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,
. Hi again everybody.
We're back for week two of the social context of mental health and illness.
So last week we did a whirlwind tour through about a 100 years of the history
of psychiatry and mental health treatment mostly in the North American context.
And I know for some of you it really felt like a whirlwind because I can get pretty
fast when I'm talking. So this week I'm really going to try to
concentrate on slowing down a bit and I hope that's helpful.
and I'm really looking forward to the topics that we're going to do this week.
I hope that what you're going to see, and I will be pointing this out, I hope that
what you're going to see is that knowing that history that we covered in the first
lecture is going to be very helpful for now being able to put what we see as the
contemporary issues in mental health into context.
So let's, let's see where we're going next.
This week's lecture focuses on three main topics.
The first topic is what is mental health and what is mental illness?
Like, how do we make that distinction and how are we using those terms, especially
in this course. So that's the first topic.
The second topic is really looking at the social context for mental health and
illness. So we're going to be doing that by
talking about the social determinants of mental health.
And then the third topic is what's called the bio psycho social perspective of
mental health, and this really brings together what is our current
understanding of what biologically, psychologically, and socially is
implicated in experiences of mental health and illness.
So that's what's going to wrap up everything for us today.
I see this lecture is dealing with fundamental questions.
What makes it possible for us to stay mentally healthy? And on the other side,
what is it that contributes to the experience of some of us getting mentally
ill. Actually many of us if you look at the
statistics. If your statistics like one in four
people will experience depression over their lifetime.
one in ten people across the whole spectrum of mental disorder they'll, you
know, you'll see people experiencing that.
That means that almost everyone, if you think about your own life, either you or
somebody you know, somebody you care about,
somebody you work with, experiences mental illness.
and, and hopefully many of those people are also experiencing mental hell.
So I think that you know, try and understand what it is that makes both of
these experiences happen makes it possible for people to be mentally
healthy and also creates the possibility of being mental, mentally ill.
I think these are very important questions.
So I really look forward to seeing how the issues that we're covering in this
lecture help us attempt to answer that and inform our thinking as we move
forward in this course. So let's get started.
Charmaine WilliamsAssociate Professor
