the diagram that you have in front of
you helps us understand mental health
and mental illness better in our field
we are often confusing each other
by the language that we use when we use
a phrase such as mental health issue
nobody really knows what we're talking
about a mental health issue could be a
two-year-old having a temper tantrum or
it could be a 17 year old in the middle
of a psychotic break or it can be a 16
year old girl with severe panic attacks
so bad that you can't go to school or it
can be a 20 year old college student who
is house bound because of social anxiety
those things are all very very different
and it is really important that we
understand what we're talking about
because if we don't understand what
we're talking about if we don't use the
right language how can we intervene
effectively on this triangle at the
bottom you'll see a category that says
no distress problem or disorder that is
many of us much of the time we're having
fun with our friends with our families
were off at school doing our work we're
enjoying ourselves in a recreational
activity or even asleep so much of the
time over a 24-hour period we can be in
that zone of having no distress no
problem or no disorder on the other hand
all of us experience over the course of
pretty well every single day mental
distress and mental distress is the
brain's signal to us that we have a
problem in our environment that we have
to deal with and
this signal tells us we need to adapt we
need to solve the problem the signal
which we call the stress response is the
basis of resilience it's the basis of
adaptation and once we successfully
solve the problem the stress response
goes away we no longer feel distressed
and we have another arrow in our quiver
we have not only become more resilient
but we have developed new skills and we
need to ensure that we don't protect
young people for these slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune because it is
through engaging with the normal
stresses of life that we develop the
capacity to become successful adults the
next part on this triangle is labeled
mental health problems and mental health
problems also arise from environmental
stressors but these are stressors that
are quite intense they're not like
taking an exam or going for a job
interview or not making the school
basketball team or being rejected on
your request for a romantic evening with
someone that you fancy
these are serious things like your
parent died or you've lost your job or
you're moving to a new country and they
also elicit a stress response and this
stress response is also normal when
someone dies it's normal to grieve when
you lose your job it's normal to feel
demoralized and when we have these
feelings we reach out to other people
for support guidance and assistance but
we don't need psychiatrists or clinical
psychologists if we lose our job we need
a job and here we have to be very
careful not to medicalize normal human
experience
mental health problems can be difficult
they can be challenging they can hurt
emotionally but as a species we've
learned how to get through these things
and we count on each other to help us we
also have socially sanctioned healers
that assist if we're religious we go to
our religious leaders if we're more
secular we often go to people like
counselors that can be quite helpful and
we always rely on family and friends at
the top of the triangle our mental
disorders these are the illnesses that
are found in ICD or DSM categorizations
they are internationally agreed-upon
as diagnosis and they're very different
than the mental health problem and
they're very different than a mental
distress signal
they require therapeutic evidence-based
interventions provided by people who
have been specially trained in how to do
that and we don't progress from distress
to disorder this is not a spectrum this
is not a continuum we can feel unhappy
in distress and we can feel very unhappy
if we have a disorder those emotions
occur across each of these components
and this is really important this and is
we can be in every single one of these
states at the same time for example an
individual can have attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder ADHD which is a
mental disorder they can be dealing with
the loss of a loved one say their mother
so they're going through grief they can
be experiencing distress they didn't
make the school basketball team
and they can be having no distress no
problem or no disorder at the moment as
they're hanging out with their friends
enjoying watching a movie and these
things can be happening all in the same
period of time all these are components
of mental health we can have mental
health and a mental illness at the same
time these are not separate categories
and it's very important that we tailor
our interventions to the state in which
the person is in intervening for normal
expected mental distress can cause
problems for young people it can make it
difficult for them to learn how to adapt
it can lead to things like learned
helplessness I can't do it a mental
health problem requires additional
supports but it doesn't require
medications and it doesn't require CBT
cognitive behavioral therapy or
specialized clinical psychological
treatments however if somebody has a
mental disorder then we have to provide
best evidence-based treatments for them
and so let's use the language correctly
if we mean mental distress let's use
words such as disappointed disgusted
angry pessimistic distressed to clarify
what state we're in if we're dealing
with a mental health problem let's use
words like sorrowful demoralized
grieving despairing those are good words
to describe a mental health problem and
if we're describing the mental disorder
well let's use the word depression if we
use the word depression for every single
one of those states I have no idea what
you're talking about
and you have a no idea about what I'm
talking
but it's really essential our language
has many different ways of expressing
the nuances of all these important
emotional states let's not confuse them
confusion can lead to inappropriate
treatment confusion can lead to
protecting people from the challenges of
life that they need to embrace
themselves in order to become successful
independent resilient human beings so
let's think about our language when
we're using the word depression let's
use it to mean depression and not every
single negative emotional state that we
experience