nursingforsocialjustice

Is re-branding actually something? Is it action? Change the label and the content will sort itself out? Sometimes spaces that we label as healing are so cold and uncaring. Sometimes they are spaces of isolation, separation and re-affirms power differentials. I suspect making a place more prison-like detracts from the intention to heal. There is a curious gap between the direction that language used to describe mental health inpatient spaces is moving in and the design of these spaces in the Lower Mainland. So much so that it concerns me. How do you bring relationship, collaboration, inclusion, autonomy and empowerment closer when the structure is the opposite?

Could I be an expert in this? Could this be my career? Humanizing space consultations?

Love,

Michelle D.

P.S. The Cartesian split, this construction of the duality of the mind and the body. Are mental health and physical health mutually exclusive? Are they opposites? Are they dichotomous? Can you have one without the other? Are they the same thing? Where does perception and sensation end and emotion begin? When we use terms like behavioural health or mind health to describe emotions as if they exists devoid of the context of the physical…is this reductionist? How do we reconcile this? How did it get chopped up and why do we continue to chop it up? And, as nurses, are we best positioned to harmonize this?