Corporations start to talk about mental health stigma

[David Baxter PhD]

Explode the mental illness stigma
Globe and Mail
September 26, 2010

The stigma and shame associated with mental illness will not be lifted all at once, but by degrees, as the issue is brought out of the shadows and into the open. The harm done by the tenacious and anachronistic silence around mental ill health is immense, because it prevents or delays people from getting help, which only worsens the illness. That is why the corporate sector needs to show leadership in helping erase the shame around mental illness. Maintaining a healthy work force is a matter of corporate self-interest, and companies are beginning to take notice.

Bill Wilkerson, co-founder of the Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Mental Health, sees a sea change of late in Canadian business, after years in which companies mostly paid lip service to mental-health issues. Bell Canada president George Cope spoke this week about his mother's depression and announced a $50-million donation to mental-health-related causes, and has enlisted Clara Hughes, Canada's flag-bearer at the Vancouver Olympic Games to spread the message ? the six-time medalist has suffered depression. Canada Post Corp. and Great West Life also have major mental-health initiatives under way. ?About two years ago, we started to see something happen, driven by CEOs with family experience with mental illness.?

Not many CEOs have not gone public, Mr. Wilkerson said, but ?senior figures in the financial services industry, in the steel and energy industry? have wrestled with the issue It's not just a pet cause, but an investment based on sound business principles. ?By investing in the brain health of employees, in an economy where cerebral skills are at a premium, we are investing in competitive strengths.?

There is a lot of work to do in the mental health field where corporate Canada can make a difference. Companies need to attend their employees' own mental health. They can also be part of public-private partnerships that can expand community services and supports for sufferers of mental-health related diseases and conditions. And they can help support research into prevention and treatment.

What one doesn't talk about, one stigmatizes. The silence around mental illness as a business issue is beginning to break up.

 

[Pheonix]

Oh My God, Corporations control so much of their employies lives, not to mention the country, now they are trying to get into peoples brains. Regular compulsary mental health checks for employies who seem a bit different or deiviate from the group think, mandated CBT treatments, tied to payscale and promotion, hey dont they have that already?. Jeez, can anyone else see the the potential for increasing corporate domination over peoples lives (after all they already run politics and healthcare. Controling a population with psychological behavioural modification techniques by corporate institutions is widely used, of course they will look to expand and fine tune it. Maybe we are all too busy looking on the "Bright Side". The future is not about, left or right, this nationality or that, the future struggle will be about the free thinking individual v corporation self interest. Just as well, the undergrounds looking good.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Regular compulsary mental health checks for employies who seem a bit different or deiviate from the group think, mandated CBT treatments, tied to payscale and promotion, hey dont they have that already?. Jeez, can anyone else see the the potential for increasing corporate domination over peoples lives (after all they already run politics and healthcare. Controling a population with psychological behavioural modification techniques by corporate institutions is widely used, of course they will look to expand and fine tune it.

Where do you get any of that from this article?

 

[Pheonix]

Corporations only reason for interest in employees mental health is money. Safegarding corperate profits and increasing worker production. And thats it.
The quote you highlighted was merely my general opinion and not specific to the promotion article.

 

[Daniel E.]

Of course, there is a difference between corporations in general and the individuals in those corporations.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Corporations only reason for interest in employees mental health is money. Safegarding corperate profits and increasing worker production. And thats it.

That is probably true for some. It is not true for all, in my experience.

But that has nothing to do with corporations like Bell or IBM stepping up to raise awareness regarding mental health issues.