survivors.
For all victims of abuse, programs should focus not only on treating symptoms, but also on reducing additional risk factors. Depressed adults who seek psychiatric treatment should be enquired about early abuse within admission procedures.
