WOMEN’S MENTAL HEALTH AND SCHIZOPHRENIA

Women clients with a mental health issue like schizophrenia are doubly damned in India because
A. they are women
B. they have a ‘mental health condition’ that can and does attract loads of stigma.

The conventional treatment does not always take into account the background factors of the “mentally ill” [I prefer using the word psychosocially challenged as per rights-based terminology] woman in all its details and even if it does, it very often fails to give importance to the patriarchal angle associated with the problem. The essential ingredients of feminist therapy which are incorporated in Feminist Self Advocacy developed by me are as follows:


1. Recognition of patriarchal oppression: since many of the presenting symptoms reflect normal reactions to restrictive environments, FSA aims at changing the lives of women by teaching them to deal with oppressive environments in ways that will enhance their personal bargaining power as also change such environments since a purely intrapsychic change in women will not help.


2. Empowerment: The essence of which is to encourage the woman with mental illness to see herself as having the personal resources to change her pathological environment.


3. Self-reflection: This is to keep the therapist and caregivers and the woman with mental illness continuously engaged in self-reflection with the therapist and caregivers avoiding the imposition of their own perspective on the client.


4. Equal relationships: are to be promoted between the woman with mental illness and therapist via dismantling of power hierarchies between the therapist and the woman with mental illness. This is intended to facilitate an open-minded approach on the part of the therapist (who is very transparent and admits her faults) to the line of therapy and an appreciation of the fact that the woman with mental illness is an expert on herself - she being the direct sufferer.


More regarding women’s empowerment approaches to healing shall come soon!!!


#WOMENSMENTALHEALTH #CRPD #mentalhealthspecialist #recoverymovement #empoweringapproaches #rightsbasedapproaches #womensactivist ##overcomingstigma #crpd #mentalhealthmatters #nonpsychiatricalternatives #specialschizophreniaknowledge #itsoktotalk #turningtheworldupsidedown #bustingmentalhealthmyths #whatshappeningtoclientsdeepwithin #selfadvocate #schizophreniaexpert #usersurvivor #indiasfirstrecoveryspecialist #mentalhealthactivist #creativewriter #author

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