Here are a couple of feedbacks given on service design ideas I have mentioned in the draft proposal. Based on feedbacks my peer has given me, all of my ideas does not really cover up the direction I want to achieve in this assignment, which is service design because my ideas do not involve a person with another person (two interactions or more) but a person with object. She suggested me to look up at examples of service design from lecture notes. Although I did so. I also looked up at the readings in UTS online. I take that service design based app and text message are common ones. However I wanted to make something different therefore, I came up with the idea of phone charger, meditation box and landscape app. I still believe that my ideas can be included as part of service design as well although they might require one-sided interaction only. According to Wikipedia, “service design is a form of conceptual design that involves the activity of planning and organizing people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service in order to improve its quality and the interaction between the service provider and its customers.” My ideas could be really used to serve people and fulfill their needs by motivating them to change their bad habits, providing effectiveness, and promoting body and mind health.
To continue with the feedback, she also told me that perhaps the second idea could have been a good idea if the meditation box was made for public rather than individual. It means that the meditation box should be made more approachable from or accessible to public. Furthermore, the idea would have worked if it was made high-technologically: designed with earphone to listen to nature’s sounds, visual screen to see the nature images.
Apart from the ideas provided in the draft proposal, she suggested me a mute functionality touch button for mobile phone. She enthusiastically told me that she watched a Youtube video about an innovation of mute touch screen button. However in order to do that, the mobile phone users need to download an app that links to the device. The users are able to turn off the notification sounds even when the device is in sound mode whenever they touch the point button. Lastly, she mentioned about an app specialies in reducing the mental health issue. This app allows the users to share about what is bothering them to their social media friends, such as status. The aim is to put the sufferers at ease. Given that some people might be concerned about their names and mental health statuses spreading throughout the platform, users will be given 2 choices: named or anonymous. In this app, whoever suffers the most severe mental issue will appear at the highest position of timeline page, following by some colors to indicate their status of mental health. The top users should be getting the most helps.
The tutor on the other hand, considered all of my ideas was good. She wanted me to look at how excessive usage of gadgets and social media (factor of mental issue found throughout mindmaping session) in association with mental health stigma (main topic of reseach). At first, tutor thought the first idea was good however, she concerned it would cause more problems if phone users were restricted to use mobile phones at night, which means they cannot use their mobile phones even for emergency purposes because the device is made to be chargeable during night hours. Therefore, unrecommended. Last thing is she wanted me to spend some time researching on stress, mental health and social media for 3 poster designs.
Refined Proposition
Faith Brings Positive Change
My research is on mental health issue, particularly on stigma on mental health. However in this task, I would like to work more on particular issue, which is stress and anxiety caused by excessive used of social media. I want to encourage people to get familiar with apps, certain objects and colors that will give them sense of relaxation by being imaginative and putting them into a state of mindfulness.
I can relate the mental health stigma with stress and anxiety caused by excessive used of social media. Nowadays, social media users tend to share contents which mostly they are disagree about. In this modern world, social media users have developed habits of being judgemental in something they have lack of knoweldge about (e.g mental health). Considering that media is a powerful tool and if the media agencies are being irresponsible in their news contents (e.g news headlines: mentally-ill nurse should not be allowed to work in children hospital), the adults or parents social media users would get angry or disappointed then they would share the news to social media platforms full of student and young users who might read their posts and get influenced by. Stereotyping will keep passing down generation to generation. Stereotypes and negative perceptions cause fear in general population and people with mental issue. This fear results in stress and anxiety.
In the case of stigma, the missing point is the lack contents about positive personal experiences dealing with mental issue in media and social media platforms. Public needs to hear accurate information on mental health and it can only come from the experts in the field and people with mental issue themselves.
I have came up with an idea of service design, an entertainment app as well as social media associated stigma, and stress and anxiety. It suits the needs of modern society with a little bit of touch of nature aspects. The aim is to build community supports. This app allows you to build your own imagination of landscape using drag point to position certain elements of nature into the page to share about in where or what environments they wish to be (imaginations of a better world), to post current mental status and feelings, to give advices on others posts, and to share their honest personal experiences dealing with mental issue. They are free to link their account with their social media in order to gain public’s understanding and reduce stigma.
The first mindmap shows several possible ways to make a difference in mental health issue in people age 18-25 very clearly. The starting point of the mindmap has already concluded the whole story of the mindmap. It is easy to recognise what the group is trying to say through the words “proactive” and “self-help”. According to dictionary, proactive means controlling a situation before anything has happened. The meaning of it is similar to prevention. Furthermore, self-help has a meaning of taking an independent action in order to take care of themselves. In other words, an action taken without relying on others’ help. Self-help can also be taken anywhere and anytime that suit their needs.
Mindfulness, learning about self-characters and personalities, turning mobile phone notifications off for a while, willing to change are few examples of prevention that can be taken in your free time at your private places. This is why it being referred as “self-help”. Although everything seems to be alright, there are few things that I would like to point out. Instead of putting repetitive words with similar meaning to the starting point title, such as “early prevention” and “proactivity”, we could use the space to explain how each action might contibute to change to the issue, how easy the action is to be taken by young adults age 18-25 without putting so much pressure/effort onto it. Furthermore, the mindmap shows that the group struggled to explain few things that are meant to be stretched a little further. One of these is how computer and colors are linked to emotions.
The second mindmap contains the same message as much as the first mindmap, which is some ways that people age 18-25 could do on their own in order to make a difference in mental health issue, however this mindmap tends to show us how we are supposed to control ourselves in the way we treat other people, which makes it slightly different from the first mindmap. Self-control (ownership) and situation-handling skills play important roles in this matter. One of the few things that can control the surroundings and the way the body and mind react to the situations is yourself. It is pretty much the same as self-help kind of treatment however, we can start supporting each other, help the others to deal with the problems and it starts from you. You can make a difference in others’ lives. If you have ever heard of this, being generous, helping others is a key to achieving happiness. Try to be more sensitive towards others’ feelings (how do you want to make people feel, think whether what you say is kind and true), learn kindness, practice mindfulness, train your brain are few examples of making a difference in mental health issue, for you and others.
There are possible ways to make a difference in mental health issue in range of age between 18-25. People must take care of themselves physically and also emotionally. It has always been a great idea to be aware of what is happening inside the body and mind. In case they notice something wrong with them, people should actively take further steps to help themselves. Daily business can be a great distraction however, there is nothing wrong by constantly checking on themselves. It would be really wise to prevent further damages within mind and body than fix what has already happened.
Early prevention of mental illness must be considered seriously. Few examples of early prevention are:
Reduce time on social media and turn notifications off for a while. Social media notifications might cause people to feel anxious. Furthermore, the usage of mobile phone in the middle of night causes people to have restless sleep.
Build self-confidence/awakeness. Hopelessness is associated with depressive thought. People should try to shift their way of thinking for a bit to get their confidence back and keep moving on, willing to change.
Get familiar with, take your participation or build understanding in meditation app/video that might allow you to touch on particular point or to draw etc, self-help system/tool kit (mental health online/offine test), motivational quotes, yoga session, mental health organisation associated, counselling session, etc. What people would like to achieve from using these services are feelings that get better from the beginning to the end, awareness of mental state and analysis of habits (the good and the bad).
Practice mindfulness (brain training) regularly. Sense of mindfulness can be achieved through yoga or meditation practices. It helps in reducing stress and anxiety.
Get to know yourself, including characters and personalities. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses, what you really want to achieve in life (life goals), vision and mission can help building self-identity, purpose. Feeling lost, not knowing what you really want in life and hopeless can be really stressful for people.
Learning about colors. Colors are associated with emotions, moods or feelings. People might try to corporate colors that create sense of calmness, happiness, relaxation into surroundings, such as computer desktop, bedroom wall, clothing, stationaries, garden etc.
Keep journal that allows you to pour out your deepest emotions privately, scribble (draw something) to release stress and anxiety etc.
Try to be more engaged with others, build emphathy towards others: “How do you want to make people feel?”. You should make people feel like the way you want to feel from others’ treatments.
The Proposal
I have came up with a few ideas of service design in relation to stress and anxiety reduction. These service design ideas suit the needs of modern society in this modern era with a little bit of touch of traditional-nature aspects.
(Saxena 2015)(dreamwingirls 2015)
Stress and anxiety are caused by excessive usage of gadgets and social media during the day, particularly during the night hours when we are supposed to get some sleeps. On the other hand, getting familiar with apps, certain objects and colors that will give you the sense of relaxation and happiness can help reducing stress and anxiety by pulling you out of the reality and putting you into a state of mindfulness.
Phone Charger
(Wakelin 2015)
In relation to the issue of excessive usage of gadgets and social media in this modern world, I have came up with an idea of phone charger. This specific phone charger suits the needs of people from different groups of age, work position, ethnic society, and most importantly those who are required to use communication technology and addictive to games app and social media in their daily basis. This phone charger will allow the users to charge their gadgets (particularly mobile phone) only at night during the sleep hours. Furthermore, this phone charger can be used if only the users put their mobile phone on the charger based tray and in off-mode. The phone charger is linked to an app that can be downloaded on their mobile phones to setting up how many hours will you use your phone for the next day, what will you use your phone for in the next day, how much battery left before you charge the phone etc. The charger will follow up the instructions that you have put in. Therefore, the mobile phone users will not be able to use their mobile phones at midnight, instead they will start looking for something that might be a better option for them, such as books and music.
Meditation Box
(The Alternative Daily n.d.)
While it is a good idea to put their mobile phones away for a while, there are some alternative ways that they can do to reduce stress and anxiety. I have came up with an idea of a physical design solution that allows you to touch, smell and possibility to see artificial nature design. I would name it a meditation box. This design is targetted for everyone who needs to release the mind and body tension during the day. This object allows the users to touch its surface inside the box with both hands. The surface could be made of sand, rocks, grass etc. It is also designed with ‘fragrance mode’ functionality button, so that the users would be able to imagine like they are in the real garden, beach etc.
Easy Design App
(Tynker n.d.)
Last thing I have came up with an idea of being mindful through visual color landscape app. This app can be downloaded on mobile phone and other similar technologies. This design is targetted for everyone from kids, students, workers, business women/men who are interested in color and design, games app and technology. This app allows you to build your own imagination of landscape/view, such as lake, garden, beach, mountain and even some kind of fairytales landcscape, such as enchanted forest, castle etc. The app should be easy to navigate because the point of this idea is for the users to be able to focus on one thing at a time, particularly this visual color landscape in order to get away from the overwhealming reality situations. The users should be able to use drag point to position certain elements of nature into the design page. Furthermore, the elements will create sounds according to elements’ real sounds everytime the users drag them into the page.
Our mental health mapping is all started with lack of knowledge, which is also related to stigma. Some of the group members, including myself have been working on the issue mental health stigma. According to mindmap, mental health stigma does exist in or is caused by a number of different areas/factors. One of them is society’s behaviours tend to make assumptions/judgements based on idealised image of standard living quality or social trends, which can create even more pressure to those living with mental illness. As a result, mentally-ill people are being portrayed negatively by society. One of the research articles stated that media is also the cause of people with mental illness being portrayed negatively. In relation to above statements, society’s assumptions/judgements are shaped by idealised image of standard living quality or social trends that has been advertised through media with society as their main target audience.
I also want to share my own experience that I have just learned from other outside the team. This person and I were having small conversation somewhere outside campus and then this person asked me how my week was. I then replied by saying my week was quite tough that I have been catching up with blog posts related to mental health. I will be having presentation on this issue in a couple of week. Then this person said, you could bring mentally-ill person to show up in your presentation. I replied by saying mentally-ill people look just like normal people in appearance, at least to me unless they are truly crazy people. At the end of discussion, this person did not look convinced.
Back to the topic of this writing, culture as well as religion also play huge roles within society. With the government rules the society, there is shift in social focus in stigma. However, what I have learnt from the group discussion is that in case of social focus, there is difference between American and Japanese culture. American culture is exclusive while Japanese culture is inclusive. According to the dictionaries, exclusive is “excluding or not admitting other things”: “unable to exist or be true if something else exists or is true”, “(of terms) excluding all but what is specified.” and “restricted to the person, group, or area concerned.” Lastly, there is something called biological limitations: chemistry, physicalities and not superficial mechanisms, which are another cause.
From there, the group decided to take another step by doing controversy issue mapping between biology vs mentality (genetics, social pressures of gender roles which also link to social status and imbalance economy situations causing social gap), religion vs politics/culture (standard of living in the past and present) and needs vs wants (communication, the truth but also attention seeking). Focus on the needs vs wants matter of issue alone, education, health care and community connections which are family and individual/collective support systems (human contact, internet) are the most needed and wanted of all, following by infrastructure and transport. Something interesting associated with family connections was discussed in the group. It is being referred as love language. There are 5 love languages, which are words, quality time, receiving gifts, service and physical touch. Each person might have multiple love languages and everyone has got different love language.
I can relate group’s way of thinking in terms of needs vs wants to my research article. According to the article, group of paramedics, people who are qualified for medical jobs also ‘need and want’ health services and community connections. Once a paramedic desperately looked for the truth of paramedic support program’s poor management through emails from co-workers. It is believed that the support program was inadequate to deal with paramedics’ serious mental illness. Here the need is community connections. With the lack of community connections (human contact, internet), this paramedic would not be able to find the truth, which could either be the need or the want.
The chosen social media platform is Twitter. I could use other social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, Blogs etc since I have not logged into Twitter for very long time however, I thought the more unfamiliar I am with ‘what is going on in Twitter’, the more interesting Twitter becomes.
Twitter
Twitter is a social media that allows the users worldwide to write up their thoughts they care about only up to 140 in characters each time. It is being referred as ‘Tweet’. Twitter is commonly used for either personal or business purposes. Twitter also allows the users to follow other users with the same or different interests, follow ‘stakeholders’: actors/actresses, news agencies, companies etc, to retweet other users’ tweets, to mark other’s tweets as favorites, to reply other tweets and so on. Furthermore, Twitter allows the users to link their other social platforms with their Twitter accounts. Thus other Twitter’s users should be able to check our posts on other social media without any interruptions or having to log into those specific social media.
Through Twitter, hard-liners are able to advertise their idealised image of their beliefs as well as to express their disagreements toward their competitors non-verbally, stakeholders: companies, media agencies, governments etc compete one another by sharing their best contents in order to gain popularity measured through the number of retweets, replies and followers, general populations show their supports towards things that they care about.
The Process of Collecting Data
In order to document or collect the findings/results associated with mental health stigma within Twitter platform, the first step taken is using Twitter Archiver Google Spreadsheet to search tweets under hashtag ‘stigma’ following by keywords ‘mental health’ and ‘disorder’. Below is provided 2 flow chart graphics, which are consisted of flow chart graphic of number of Twitter users’ followers and follows, and flow chart graphic of count of tweet text. The next step taken is using Twitter ‘Advanced Search’ to search tweets under the same hashtag and same keywords however, the keywords are combined and became ‘mental health disorder’.
Comparing between the two alternative ways of collecting data of mental health stigma, I found out that Google Twitter Archiver gave me so much more structured and complete data however, Twitter Advanced Search gave me insights into what the users were actually talking about in their posts, the aim of the conversations, the tone of the conversations clearly in full design screen. In order to dig much more interesting and relevant information on mental health stigma, the best way to do that is by scrolling throughout Twitter timeline.
Here are some of the summaries of the results found:
Stigma does not always relate to mental health. Stigma does exist in a number of different areas, including community services, physical health and disabilities. When “stigma” is typed into the hashtag search column, it will show lots of irrelevant topic to mental health. Most of the topic discussed are associated with lung cancer, HIV, physical disabilities and postcode prejudice in the region.
Regardless area of issue, stigma has always been controversial and negative.
Supportive statements in association with mental health have been found. Few examples are a tweet by @MHCNSW, “Glad to see Aussie men getting on board with #ItsOkayToTalk, breaking down #stigma around #mentalhealth and #suicide” has been retweeted 4 times, a tweet by @AllanSparkes, “Speak up, stop the deathly silence.Thank U Men’s Health for helping break the stigma. @MensHealthAU #LiveStronger” has been retweeted 18 times and a tweet by @DestroyerMariko, “We’re getting there, but we still need to break the #stigma of #mentalillness. This is awful: https://t.co/TkdOWO2xow #mentalhealth #bipolar”. There are senses of relief, proud, courage and grateful throughout the words. The good thing about Twitter is it can also be used as a medium to increase awareness globally.
Current news reports have also been found. Few examples are a tweet by @Pawsitivehills, “Our Gold Sponsor Medibank Private Castle Hill are helping us fight the stigma of mental illness in the hills.” has been retweeted 5 times and a tweet by @KBoydell, “Mural art – making a difference increasing awareness decreasing stigma enhancing community relationships @themhsorg” has been retweeted twice. Twitter platform can be used to share information on current situations as well as to show their supports. However, chance is the subjects of the tweet are getting advertised. Thus Twitter platform is an alternative way to gain popularity.
One-on-one conversation tweet has also been found. A tweet by @juntei, “@helisalmiakki yeah. they aren’t seeing past stigma. maybe uncomfortable w family being MI and/or disabled? unconscious associated shame”. However, should there are concerned about privacy of personal opinions or views.
Retweet functionality is one good point. It helps the users to share good contents in much easier way however, chance is false news can spread quickly over the timeline.
Top tweets often come from users who are considered professional and interested in politics and laws, journalism, health, public speaking, human rights, psychologist and similar areas.
I managed to take another step. I adjusted slightly different keywords and hashtags: ‘stigma’ in this exact phrase column, ‘mental condition struggles uncertainty’ in any of these words column and ‘mental health’ in these hashtags column to leave out in both Twitter Advanced Search and Google Twitter Archiver in order to generate more interesting and relevant results. The current results shown up are much more relevant to the issue, including mental health stigma quotes without showing any other areas of issue but, fewer in number of results.
Professional experienced therapist conducting interview with patient (The Stockton Therapy Network n.d.)
During studio session, I conducted an interview related mental health (as part of the class activity) with one of my classmates. I provided him 6 interview questions based self-experience and self-opinion, which have not been discussed in any sources I have found in my research. I aim to conduct another interview with one of my friends with different gender, personality, experiences, perspective and opinions. I would expect different views between research findings and one interviewee to another. Below is the list of questions of interview conducted:
Question 1:
Position yourself in a situation where your close friend suffers from mental illness. This person repeatedly has said something like “I cant handle this anymore. Nothing can help me.” Would that change your perspective/feeling towards your best friend? Would you feel scared of your friend and leave him/her because you think this person will do no good to you or would you help him/her to get out of the problems? What would you say to your friend? What is your idea?
Question 2:
According to your opinion, what is considered a serious mental illness?
Question 3:
Based on your experiences, do you have the ability to spot mental issue on other people? Could you spot whether someone has mental issue? If the answer is yes, what makes you think that way? Would you quietly helping this people although this person is not aware of it?
Question 4:
When you ask someone ‘how are you? how have you been?’ Let just say this person answers ‘I am good or I am doing fine etc’, would you believe it? Would you really think this person is doing fine?
Question 5:
Have u ever been in a situation when you feel so upset and you thought you suffered from mental illness?
Question 6:
When you feel underpressure from school assignments. Do you think that would affect your mental health? What could you do about it?
Spending time with loved ones affected with mental illness, getting familiar with the problems is a powerful tool “for changing attitudes, influencing fear, social distance, and hence stigma”, instead of simply suggesting them to seek help of others.
I would like to point out some findings that I thought would be great to point out in the summary. To answer the first question, first interviewee said that he would follow western culture where a person who has little to no knowledge on the matter, especially something that relates to personal psychological problems should not be giving suggestions to anyone, which might worsen the issue. He would calm his friend down and simply suggest him to seek mental health professionals because the professionals should be able to handle this issue better than him. However, he did not make clear statements whether psychological problems of his friend might affect his feelings/attitudes toward his friend. According to OAM (2013, in A life without stigma), spending time with loved ones affected with mental illness, getting familiar with the problems is a powerful tool “for changing attitudes, influencing fear, social distance, and hence stigma”, instead of simply suggesting them to seek help of others. I would agree with this statement because unstable people with mental issue can only feel emotionally supported and warmness in families and dearly friends, which cannot be found in professional helps. A recent study found “knowing someone who is open about having a mental health problem has a clear and positive impact on attitude and behaviour.” (Time to Change, 2013 in OAM 2013)
Some people can hide their problems very well.
In answering question 3 and 4, he stated that he does not have the ability to spot ‘what is going on’ in other people. So he would not know if the person who he has been seeing to is suffering from mental illness. He said “some people can hide their problems very well.” Furthermore, he told me that he has watched a quite good show associated with mental health on youtube. The show is called ‘A Life and Depression by Matthew J. Dempsey’. However, I have no chances to watch it just yet. Although he could not spot whether someone is having a though day, he would still not believe if they say ‘I am doing good’ or ‘I am having a good day’. According to my interviewee, it is inappropriate to show vulnerability unhappiness to people particularly in western cultures. Everyone has their own problems, why would you help him/her if you cannot even solve your own problems. Furthermore, he pointed out that it would have been different if we were in asian cultures. “When you talk to a person, they would give better suggestions eventhough they arent professionals” and yet, all depends on the topic of discussion. I somehow agree with his statements. Based on my research, people with mental health issue tend to cover up their feelings and mental conditions due to the fear of being considered ‘crazy’. So that would not be possible to spot other’s mental conditions unless they reach us and try to speak up.
Lastly, he has no doubt that school assignments are the reasons he feels anxious for quite sometime. This sounds interesting to me. I thought I was the only one who feel extremely anxious and crying due to school works. Additionally, he pointed out that he would seek professionals in case the anxiety comes back.
To conclude, I am not quite satisfied with the interview findings this time. I should have kept the conversation going by replying my interviewee’s answers. I will try different approaches next time. I personally do not think a conducted interview alone is strong enough to help me understand other’s views toward mental issue on regular basis. I would like to know more about other’s opinions on stigma of mental health, whether they agree or disagree with medias’ perspectives toward people with mental issue etc.
Peer’s Home Task
A few days later, I contacted my interviewee once again regarding his statements in the interview question number 4. I asked him what makes him think that western culture, particularly in Australia is different from Asian cultures in expressing personal feelings to other people that it is inappropriate to show vulnerability unhappiness to people when they are being asked ‘how are you?’, ‘how do you feel?’ and similar questions.
The findings according to the research he conducted:
The fear of ‘face loss’ in Asian cultures, particularly in the East regions. In East Asia, people like to show the good side of attitudes and behaviours to others, care so much about others’ opinions, avoid judgements and live very low-profile. They are scared of being different and somehow tend to be introverted. “They’d rather die with a billion than survive on their own.”
Second factor is mental health stigma does exist in Asia as well. The idealised image of being mentally-ill is being crazy. They are not aware that mental health problems come in various ways to various degrees. My interviewee told me that he has watched a YouTube video about a psychologist who shares about the severity states of mental health issue in between Asian American and White American when the time they seek professional helps. It is very shocking to know the truth that Asian American is way more severe than White American. The culture is individual should not be concerned over minor problems. It is very unlucky of them to try to seek professional helps when the issue they have cannot be handled anymore due to their lack of mental health knowledge over culture as well as their pride of getting positive names.
The interesting findings on how Asians treat physical issue and mental issue. In physical case, people in Asia will gladly advice others either to receive specific medications or to see doctors. According to his statement, “the whole motivation of this peer help is the result of the collective survivalism of Asian culture. To survive together. To help each other. This collective survivalism is also the root of the fear of ‘face loss’.” However, overcoming the fear of judgements by being more open about their mental states to others is very risky. They will receive different treatments in regular basis or get specific labels from people they know.
I also asked him about his dicoveries on mental health stigma and opinions toward media in this case. His statements are:
Media should have been more aware of such negative presentations of people with mental issue. It will not reduce any acts of criminality in the world neither will help solving any actual problems. Violence can come from anyone. Furthermore, people with mental issue is still human and even if they have committed to such criminality, there might have been reasons for their ‘dangerous’ behaviours. Media should have been teaching good. Media should have been used as one of public’s learning platforms: to share knowledge, especially of mental health issue, what takes place, how it works so that public becomes more aware of mental health and thus provide more helps and supports instead of portraying them negatively.
Lastly, he added “The media is a massive existence. It is a platform. Actually, there are a lot of platforms. And these platforms are controlled by people. We, as visual communicators and designers, have a certain amount of power to actually change people’s minds. So I suggest, like a famous designer once said, ‘Don’t do good design. Do good.’ I think designers have the responsibility to make the world a better place. Regarding this issue, designers and creatives can create posters, info-graphics and videos about mental health, educating the people on social media.”
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage”. The words are so powerful. Even the picture produced with only a women’s photograph on the black background following by large quotes becomes so powerful. People with mental illness might probably find themselves waking up each mornings and not knowing what to expect today, tomorrow or the rest of their lifetime. They are always being haunted by their own nightmares. There are some scary things that make those people scared to live, open their eyes, leave their comfort zone, which could unexpectedly happen to them physically and emotionally. These unreasonable nightmares make them feeling dead inside. This similar story can be found in Joel Keep and Rick Feneley’s 2016 article, “’I think I will die here’: Asylum seeker who says she was raped begs for medical evacuation from Nauru”. What being presented in the article is that an issue of asylum seeker in Nauru who were being subjected to sexual assault numerous times by Wilson Security staff and looked for help to be evacuated to Australia but prevented by the country for some political reasons. She is in a situation where she feels in constant danger and at risk of further attack, which could possibility cause her to sentence herself to death. Based on the story and image, the feeling of uncertainty is what makes them feeling so discourage in life.
It takes more than just courage to produce a real photograph related to mental issue like this. The image is raw, pure, deep and containing so much bravery. Those wrinkly scars on the women’s body tell so much meanings behind her appearance. The scars are so deep and the pain too. She has gone through something dangerous and culturally unacceptable all alone that would not have happened if she has talked to anyone about her sufferings and received proper treatments as early as possible. She has been covering her scars long enough with beautiful clothing, so that no one has ever witnessed her weaknesses. Look at what she has got with her clothes off, I would call this an image of honest body project because both the photographer and the model deserved it. The same story has been produced in Joel Keep and Rick Feneley’s 2016 article, “’I think I will die here’: Asylum seeker who says she was raped begs for medical evacuation from Nauru”. The women shows what she has done to her legs in an interview with SBS due to her current mental states. “SBS has obtained photographs of bruising on Jazmin which were apparently sustained in the assault.” (Keep & Feneley 2016)
Depression or any mental illness are like cancer, a deathly one which must be treated seriously with proper medications. People in general might have thought negative feelings or mood swings are normal and is part of human expressions. People might have thought their loved ones could have actually ignored these bad feelings or mood swings when they come back anytime without realising that their loved ones who they have regularly spoken to are suffering from mental illness. These feelings cannot be fixed only by changing the way sufferers think or feel in regular basis. Can you imagine when your loved ones is trying to reach you for helps and anything you could say is “It’s just your bad day, get over it.” How would they feel? They might seem independent on the outside, yet quite dependent on the inside. A similar story posted in The Sun-Herald newspaper in November 8, 2015. Many workers in the NSW Ambulance service suffered from mental disorder due to job conditions. Paramedic support program within NSW proved to be completely inadequate to deal with severe mental health problems after a paramedic was advised to “drink a bottle of bourbon, watch some porn and you’ll be right.”
The picture is telling me so much about mental health and stigma that has been a quite popular discussion nowadays. “Suicide pilot had long history of depression: Why on earth was he allowed to fly?” and why not. Who could have raised this voice? It could be public’s voices, particularly the victims’ families and journalists. The media should have just exposed the specific main reasons why the pilot committed suicide. To me, an act of suicidal can be caused by something else apart from mental issue. Apparently stigma on mental health, particularly on mental health and act of terrorism that has been planted in the society really has huge impacts afterall. The difference is that this time the pilot or the attacker did not come from ‘specific’ religions or ethnics, so that the public did not jump to conclusion that the accident was part of terrorists’ plans. Anyone suffered from mental issue is not necessarily hopeless, prone to violence then committed suicide and not everyone without mental issue can be trusted either.
To me, this image contains powerful yet rude headlines just like previous image. It has all been about stigma on mental health. People with mental health are often mislabelled as the crazy and distance one therefore, medias and society tend to overestimate the capacity for agression and violence in people with mental health issue. It is not a question anymore whether the sufferers are also labelled or titled themselves as the crazy ones. The right question would be “have they been questioning themselves “am I normal yet?”” If there is statement saying “mental health issues often well-hidden”, it is one of the consequences of public’s judgemental behaviours. They tend to feel embarrased, scared, confused and self-pity when seek helps. Afterall, the sufferers want to be normal like others. They would do anything to avoid judgements, being labelled as the crazy and different ones. They often isolate hiding from people.
The image tells me that the words can slowly kill somebody else even though if the person who throws the words out does not realise it. Sadly the person who receive the words might be okay with it right now, but later years after years. Words can be poisonous. Words are indeed powerful either to unify or tear us apart. The words that come out of our mouths can hurt those strangers you have just met today and they are in normal mental states. Rude-sensitive words are culturally unacceptable. Think what your words can do to those around you: families, friends, co-workers and especially those with unstable mental states. People with mental issue are very sensitive. They are affected deeply towards negative emotions and actions.
When I look at this picture, it somehow makes me feeling sad. Sadly the picture is telling the truth. Sad people will clearly express their sadness through actions, words or face expressions while depressed people tend to look happy to others. I have heard a term called ‘smiling depression’. Depressed people tend to cover up their feelings and mental conditions due to the fear of being considered ‘crazy’ is one of the reasons. They might not even aware that they are depressed especially if they keep getting themselves distracted by day-to-day activities. This is why mental illness dangerous because it is often well-hidden. Society and culture is telling us that depressed people will obviously look sad, struggle and different emotionally and physically. In fact, those people with mental illness are hoping that we could detect and feel their pains through their smiles. Undetected mental illness tends to happen among children and young adults (Williams 2016 in “Physical Health Neglected For Young People with Mental Illness”) due to the fear of being bullied in schools. It takes years until people reach their maturity age to be able to openly seek helps and speak about their illnesses.
All I can tell about this picture is that this is one of brain scan images of depressed vs mentally healthy people. Neither I have medical experiences or knowledge in this matter. However, I thought this image would be a really great image to include in my mental issue image collections. To explain what is going on in the picture, I would have to do a little bit of research on this matter. However by just looking at the brain scans, a person with little to no knowledge in this matter like me can also tell that the brain on the left-hand looks abnormal, unhealthy, terrible and all covered in blue color. To me, there must be strong relation in between depression with a term called ‘feeling blue’. I have been wondering whether it is where a term ‘feeling blue’ came from. However based on annotation written by Mayo Clinic, “A PET scan can compare brain activity during periods of depression (left) with normal brain activity (right). An increase of blue and green colors, along with decreased white and yellow areas, shows decreased brain activity due to depression.” To conclude, this image is one prove that being depressed, anxious or having mental breakdown for long periods can cause damages on the brain.
When I look at the image, all I can see is the image of someone with mental illness who is trying to kill himself by hanging in black and white or gray photograph (as black and white, gray colors have strong connection with the depressive throughts) taken by himself before his death all alone. However, that is what I thought. According to the article “Photographer Documents His Own Depression In Self Portraits” by Martynas Klimas in 2015, a 21 years-old photographer named Edward Honaker expressing his depressive throughts through series of self-portrait photograph. “Falling and immersion in water are common themes in his work, as well as literal loss of face.” “He made the depression portfolio as a way of coping, and to encourage others.” (Klimas 2015)
“Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.” – Bill Clinton
Stigma on mental health has been a popular discussion amongst media and some other areas. Once a quote by Bill Clinton says “Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.” In the past few years, many different groups of organisation and designer have been enthusiastically working towards better understanding of mental health stigma, the impacts and solutions to the issue. One of the projects is called ‘The Five Project’.
‘The Five Project’ is a project focused in addressing the challenge of mental health stigma in the area of Western Australia run by DADAA, a community arts and cultural development organisation in collaboration with local governments, local arts and health organisations and Rio Tinto. In the past 2 years, about 7,000 number of people has participated in the FIVE Project in finding local responses toward mental health and well-being as well as regional identity and the unique impacts of FIFO, Fly-In-Fly-Out and residential mining phenomena. “FIVE took 18 months to conceive and design but like all community arts processes, the reality has been organic and reliant on many tangibles.” Both FIFO and residential mining communities have developed some unique needs which associate with mental health and well-being, and social connectivity. According to Mental Health 2020 notes, mental issue amongst FIFO workers and their relatives happen as the result of long work shifts that separate them from family and friends. Further information can also be found in their website, see http://www.five.org.au.
‘The Five Project’ aims to reduce mental health stigma through arts and cultural interventions. Based on the framework by CACD, Community of Arts and Cultural Development, health promotion as well as prevention and recovery models are included in the project hoping the project could bring differences, particularly on the participants, DADAA and communities. Some of the goals are to reduce social isolation and increase engagements in mental health issue in participants, particularly in those who live in rural and remote region likely to have experienced social isolation; have open communication with DADD organisation: address, discuss and express the issue around mental health; for DADD organisation to support local arts and cultural products; increase well-being and awareness around mental health issue as well as create sense of togetherness amongst communities.
(DADAA 2012)
Reducing mental health stigma through arts and cultural interventions
“FIVE engaged professional artists – Craig Walsh, Hiromi Tango, Alex Mickle, Nicole Mickle, Trevor Flynn, Sonal Kantaria and other artists working through local partnerships – and aimed to produce a collective narrative, predominantly through sculpture and film, that would engage participants in conversations around notions of caring, belonging and connecting to community.” The main factor that align with the core principles of participatory arts engagement, which artists’ professionalism is measured based on their capacity of professionalism and their skill as community artists.
The use of active arts project to address the issue of mental health stigma in FIFO workers and mining communities which is become embedded in Rio Tinto is a strategy to draw workers and their families’ attentions in order to participate in the movement project. In Busselton, which is one of the source communities for Rio Tinto for example, they conducted an event of ephemeral arts project over nine days in the Ludlow Forest on the Leschenault Peninsula with FIFO wives and relatives being the target. With Rio Tinto being a company specialising in mental wellbeing strategy and execution plan: education and training, raising awareness, support healthy lifestyles, facilitating family connection with the employees, etc, hopefully ‘The Five Project’ can create differences in mental health outcomes amongst individuals, families and communities.
DADD 2012, FIVE: Mental Health in Regional WA – LâR: David Doyle (Executive Director, DADAA), Eddie Bartnik (WA Mental Health Commissioner), Andrea Mitchell (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Disability Services), Michael Gollschewski (Managing Director of Pilbara Mines for Rio Tinto) at the launch of FIVE, viewed 22 August 2016, <http://www.dadaa.org.au/project/4/five/>
A life without stigma; Structural Stigma and Mental Illness
Barbara Hocking OAM SANE Australia 2013
Tracy Pugh, MHS, Mark Hatzenbuehler, PhD, and Bruce Link, PhD Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University August 2015
Online news and newspaper have given me insights into the effects stigma has created on the lives of people diagnosed with or suffered from mental health issue. Many experts remain skeptical about mental problem is the major cause of people aggressively committing several serious offences, such as violent attacks. It is important to have deep understanding of how stigma is being done in different areas of impact, particularly social justice system and media associated with criminal acts. To understand this issue, OAM (2013) in “A life without stigma” and Pugh et al (2015) in “Structural Stigma and Mental Illness” can help explain it.
(Slack 2009)
Many experts remain skeptical about mental problem is the major cause of people aggressively committing several serious offences, such as violent attacks.
“SANE Australia is a national charity helping all Australians affected by mental illness.” (SANE n.d.) SANE aims to reduce mental health stigma, prevent suicide and improve the overall health of affected people. The author, Barbara Hocking OAM has been Executive Director of SANE Australia since 1995. In 2012, she left the position. However, she has published her writings on the boards of SANE and RUOK? Limited. One of the authors of second report, Tracy Pugh has been interested in understanding the intersections of punishment, stigma and policy. “She has extensive experience engaging in policy research and advocacy related to health disparities and social justice in partnership with nonprofits, government agencies, community stakeholders, advocates, and policy makers.” (Columbia University n.d.)
Both articles examined the issue in which stigma has manifested in media (OAM 2013 & Pugh et al 2015) and social justice system (Pugh et al 2015). For those with mental issue who have been involved in violence often experience stigma in an area called criminal justice system, which is “a notable area where there has been increasing concern regarding how people with mental illness are disadvantaged compared to people without mental illness.” (Pugh et al 2015) They are treated unfairly, including laws that make people with mental ilness, referred as PMI vulnerable to arrest, poor services and support for them compared to people without mental illness. (Livingston 2013, cited in Pugh et al 2015) These findings indicate that criminal laws are designed to unfairly target people with mental issue (Pugh et al 2015).
According to Blitz, Wolff and Shi (2008, cited in Pugh et al 2015), and Human Rights Watch (2015, cited in Pugh et al 2015), PMI in comparisson to people without MI are more likely to face higher rates of being abused by staff and surroundings, being prisoned longer (Livingston 2013, cited in Pugh et al 2015) and receiving technical violations (Louden & Skeem 2013, cited in Pugh et al 2015).
It has been found “negative stereotyping and portrayals of PMI, often in a violent and sensationalized context that links PMI to dangerousness and crime”
As the stigma problem has also manifested in the media, OAM (2013), Edney (2004, cited in Pugh et al 2015), and Granello & Pauley (2000, cited in Pugh et al 2015) have similar point of view, media is so powerful that it can influence public reactions or perceptions toward PMI, and is also the main source where public collects information on mental health. Mental issue often being exposed negatively by media. It has been found “negative stereotyping and portrayals of PMI, often in a violent and sensationalized context that links PMI to dangerousness and crime” (Klin & Lemish 2008, cited in Pugh et al 2015; OAM 2013), depicts mental health treatment will not change anything (Sartorius et al 2010 & Schulze 2007, cited in Pugh et al 2015) and recovery is if possible (Schulze 2007, cited in Pugh et al 2015). Angermeyer, Dietrich, Pott, & Matschinger (2005, cited in Pugh et al 2015) stated “Using a nationally representative population survey in Germany, Angermeyer and colleagues (2005) found media consumption, particularly television and tabloids, to be associated with increased desirability for social distance from PMI”. Either positive or negative influences, it is all started with the media.
From act of terrorism to mental health symptom: we’re shifting blame but at what cost?
Bettina Friedrich July 29, 2016
Bettina Friedrich has contributed one of her articles to be published by The Conversation Australia in July 29, 2016. Based on her education, experience and interest bibliographies, Bettina Friedrich is an expert in psychology and research field with special interest in mental health stigma and policy research, especially in “how far media contributes to mental health related stigma and how media can be used to educate about mental health”.
The article “From act of to terrorism to mental health symptom: we’re shifting blame but at what cost?” emphasises on the issue of mental health stigma and media ethics. The main targets of the publication are officials, media and public with the purpose to report and examine the issue as well as instruct the target audiences. Based on research, Friedrich (2016) reported that media and society tend to overestimate the behaviour of aggression or aggressiveness in people with mental issue. An instance, media and officials speculated on mental health as the cause of the attacks carried out by Muslim men in Germany. Although some were concerned the attacks had something to do with the specific religion or ethnicity. I partly agree that should not officials and media start shifting the blame from an act of terrorism to health condition for the sake of racism and chaos prevention in the region.
It is clear how Friedrich cannot stress enough how stigmatising can affect people with mental health. Friedrich (2016) pointed out that medias are powerful tools therefore, it is crucial for journalists to be careful how they report on mental health, to cite proper references and use the right wording. It can have huge negative impact on positive effects that mental health campaigns have achieved. It is so powerful that it can influence public reactions or perceptions toward people with mental illness. “The best reaction for us is to stay truthful to our values, including not discriminating against minorities or vulnerable groups.”
Nice, Orlando attacks prompt look at link between terrorism and mental health
David Wroe July 22, 2016
Public’s perceptions toward mental health has become subtle. Mental health has been questioning whether mental health was one of the main factors of the criminal attacks. Both Wroe (2016) in “Nice, Orlando attacks prompt look at link between terrorism and mental health” and Friedrich (2016) in “From act of terrorism to mental health symptom: we’re shifting blame but at what cost?” cited that officials and public would start paying more attention to mental health and priorite the suspect according to criminal or mental health records in case the involvement of specific ethnicity or religion networks is, therefore void.
The author, David Wroe is national security correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald as well as The Age based in Canberra. His writings are mainly focused on the defence, terrorism and foreign affairs. He is a regular contributor to SMH therefore, he is an expert in journalism despite he does not seem to be an expert in the matter of mental health compared to Bettina Friedrich. Through the article, Wroe (2016) informed and examined the issue in between terrorism and mental health.
In the article, the national counter-terrorism coordinator, Moriarty (n.d., cited in Wroe 2016) stated that the attacks might be caused by those who are not necessarily committed with the extremist networks but due to varying reasons, such as mental health, “susceptible to being motivated and lured rapidly down a dangerous path by the terrorist narrative.” Indeed it is extremely difficult to detect the suspect, which is also referred as “lone wolf” due to their lack of connection or communication with the group networks about their intentions. From my point of view, Moriarty is referring to individual suffers from mental health who often isolate hiding from people as the “lone wolf”.
Wroe did not express much of his opinion on the matter however, he tends to have strong judgement on mental health contribution to an act of terrorism. Afterall, this is what Friedrich has been discussing about.
“Paramedics crippled by mental distress”. A good decision indeed has been made by Alexander in choosing words to put into the headline to look more appealing. The title indicates that mental health could somehow affect those people in a number of different areas, including mental health professionals, potential employers in the workplaces even paramedics who qualify for medical jobs helping other people in need. The title itself shows that the news is completely about medical compared to the previous titles that expose the involvement of terrorism. It is because Harriet Alexander is a Fairfax Media reporter specialising in health however she rarely publish articles associated with mental health. She is a regular contributor and one of her articles is published in The Sun Herald.
Alexander aims to report the issue and inform the readers that a paramedic, McDowell (n.d., cited in Alexander 2015) concluded that paramedic support program within NSW proved to be completely inadequate to deal with severe mental health problems after receiving more than 100 response emails from other NSW Ambulance staff in regards to this concern. “An analysis by the Victorian Coroners Prevention Unit found ambulance workers were second only to veterinarians in the likelihood that they would take their own lives, with a suicide rate nearly four times higher than the average.” (Alexander 2015) It is stated that the support management has abandoned paramedics to deal with mental issue alone. Once a paramedic was advised to “drink a bottle of bourbon, watch some porn and you’ll be right.” From that, she then said “I’ve got to look after myself”,
The article is one of factual based interview articles. Based on the article, I can sense that the author has been completely honest with herself.
References
Alexander, H. 2015, ‘Paramedics crippled by mental distress’, The Sun-Herald, 8 November, pp. 3
Physical Health Neglected For Young People with Mental Illness
Wendy Williams June 30, 2016
Unlike the other news media, Pro Bono Australia is a non-profit company aiming at making a useful contribution toward social connection and change. It is one of Australia’s first social business. Through website, “organisations can promote themselves, advertise for employees or skilled volunteers, as well as find events and specialist community sector suppliers.”
The article “Physical Health Neglected For Young People with Mental Illness” is published by Wendy Williams in Pro Bono Australia. Wendy Williams is a journalist of non-profit organization specialising in social issues, including mental health. She however, rarely writes contents that associate with mental health.
The purpose of this article is to inform the readers that untreated and undetected mental illness, especially among young people can have huge impacts on their lives even worse, death consequences. Orygen clinical research led, Killackey (n.d., cited in Williams 2016) stated that people with mental issues tend to have lifespan up to 30 years shorter than healthy people due to their lack of attention in physical and sexual health. “They die largely from preventable illnesses usually related to obesity and tobacco smoking.” Despite the fact that mental illness has affected a quarter of the population however those people smoke nearly half quantity of the produced cigarettes and more or less half of those affected population die from smoking each year.
The earlier the illness is detected, the better. The health services and professionals, including exercise physiologists, dieticians and sexual health nurses may minimise the severity of mental disorders as well as the required level of treatment (Killackey n.d., cited in Williams (2016)) However, I have to disagree with his statement because being helpful and referred as professional does not apply to every single health professionals. For instance, McDowell’s statement in the previous article “Paramedics crippled by mental distress”.
‘I think I will die here’: Asylum seeker who says she was raped begs for medical evacuation from Nauru
Joel Keep, Rick Feneley August 14, 2016
Factual and opinion based “’I think I will die here’: Asylum seeker who says she was raped begs for medical evacuation from Nauru” is one of Rick Feneley’s works in collaboration with Joel Keep. While the bibliography has shown very little details of Joel Keep that he is a journalist at SBS Australia and also former journalist at ABC, Rick Feneley has been quite well-known both in the industry and the internet that he is a news and features writer for the Sydney Morning Herald who has finally re-signed after 18 years working with the company and he currently works for SBS.
In the article, both Keep and Feneley (2016) reported and examined an issue of asylum seeker in Nauru who were being subjected to sexual assault numerous times by Wilson Security staff and looked for help to be evacuated to Australia but prevented for some political reasons (Newhouse n.d., cited in Keep & Feneley 2016). Clearly distressed, Jazmin (n.d., cited in Keep & Feneley 2016) stated that she is not allowed to leave Nauru. International Health and Medical Services, the private health care provider contracted by the Immigration Department has made statements saying “her risk of self-harm as high” and they are “unable to guarantee her safety”. IHMS medical record has revealed Jazmin’s psychological state was normal when she arrived in Nauru three years ago. “It appears in my discussions with [Jazmin] that she is in a situation where she feels in constant danger and at risk of further attack.” said Melbourne based psychiatrist, Professor Newman (n.d., cited in Keep & Feneley 2016). He, then continue with the statement that it would have been to risky for Jazmin to stay in Nauru, which she could possibility sentence herself to death.
Apparently the recent issue is still under investigation. In the conclusion, the authors did not tell the readers much whether the investigation has now been closed as the news is ended with a sentence “Seconds later, connection on the video link was lost.” after Jazmin declaring “I need the doctor to help me”, “I don’t want to take the pills anymore.” through video call.
Emergent Practices 
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