Mental Health: The Competitive Opportunity that Doesn't Go Away

"All human societies contain inventive people. It's just that some environments provide more starting materials, and more favorable conditions for utilizing inventions, than do other environments."

- Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel

 

At a time when Europe was a series of fragmented, competing silos mired in a Dark Age, China was a technological superpower with a strong, centralized government.  China built greater ships, established trade with lands as far away as Africa and grew in both wealth and influence.

 

Yet as we know, it was European explorers on tiny ships that introduced the New World to the Old World, resulting in centuries of European dominance on the global stage.

 

How did this happen?

 

As control of all China's activities was held tightly in the hands of a few elite at the top, it was whim and personal inclination that determined the course of the nation's engagement.  Literally, someone at the top of the food chain in the Chinese government decided they didn't like the sea trade (or someone in charge of the sea trade) and killed it. 

 

Meanwhile, Christopher Columbus, entrepreneur that he was, tried sponsor after sponsor after sponsor before he landed on Spain to fund his expedition - and even then he had to try twice.  With the minimal resources he was able to wrangle, Columbus was incredibly lucky his exposition succeeded.  We like to pat successful entrepreneurs on the back and show them off as examples of how persistence pays off, but that's largely a delusional myth.  It was fortune more than anything that delivered a win for Columbus and the Spanish Crown; human resource challenges, weather and all sorts of factors could very easily have derailed the explorer's plans and left him a failure.  Spain would have regretted their investment and moved on.

 

Remember - Columbus wasn't the first European to reach the Americas; Vikings and possibly Basque fishermen were there first, but lacked the appropriate resources and logistical support to gain a lasting foothold.  There may have been thousands of Columbus' in Europe, Asia and even Africa who tried to find support for similar expeditions, but we don't know about them because they weren't successful.

 

The two worlds were bound to connect; random trial-and-error would have made it happen eventually.  If one Chinese mandarin had changed his mind, or if Columbus had failed to find that one backer, or someone else had been more successful, history could have been incredibly different.  The end result would be more or less the same - a global economy striving for equality with some players faring much better than others.  Only the names of the winners would change.

 

So, what's this have to do with mental health?

 

Consider:

 

Chrysler

 

In the United States, psychiatric hospital admissions of Chrysler employees actually went down 12 percent one year over another, and their length of stay in mental hospitals dropped 22 percent, due to that company’s efforts to achieve higher rates of earlier detection through better psychiatric health benefit programs and greater success in matching diagnosis and treatment methods.

Husky Injection Molding Systems

 

Husky Injection Molding Systems of Bolton, Ontario estimates it has saved $8 million in reduced absenteeism, higher productivity, and better use of resources, from a $4 million investment in employee well-being and a healthy workplace environment. 

 

Absenteeism rates in 1999 were 2.25 days per Husky employee per year, compared to the Canadian average of 5.7 days per year

 

Lots and lots of people are wringing their hands around the costs of occupational mental illness; lots of reports have been commissioned and discussions had.  Governments have started the herculanean task of addressing this elephant in the room, but it's slow-going and lots of stakeholders have other priorities.

 

But it's a few bold businesses that are actually taking the risk and making this happen.  The risk is paying dividends with fewer sick employees, greater productivity and better HR morale - which in turn results in stronger, more resilient companies.

 

Yet here in Canada, we have a government that thinks natural resource exploitation is the silver bullet for economic success and is starving all other programs to focus on this one basket.  They're also stamping out any opposition and risk assessment of their singular focus.

 

Kind of like the Chinese did with sea trade.

 

Proactive occupational mental health is going to happen and, really, that ship is already starting to sail.

 

As it stands now, Canada isn't onboard.  If we don't want to end up being a China of the Knowledge Economy, now's the time for our government to get over it's fear of troubled waters and dive in.

 

How To Save Your Business Money

- by keeping your most valuable tools - your employees - in good working order:

Time to take mental health to work 

By Rosana Pellizzari, Peterborough City-County Health Unit

Tuesday, December 11, 2012 1:07:12 EST PM

 

 

With the growing openness to talk about mental health and illness, it’s time to take mental health to work! With most adults spending 60% of their waking hours at work, the work environment becomes a key driver in people’s physical and mental health. According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), one in five Canadians will experience mental illness in their lifetime and the other four will know someone – a friend, family member or co-worker – who has. It touches us all.

Some employees come to their workplace with a pre-existing mental illness. For others, their mental illness, usually depression and anxiety, is a result of their work environment. According to one study, almost three-quarters of all people with a mental illness are working.

 

The effect of mental illness is not just felt by the individual but by their co-workers and their workplace. CAMH reported that “mental health is the number one cause of workplace disability in Canada, accounting for nearly 30% of disability claims and 70% of the total disability costs.”

 

To raise the profile and provide support to workplaces, a new voluntary Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace standard has been created, to be launched in 2013. The standard outlines 13 psychosocial risk factors that can either improve or worsen a worker’s mental well-being: organizational culture, psychological and social support, clear leadership and expectations, civility and respect, psychological demands, growth and development, recognition and reward, involvement and influence, workload management, engagement, balance, psychological protection and protection of physical safety.

 

To properly support employees with mental health problems, we need to challenge our own assumptions and stereotypes. In addition, workplaces need to create an environment that makes it safe for employees to talk about aspects of their lives that are having an impact on their mental health. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), “employees who were diagnosed with depression and who took the appropriate medication saved their employer an average of 11 days a year in prevented absenteeism.”

 

What can we do if we believe a co-worker is struggling to cope with depression, anxiety or any other mental illness? Here are some tips.

 

1. Encourage the co-worker to enlist the support of someone they trust who can help to advocate on their behalf (e.g., union steward, a sympathetic work friend, family member, or friend).

 

2. Make the co-worker aware that there is a psychological health and safety standard as well as other resources that may help guide the support she or he can ask for in their workplace.

 

3. Suggest to the co-worker that they make use of other services/resources available in the community and through work (e.g. employee and family assistance programs or benefits).

 

If you or someone you know needs help, visit www.pcchu.ca for a list of services in our community. Employers who want to ensure that your workplace is psychologically healthy and safe, visit www.healthatworkpeterborough.ca for resources that can help you get started.

 

The World Health Organization predicts that depression will be the single biggest medical burden on health by 2020. A recent report by Pubic Health Ontario and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, “Opening Eyes, Opening Minds” found that the burden of mental illness and addictions in Ontario is more than one and a half times that of all cancers, and more than seven times that of all infectious diseases. Early detection and timely treatment are critical. Whether at home, at work, or at play, let’s all take note and take care of one another.

 

Dr. Rosana Pellizzari is medical officer of health for Peterborough city and county.

Justice For Mental Health

No one should be meant to feel they need to suffer in silence.

 

Think your life is hard?  Suck it up - it's a tough world.  Boss too hard on you?  Maybe you're just not up to the job.  Trouble at home getting you down?  Nobody cares - leave your baggage at home, where it belongs.  Never tell people how you really feel, 'cause nobody cares; if you do, they'll just avoid you.  The people you deal with annoying?  Maybe you're being to soft on them. 

 

That's common wisdom in on our streets, in our places of business, in our homes and on the playground.  Emotional responses are for weak-kneed, bleeding hearts and rage-o-holics.  Those aren't the kind of people you want working for you - right?  The worst employment advice I've ever received was also the most practical - when someone asks how you're doing, always answer "living the dream."  They aren't asking because they are sympathetic, but because they want to judge your usefulness in that moment.

But here's the thing - everyone has limits.  When they are pushed, something gives.  Nearly every majorly successful person I know has suffered a collapsed family, harbours deep-rooted narcissistic self-doubt or partakes in substance abuse.  Frequently, it's all of the above.  This shouldn't come as any surprise, because stress is stress, whether physical or mental.  We have designed our society from top-to-bottom to facilitate work, not people.  The something that's giving is why we have a growing mental health crisis on our hands - and it's costing us.

 

This is most observable among two groups - those with mental illness who are coming into contact with the Justice system on the one side, and First Responders on the other.  Police, Nurses, EMTs, Paramedics, Teachers, parents, spouses and yes, bullied children are the canaries in the cognitive coal mine.  People are chafing, falling, dying because we refuse to realize how harmful our social "suck it up mentality" is.

 

But it doesn't have to be this way.  There are tools, internal and external, that can be applied.  There are mental exercises people can do to nurture resiliency and better manage stress.  Simple things like stopping and counting the positive things in your life can reshape your thought patterns, resulting in more broadly positive attitudes.  There are external solutions like drugs, walks, music and laughter that salve emotional strain.  There's nothing corny about this - it's scientific fact.  Just as eating junk food is bad for your physical health, constantly thinking negative thoughts is harmful for your brain.  The reverse is also true - the entire field of positive psychology was developed around this concept.

 

There are also environmental changes that can be made - innovative workplace designs and work schedules that not only reduce stress, but enhance productivity.  It's the next labour revolution and it's already begun to happen - some players are just ahead of the curve.   

 

We get that planned physical exercise strengthens, but sudden blows or repetitive stresses are harmful.  Some people are designed to be faster or taller or more prone to illnesses than others, physically; the same applies mentally.  

 

Sometimes, pushing against a closed door even harder isn't the solution - sometimes you need to try and give it a pull instead.  That's not being lazy, or weak, or a quitter; it's being smart.

 

Mental health is a pull door that we are still collectively pushing on, to our own detriment.  It's time we stop working against our cognitive natures and proactively, collectively pull the door open.  There's a whole world of opportunity on the other side - we just need to be conscious of this.

 

The CAMH Mental Health Strategy: Prevention and Intervention

It's encouraging that people of the caliber of David Goldbloom are speaking about this stuff.  But is the private sector listening?  They have the money and the employees - work is the centre of life these days, not family.  It's in the workplace that these changes must be lead.

 

In any given year, one in five people in Canada experiences a mental health problem or illness – that’s nearly seven million Canadians, each with family, friends and colleagues.

 

This past May, I had the honour of launching Changing Directions, Changing Lives, the first mental health strategy for Canada developed by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Implementing its recommendations will improve the health and well-being of tens of thousands of Canadians, contribute to our economic prosperity and help sustain our health-care system.

More Related to this Story

• PRESCRIPTIONS FOR HEALTH CAREThe battle against obesity begins at school

 

This national strategy calls on us all to do everything possible in everyday settings to prevent mental health problems from emerging. When prevention is not possible, help must be available as early as possible.

 

We can and should provide intervention and treatment earlier. As much as 70 per cent of young adults tell us that symptoms of mental health problems began in childhood. By intervening earlier, through programs in schools and for parents of young children, we stand to avoid significant downstream costs. For example, preventing conduct disorders in just one of the 85,000 Canadian children currently affected would result in lifetime savings of $280,000.

 

The strategy focuses on enabling people with mental health problems and illnesses to recover a meaningful life with less reliance on acute care, and with less risk of developing complex and expensive social problems that can land them in jail or on the streets. This means strengthening services, treatments and supports in the community and expanding the capacity of primary health care. It also means doing more to increase the availability of housing, employment options and peer support. Over time, this will result in a more sustainable health system by reducing demand on its most expensive parts, as well as generating cost savings in schools, workplaces and across the criminal justice system.

 

A report this month from Public Health Ontario and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences indicates that the burden of mental illness and addictions in Ontario is more than 1.5 times that of all cancers combined, as reflected by premature mortality and reduced functioning. It’s not surprising that costs to the economy in direct services and supports and in lost productivity have been pegged at more than $50-billion a year – this figure does not even include money spent on mental health by the criminal justice system, the education system and social services.

 

Canada spends considerably less on mental health than several comparable countries, with seven cents out of every public health-care dollar (7 per cent) going to mental health. This is far below the 10 per cent to 11 per cent of public health spending devoted in countries such as New Zealand and Britain. That’s why our strategy doesn’t only call for making better use of current investments in mental health. It also calls for Canada to support the transformation of the mental health system by increasing the amount spent from 7 per cent to 9 per cent of health spending over 10 years.

 

A sustainable health-care system is one that addresses key cost drivers effectively and efficiently. The Mental Health Strategy for Canada lays out a plan. Now we need the will to do it. The argument that mental illnesses deserve equal priority, understanding and treatment to physical illnesses makes sense to every person, family member and friend who has seen their impact. And in a world in which prosperity depends increasingly on brain power and on a productive and dynamic work force, Canada can’t afford not to invest in the future mental health and well-being of its population.

 

David Goldbloom is chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada and senior medical adviser at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Comprehensive Mental Health Reform - An Idea for the Times

“I think the opportunity, with this look at how we spend our dollars and ... talk about doing (things) differently, is: set some goals for ourselves and redesign. It’s tough, right, because that’s real change. Real change is really hard to do, but I think it’s possible and I’m hopeful that we take that opportunity.”

 

Mental health isn't just about illnesses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder - it touches on cognition, the ability to learn, social interaction, resiliency, productivity, innovative ability.  There's some relevance for all those fields in today's society.

 

Poor mental health is manifesting itself across the board; family stress, workplace stress, more hours worked with less to show for it, more people in the hospital, on medication or simply spiraling into anxiety and depression. 

 

This isn't about pandering to weakness or discouraging people from "being tough" any more than health and safety standards were about giving in to whiny employees.  For people to get the most from society and contribute to their maximum potential, we have to stop designing square peg infrastructure and cognitive labour models and trying to wedge rounded folk into them.  The right tool for the right job; the right training and accommodation for the times.

 

I'm very encouraged to see Minister Hoskins discussing this.

Mental Illness in the Public Sector: Tony Clement Had An Option

Treasury Board President Tony Clement was questioned about the way the government was managing its cuts following revelations that a Justice Canada lawyer committed suicide after he and his wife received “affected letters” putting them on notice that their jobs were in jeopardy.

 

“It’s not my place to respond to this question,” he said following Question Period on Thursday.

Pardon my English, but bullshit, Mr. Clement.  You're the Minister responsible for the mismanagement of the Slash-And-Burn Public Staff File - if not you, who? 

 

It's enough to drive you nuts - or at least, exacerbate depression and anxiety.  I really find it hard to fathom how, after a multi-faceted campaign to achieve majority government, Team Harper can be so silo-based in its thinking to not see how harmful their policy regimen is to Canada,  particularly given the commitment of folks like Stephen Harper himself and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to addressing Canada's mental health crisis.

 

But we know what they're thinking - too many people are suckling at the government teat.  Broad ranging government services and regulations impede success.  It's a cut-throat world out there, survival of the fittest, etc.  People have to get tougher, take more responsibility and become more competitive to get ahead. 

 

Here's the thing - survival of the fittest isn't about everyone becoming tougher.  It's about the less competitive literally dying off.

 

That, really, is what suicide is.  Most people with suicidal ideation go through a horrendous, tortured internal process that chips away at their sense of self-worth.  They feel they have no value - in fact, all they do is place a burden on others.  Every minute is merely another eternity of enduring psychological agony and shame.  In essence, they don't feel like they're fit enough to be in society to such a strong degree that they feel the most responsible course of action is  to take themselves out of it.

 

What are some of the external factors that lead to suicidal ideation?

 

- Grief

- Unemployment

- Rejection

- Traumatic events

- Financial/problems

 

So, picture you've worked hard to get your law degree and secure a job but still feel as though you aren't doing enough to earn your keep.  In fact, you're even willing to cancel your vacation because you feel you'll be letting others down/not getting enoughdone if you take a break.  You already doubt yourself - then you have that doubt validated by your employer with an "affected" letter.

 

“We have stressed on a number of occasions (the cuts) will affect the lives of people, it will impact on not only them but the people around them as well as their individual circumstances. We are not talking about widgets. The people are real and they need to be treated with respect and dignity.”

How many of those receiving affected letters have families and mortgages?  How easy will it be for them to compete with younger folk on the job market that don't have responsibilities so can work longer hours and probably for lower wages?  Will these people worry about how to support their family, feel as though they have failed their duties?  What does this do to one's sense of self-worth?

 

The whole "keep home and work separate" meme is crap.  There is only one person; we can't switch work/life brains the way Mister Roger changes his shoes.  Just as the stresses a person faces at home will impact their performance at work, what happens at work impacts family life, too.  What happens to the individual at the centre of all this accumulated stress?  Their health, performance and relationships begin to suffer. 

 

About 48 per cent of all health claims filed by public servants are for mental health claims, often for depression and anxiety. As of August, those claims were already 13 per cent higher than last year.

 

This isn't just the public sector, either.  Mental illness and addictions cost the Ontario economy $39 billion annually and are trending to become the number one cost driver of disability claims by 2020.  The Private Sector spends at least $2.1 billion annually on disability claims, drug costs and employee assistance programs (EAPs).  It's like cognitive carpal tunnel syndrome - the repetitive psychological stress doesn't make you tougher or whatever, it wears you down.

 

As if it wasn't bad enough that the Harper Government is abdicating any sense of responsibility for mental health in its public sector employees, they are completely dropping the ball on mental health in the military.  How can we be thinking of war with Iran when we haven't dealt with the mental health of our troops? 

 

But back to Tony Clement.  We can already see the narrative he hopes to use emerging; people shouldn't bring their work home, this guy had problems unrelated to his work, so on and so forth.  Whatever mental health issues emerge in the public sector, it's got nothing to do with him.  In avoiding questions about whether he has read any reports about stress and anxiety levels among the public service since he started his cuts, Clement is trying to evade any personal responsibility for the consequence of his actions.  Of course, we knew this was coming - Team Harper has been strategically dismantling data since day one for the express purpose of unencumbering their policy decisions from the burden of fact.

 

Unless Clement has been living in a complete bubble, though, there's no way he could have avoided the countless studies out there tying workplace anxiety to mental health.  A fellow he might know by the name of Michael Kirby has dedicated a lot of time to the issue.  Besides, isn't one of his duties as President of the Treasury Board to table, in Parliament, reports, papers and operational documents?

 

If Clement has been pulling a Rob Ford and ignoring the content of his materials, there is still the fact that he committed, publicly, to a supportive and orderly staff transition.  Hell, I even sent him a template he could have built a plan on:

 

Craig Carter-Edwards — @TonyclementCPC; if you're seriously looking into an exiting-staff transition strategy, feel free to crib from this http://t.co/26akna4B (1)

 

You, sir, had an option that could have done a hell of a lot to prevent this uptick in anxiety and all its consequences.  Including this poor man's suicide.

 

Instead of leaving employees in the lurch and peeling the staff reduction bandaid off over a period of months, Clement could have created an orderly transition first and put more effort into making the reduction as quick as possible, allowing for people to move on and helping them to do so effectively.

 

That sounds a bit too much like enabling, though doesn't it?  Team Harper's whole mandate is about downloading responsibility and beating, not supporting, the other guy.  Their politics bleeds directly into their governance style, to Canada's detriment.  Folks, if you really feel that strongly against responsibility, don't run for office.  The job of leaders is to lead, not to abdicate. 

 

They still have a chance.  If he moves quickly, Clement can still put together a true staff transition plan and help stop this cognitive crisis in the public sector.  Likewise, Team Harper can still do as they've been advised and set up a comprehensive, national mental health strategy.  All the evidence points to the benefit both of these actions would have for the public.

 

Here's the challenge, though - implementing a proactive, national mental health strategy and providing supports for their workers goes against everything the Harper folk believe; survival of the fittest, centrally coordinated services are bad, government is the problem, not the solution, etc.  They can ignore the facts for only so long before more people start to suffer from their approach - something Clement has seen happen before.

 

They can either pursue their ideology or they can help prevent more mental health related tragedies, but they can't do both.

 

It must make them crazy to think about.

Family Impact

Stephanie Zubcic PhD‏@BeingUncosmo

#FUCKcancer That's what I'm learning! RT @__CCE: @BeingUncosmo Never let an experience pass, though, without learning something from it!

That's taken from my Twitter feed.  Stephanie and I (who don't know each other personally, but that's the way social media rolls) had just started following each other.  I saw a tweet from her about "this too shall pass" and answered, starting the thread.

Stephanie's answer got me thinking about my own experiences with cancer; I lost an aunt to lung cancer and my father-in-law to non-Hodgkins lymphoma.  Both were terrible experiences for the individual to go through but they were hell on the family, too.  I still remember my grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, watching his daughter waste away - hard enough as it was, but her physical condition kept giving him flashbacks to Buchenwald.  How he found the strength to keep going and holding her hand, I'll never know.

My father-in-law wasted away over years; there were moments of crisis, uncertainty, but the end was never in doubt.  The ten years of tribulations my wife's family went through took a tremendous toll on all of them, impacting their lives in ways they aren't always conscious of.  When I go through any trial - for instance, my recent run-in with an ignorant driver - my wife goes into "it's all unravelling" mode.  There's no feeling worse than knowing you are causing distress for someone else.

So, I sympathize with Stephanie.  I sympathize with the family of Tori Stafford, with Lisa Raitt, and with all the families of everyone going through challenges personal, professional or physical.  The families are victims just as much as the person directly impacted.  It's not enough for us to tell these people to "tough it through" or "stay strong" or at worst, "suck it up;" there's a big difference between surviving an experience and learning to live again after.

Experiences of hardship will shape you, one way or the other, but it's the love and support of others that will help you move forward.

Tear Down the Silos in Health Care

  

She said the report’s “balanced approach” addresses more than simply medical issues and takes steps towards better co-operation between agencies.

Sidsworth said social agencies, including those addressing mental health, domestic violence and addictions, tend to “work in silos” without enough interaction.

 - The Belleville Intelligencer

What we need is a broad revamping of the system that makes the parts work better together, so that the whole is greater than — or at the very least equal to — the sum of the parts.

   - The Drummond Report

Everyone, every health service provider, teacher, politician and stakeholder I have spoken to wants the same thing – an integrated system that fully serves the needs of Ontarians.  This isn’t a pipe dream; in fact, it’s completely realizable based on the tools we have available, right now.  The only piece that’s missing is our willingness to give a bit of control to support something larger than ourselves.

It’s time to break down the silos in our social service system, especially in health care.  As a society, we simply can no longer afford not to.

UPDATE: We have deficient diagnosis of special needs in our schools; these are people who the suffer a great risk of falling through the cracks of society, producing less, consuming more costly back-end health services and potentially ending tangled up with the justice system.  Our police and corrections officers are not equipped to deal with mental illness, because the how to has never been seen as important enough to rate significant comprehension and training. 

So, we are reminded of the atrocities still happening in our correctional institutions that are caused by a lack of coordination, training and support. You have upset teachers and disgruntled doctors each saying all they want is the ability to provide the best service to their patients/students and cries from all levels for systematic, structural change to the way services are organized and collaborated on.

What we need now is leadership.  We need someone who's willing to take the risk of putting the Public Good before personal interest, be it politics, profit or power.  None of those things matter when our silo-based institutions are cracking from the internal pressure of their own inefficiency.

Everyone keeps telling me there is only one way forward - if we believe that, it's time to start working together.

Pay Attention to Your Mental Health

Mental health can no longer be ignored. We are all affected. We are all touched by it. That's why we are pledging our support to improve mental health in Canada.

If you have never lost hearing, you've probably not spent much time wondering what the world would be like if you couldn't hear it.  Same applies to using a wheelchair or stroller - unless you have had difficulty accessing society, you'd never have thought about what it would be like to be restricted.

You probably have, however, been laid up by a severe cold, unable to do the things you would like to.  The cold is not a reflection of any personal flaw, any more than hearing impairment, though it might be caused by a loud workplace or listening to music at full volume, says anything fundamentally negative about you as a person.

What about having an off day?  A day where you just have the blues, or things set you off a bit more than they would otherwise?  "I just need my coffee," you might say, or "I'm due for a vacation."

That's mental health.  Just as a cold, a sore muscle or weakened eyes are manifestations of physical health, how you feel, overarching thought trains that cloud your judgement or make you hyper- or less-aware are mental health.

We all have brains.  Those brains function through complex neurochemistry that are impacted by internal factors like diet, general health, genetics and by external factors like work environments, family life, the weather.  Since we spend so little time thinking about how we think, we aren't connecting these dots; moods are dismissed, people either make us feel good or they don't, life is pain or a box of chocolates.  We tell ourselves it's got nothing to do with us, we're just responding to what the world throws at us.  Well, what causes us to respond reactively vs proactively?  To be patient in one situation yet short-tempered in another?  Ultimately, it's all in your mind.

Because we don't take conscious ownership of our mental health, we have very little control over it.  We don't design our systems - our home lives, our workplaces, our social services - with cognitive function in mind.  As such, we are all being moved around, like pieces on a board, by factors beyond our comprehension.  The rich businessman who thinks he can escape consequences for graft yet gets caught - that's mental health.  The politicians who postpone important decisions in favour of flashy ones, knowing it will burn them in the end - that's mental health.  The tired parents who yell at their kids for no deserving reason, with all the consequences that entails - that's mental health, too.  The call we're not returning because we owe information or the call we are taking because the person is fun to talk to - that's all our cognitive selves, motivating us in ways we don't even fathom.

 

This simple reality (our unconsciousness about consciousness) has huge consequences for how we plan, how we parent, how we manage or respond to management.  The subconscious rating of expense vs payoff tells us whether we act today at the expense of consequences tomorrow or if we plan ahead.  Here's the fun thing, though - you can train yourself to have conscious control.

Social-emotional learning.  Programs like Roots of Empathy.  Cognitive workplace design.  "Mindfulness," which is a fancy way of saying "pay attention to your thoughts and what impacts them."  The mind, like the body, is a tool we can harness, if we know how it works and if we make the effort to do so.

Mental health isn't just about disorders like bipolar or schizophrenia, any more than health is just about cancer or diabetes.  Mental health is about individual control in a social context and fostering a social context that empowers individual control.

Unless we are conscious about what's going on in our own heads, we will continue to be victims of circumstance.

A Social Illness: The Crime of Being Sick

As the conversation ended, they tried to explain what it’s like to be poor and disabled in Ontario. “It’s like you’re always being judged and found guilty of some crime,” Koo said. Smith gave it a name: “the crime of being sick.”

Recently, I was hit by a car.  I was very lucky in that I bounced back.  Even then, the challenges I face in trying to get myself back to full functionality are not slight.  The fact that the guy who hit me got off without any repercussions didn't help any.  Worse - this fella belittled a police officer during the process of the investigation.  The driver, Ryan Bornstein (not his real name, but the name he gave me), is a lawyer - knowing the rules, he knows how to skirt them.  He broke the law, lied about it, lied about his name and is facing zero legal repercussions.  It doesn't occur to him that there should be any; for Mr. Pseudonym, the very concept of responsibility doesn't enter the picture. 

Now, magnify that sentiment a million fold. 

"I never give money to homeless people. I can’t reward failure in good conscience."

"I'm not concerned about the very poor."

"His private, personal religious views would not interfere in his role as an MLA.”

As a society, we aren't making much of an effort to encourage responsibility on the part of the empowered; the 1%, as it were.  The prevailing logic asks us - why should we?  Those at the top were successful.  It's everyone else that needs to step up their game.  To the victor go the spoils, etc.  Don't whine if you lose, just play dirtier next time.  The 1% certainly feel that it's the poor and the disenfranchised that own all the responsibility for their lot in life.  The failures of the 99% are due to their own incompetence, sloth, short-sightedness or a lack of moral fortitude.  The idea of disability through physical illness hardly registers; most people refuse to acknowledge the idea of mental illness as a problem.

Well, Mr. Bornstein is hardly the quickest bunny in the forest.  By seeking to immediately and fully abdicate responsibility, he's opened himself up to a host of challenges in the court of public opinion.  Of course, that's an outcome you risk when you underestimate your opponent.

Here's my question back to those folk who either see themselves as social puppet masters or completely removed from the goings on of the rest of society; if success comes through toughness and toughness implies the ability to get ahead at the expense of others, does that not imply there will always be those who are left behind?  The bear's going to get someone, right?

It sure will.  This is reality the supposed rain makers of the world seem blind to.  When you see yourself as history's actors, after all, you get to make reality up as you go, right?  You can always trade in your production crews.  What these players don't ask themselves is, how long does 'always' tend to last?

If you look at history - pick your revolution, pick Civil Rights or Apartheid or the rise of Fascism and the entirely justified and forceful response to it - you see that the answer is, "not as long as you might think."

This, then is the crossroads we're at right now.  The disenfranchised, fueled by the connectivity of the Internet, are only going to live with feeling helpless for so long.  As their ranks swell with the formerly-successful who have been marginalized in our polarized times, those disenfranchised troops will sooner or later be rallied into taking action.  Maybe it will come at the polls; somehow, that doesn't seem likely.

Occupy has been dismissed as disorganized, having no clear objective and being largely a rallying point for those who don't want to make any efforts on their own behalf.  That may be partially the case, but no revolution begins as a fully-formed organization with clarity of purpose.  That all comes over time and generally gains momentum after hitting some kind of tipping point.

I would expect, in the not-too-far-distant future, that a spark will light off our social powder keg and incite a societal brush fire.  This could be a political scandal that is too egregious to ignore, but so far, such scandals have only proven to be kindling.  It will likely take something more dramatic to wake the sleeping beast.   It's happened before; it'll happen again.

We could avoid all this, of course, if we simply stop and think far enough ahead.  The long-term trend is encouraging in this regard; even as every new regime tries to rewrite history, more and more people have access to accurate versions of yesterday's mistakes.  With every bust, we do look a bit further down the road, but I don't think we have our eye on the destination quite yet.

There's only one way forward.  Disagree with me all you want; just don't blame the messenger for your own failure to heed the message.

Work, Stress, Illness - and Reduced Productivity, Increased Healthcare Usage, etc.

From Workopolis on a theme I have discussed, elsewhere:

Study: Why the majority of working Canadians are stressed on the job


I ran into a former colleague at the subway recently and after we chatted about mutual colleagues and our lives, she casually mentioned that she was looking for other opportunities. Her last job had been causing her an unhealthy amount of stress, she hadn't been able to sleep or even enjoy her time off because of anxieties about work.

She's not alone. A study by Statistics Canada found that six out of ten employed people said that work is their main source of stress. What the study also found is that workers who are stressed about their jobs tend to be well-educated and have white-collar jobs. Three-quarters of them had a college or university education and over half held jobs in management, professional and technical occupations.

What are the reasons for job stress?

Lack of Job Security

Outsourcing, layoffs and downsizing all contribute to high stress levels. These actions affect everyone in a company. People who are insecure about whether they'll have a job in the next few weeks won't be able to focus and often suffer from a lack of confidence, efficiency and a lack of energy.

This category also includes contract and temporary work. Not knowing your work situation when you're on contract can be stressful especially when the company waits until the last minute to either renew your contract or terminate your employment.

Office Politics and Bullying

Whether it's the mean group at work or a boss who likes to play favourites, office politics is a top cause of job stress. This can intensify if workers have no outlet to complain or feel that there is no recourse to deal with the situation.

No Recognition

If you're not recognized for your work contributions this can lead to resentment which could lead to a drop in job performance and stress. This becomes a vicious cycle and soon you're hating your job and stressing out about it.

We're not talking monetary recognition, which is always nice, but simple recognition by a boss for a job well done can go a long way. A lack of recognition also hurts a company as top talent leaves for better corporate cultures.

This category also includes a lack of feedback, good or bad. People want to know they're doing the job correctly. Not telling them leaves them trying to guess and stressing out about their performance.

A Lack of Control

An employee who has no say about their work situation is not a productive employee. He is a stressed employee who feels adrift because all decisions that affect him are made by someone else.

Micromanagement and over-management are also sources of job stress. They leave no room for the employee to be creative, make decisions or make mistakes. Instead, people quit or go on stress leave.

The StatsCan study says that mental health problems which includes stress cost employers an estimated $20 billion annually. That's $20 billion. Think about that. It's much cheaper to ensure that employees are happy and ideally stress-free. Not only is it good for them but ultimately good for the company and the economy.

Stephen Harper: It’s Dangerous to Ignore Our Veterans

“Mentally scarred and physically wounded, they have had to fight for benefits and assistance — or, alternatively, bear their pain and frustration alone. Families have fallen apart, work has been impossible to find and addictions have caused lives to spiral out of control.”

 

I have an active interest in how veterans are treated.  My grandfather, Ed Carter-Edwards, served as an Airman during World War II and actually ended up spending time incarcerated at Buchenwald Concentration Camp.  To survive, my grandpa built thick mental firewalls to disconnect from the horrors that surrounded him; when he returned to Canada, the damage was so great that he spent some time institutionalized.  Upon his release, the advice he was given by his military overseers was to keep his experience to himself; to talk about something like that would make people uncomfortable and essentially make him un-hirable. 

The more I have learned about my grandfather’s War experience, the greater an understanding I have of how it shaped him and, as a consequence, my father and myself.  It was the undying devotion of his wife and family that helped him re-adapt to civilian life, though the scars are never far from the surface.  I go to great pains to teach my son that it is not okay to absolve oneself of social responsibility; when we do that, everyone suffers.  We owe it to ourselves to be supportive of others.  It’s yet one more reason why I got into politics and why I’m such a staunch advocate for building strong, collaborative individuals for a strong, functioning society. 

If we owe ourselves a supportive society, we are indebted to our men and women in uniform who sacrifice so much, on so many levels, to give us the security we need to foster that society.  History teaches us what happens when we break that vow.

There’s World War II – there’s also Vietnam.  It was a tough war fought on questionable ground, but the men and women who put their lives on the line did so because that was the personal commitment they had made to their country; to keep it safe or die trying.  The expectation therein is that the country has an obligation back to their soldiers, not to offer a lump-sum of cash and move along, but to help those vets every step of the way.  The US didn’t post-Vietnam – a study in 2007 determined that 1 in 4 homeless people in America were vets.

We now have 40,000 Canadian veterans who served the will of government through deployments to Afghanistan.  Some of them have been horrendously, physically injured.  Every last one of them has lived, over there, in a constant state of anxiety for what might come next.  Every last soldier bears the psychological scars that are the inevitable wounds of war. 

Canada’s military puts more than their lives on the line when they don our uniform; they risk their sanity, the well-being of their families and their future, should they survive their deployments (tricky thing; if the government doesn't declare war, it impacts a soldier's benefits).  This is more than any employer has the right to ask of an employee, but like teachers, soldiers don’t serve for themselves, but out of their belief in something greater.  They also cannot speak out on their own behalf – that is the level of commitment they make by signing up to serve.  Our obligations to them, to their families and to our collective future must equally be more than contractual – it must be moral.

I had assumed Canada has learned the lesson that has played out, time and time again, globally – you need to support your vets.  If you don’t, a couple of things happen; one, they can develop longer-term illnesses, physical and psychological, that impede their ability to function in society.  On worst-case scenarios, you see violence, suicide, or great men found drunk under park benches.  Post-traumatic stress disorder is but a fraction of this.  Here in Ontario, the McGuinty government recognized that firefighters can develop work-related illnesses that can be debilitating and made the right move to provide them with the help they deserve for the job they do, protecting the rest of us.  Harper's such a big supporter of the military, right?  Surely he would proactively do right by our men and women in uniform?

Turns out I was wrong.  The Harper government has moved away from ongoing support for disabled veterans in favour of a one-time lump sum payment.  They also put the responsibility to justify disability assistance on disabled soldiers, which is a bit like telling someone who was hit by a car it's up to them to prove they were injured.  Sure, this fits within their general modus operandi of “leave people to fend for themselves” following meagre cheques in the mail for child care instead of a plan and the gutting of Canada’s census.  It’s the standard Hard Right, Hawkish approach – you need to build in a certain “moral toughness” into people by forcing them to survive on their own – selection of the fittest in a social context.  It’s also so wrong as to be dangerous.

It just goes to show how completely ignorant, willfully or not, these people are of history and biology.  It wasn’t a lack of “moral toughness” that helped scale us back from a nuclear Holocaust in 1963 – in fact, it was the ingrained need to be the last man standing that landed us on the brink over those thirteen days.  “Toughness” isn’t the ability to fight back against whatever – what we want to foster is resiliency.  Instead of pursuing an evidence-based approach that looks at physical and psychological kinetics, the Tories are just going with their gut.

So, here’s a little gut-fact for you; anger is strongly correlated with obesity and heart disease.  Look at the bulldogs in the Harper cabinet – Dean del Mastro is a good example.  Look at Toronto’s Rob Ford.  Look at Stephen Harper himself.  These are angry, bitter men that aren’t connecting the dots between their waistlines and their cognitive positioning.  What this means, ultimately, that they can’t fix their problems with a one-off diet regimen; there is an entire lifestyle change required, one that will take the support of their peers and, more broadly, the society in which they exist.

Which brings us back to our 40,000 Canadian veterans of Afghanistan.  If the government plans to absolve their broader responsibility to the long-term well-being of these men and women, they are going to have problems reacclimatizing to civilian life.  Full stop.  That means broken families (and impacted children), dysfunction at work and potential long-term unemployment and the acting out socially of the symptoms of their PTSD, etc.  None of this will be their fault but they, along with society, will have no choice but to bear the consequences of Team Harper’s un-front negligence.  This helps our broader internal and external security goals none at all. 

Another thing to consider; Canada’s military brass, like director-levels everywhere, is largely made up of baby boomers.  When they retire, who will replace them?  Those same vets whose PTSD did not get adequate short-term treatment.  Almost 1 in 4 Canadian veterans of Afghanistan suffer from mental illness.  Think about what that could mean for the future of Canadian military decisions for a second.

What’s maddening about this is that Stephen Harper gets the impact of mental illness; his biological grandfather suffered depression and likely committed suicide as a result.  There is an unfortunate social stigma around mental illness and suicide; if I read Harper right, his internal fears about self-control, exacerbated by his frustration with some control-removing Liberal pollicies like the NEP, have largely shaped his Machiavellian, firewall, control-freak nature and policy development.  His anger management issues fit that context perfectly.

Caught in a cycle of recrimination, Harper is perpetuating the mistakes of the past – mistakes we can ill afford at a time when the global economy is crumpling and very real international threats, including the rise of ethnic violence in Europe, are building.  Now is the very worst time to hide behind walls – from the top down, Canadians must be open with and supportive of each other.  Stephen Harper needs to set a positive example by seeking help to conquer his internal demons; it will take a lot of courage on his part, but as Prime Minister, it’s his job to pave the way.  There are precedents to this; there’s a reason why Australia is a leader in mental health promotion.

It takes guts to make oneself so utterly vulnerable, particularly when one has worked so hard to foster a political culture of vicious personal attacks.  True strength doesn’t come from without, however, but from within.  Harper can internally justify taking such a brave risk by saying he’s not doing it for himself; he’s not even doing for his Party.  He would publicly own up to his insecurities and seek help in remedying them on behalf of our soldiers.  Harper would also have mountains of evidence-based reasoning in his favour (some of which can be found in the left-hand column of this blog).  In so doing, he would then empower himself and society to face the elephant in the room and start doing right by our veterans.

After all, they do the same for us each and every day.