Mental health: in from the cold
April Clare Walsh
Last year, UK grime don Skepta released a short film documenting his landmark December show at London’s Alexandra Palace. Greatness Only took a warts-and-all look at the Tottenham-born MC, holding a mirror up to his struggles with mental health and revealing how he suffered a nervous breakdown in 2012.
Skepta’s revelation came at the end of a breakthrough year for music and mental health and helped to further amplify the conversation. During that 12-month period, a number of high-profile artists came forward to share their personal stories, from Lady Gaga’s experience of PTSD to Zayn Malik’s struggles with anxiety and Cara Delevingne’s ongoing battle with depression.
Nor did it end there, because 2017 has seen Stormzy — grime’s biggest and brightest new star — appeared on Channel 4 to discuss his battle with depression, while also marking the launch of a new campaign helmed by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, called Heads Together.
Aiming to help end the stigma surrounding mental health, the campaign has so far launched a series of videos featuring testimonies from both ordinary people and celebrities, including Professor Green who has suffered from anxiety since childhood. Public attitudes are changing, but in the light of restricted access to mental health services, how do such celebrity stories impact on the average person?
Elaine Bousfield is a trained psychotherapist and the founder of Minds for Life, a new app that brings a trained counsellor to your phone via messaging or video. Bousfield recalls watching Princess Diana’s funeral on television in 1997 and contemplating the effect of her death on grown-up Princes William and Harry.
Bousfield extols the importance of the royals publicly discussing their issues. “I think it’s great that they’re out there talking about the effect it’s had and that they’re doing the work they’re doing,” she offers. “We’ve become a more emotionally literate society overall and I personally think that’s a good thing.”
She continues: “I don’t think there can ever be a negative side to people being honest and transparent about what’s going on in their lives. But I think it does highlight the chasm between someone’s hero talking about it and that person potentially having nowhere to go to talk about it themselves.”
Leading mental health charity Mind reported a 38 per cent increase in calls to its information line after Prince Harry came forward to discuss his struggles. Calm, a mental health charity specifically directed towards men, saw its website traffic double. The statistics speak for themselves — transparency aids discussion. But these are information sources and crisis support, not ongoing therapeutic services. Historical low investment in mental health services means waiting times are beyond anyone’s ideal and as demand keeps growing, are only likely to get longer.
Just as in other areas of our lives, the digital space is creating new ways to access mental health services. Apps such as Minds for Life can provide much needed support for people struggling with psychological issues, although Bousfield is keen to emphasise the need for choice when it comes to therapy. “Research shows that the most important factor in generating a positive outcome when working with a therapist is the relationship you build with them. For some people this is best done face-to-face. But from 16 years’ experience of delivering counselling online, I know it is possible to build that therapeutic alliance remotely too, with the added convenience, immediacy and ongoing contact digital provides.” With services to access doctors and consultants via your phones already established, it seems likely acceptance of this way of working will be high.
Attitudes to mental illness are slowly shifting towards acceptance, but there’s plenty of work to be done until physical and mental health are perceived as equally important. In the UK, it’s still largely taboo to take a day off for poor mental health, with a 2014 Mind survey reporting that just 5 per cent of workers questioned have informed their employer of the real reason behind their absence.
As with the women’s rights movement, which has exploded on a global level in recent years following high-profile endorsements, the national conversation around mental health can only gain more traction with increased celebrity support. But we need to keep talking on a daily basis — in the workplace, the home and beyond — before the stigma can be fully dissolved and ordinary people are able to reach out to get the help they so desperately need. And when they do, appropriate therapeutic services must be available because removing stigma isn’t the end game, better mental health outcomes is.
