Fateema Sayani Archives - Mental Health Commission of Canada

New Literacies for New Times

Ian Peralta — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 13:37:41 +0000

By Fateema Sayani

When we first launched the Money and Mental Health series in 2023, we underlined the link between our pockets and our perspectives. Then, the focus was the housing crisis and the rising cost of living—issues that remain just as pressing in 2025. Add to that fresh anxieties about artificial intelligence and tariffs reshaping both the job market and our bank accounts.

To better understand the issues, The Catalyst is examining four themes over four weeks, emphasizing the tools needed for individuals to cope with their money worries and mental health challenges. We speak to experts on the two topics—and sometimes, those people are one and the same.

In some jurisdictions, financial therapists are certified in both wealth-building and the emotional aspects of budgeting, or to support linked issues such as gambling. Elsewhere, some financial professionals have jumped into therapeutic practice – and many mental health clinicians are incorporating financial issues into their practices.

In Canada, Jessica Moorhouse touches on the emotional aspects of money in her book Everything but Money: The Hidden Barriers Between You and Financial Freedom (Collins, 2024), which offers hopeful and helpful tips. The author and Certified Financial Counsellor is known as a millennial money expert, which, she says, used to connote “young person,” but not so much now as that cohort edges into their 40s. Their entry into and through adulthood has always been beset by challenges.

“It can feel like we’re having the same conversations,” she says. “It’s hard to pinpoint a time when things were not chaotic – it’s a generation that is getting used to a state of constant change with a baseline of anxiety.”

Jessica Moorhouse, author and Certified Financial Counsellor, focuses on wallets and well-being and what happens when they collide.

In recent years, there has been a global pandemic, rising costs of living, stagnating wages, geopolitical uncertainty, and tariffs, to name a few things. “We’ve been consistently talking about inconsistency since 2020,” Moorhouse notes, saying that millennials, in particular, are primed to wonder when the next big global shift is going to hit them.

For Gen Z, these experiences are baked in, and they have an extensive associated vocabulary, Moorhouse says. Consider the term “Menty B,” used widely on social media. “This is freaky to have shorthand slang for a mental breakdown,” she says. “That’s a concern – that it’s just normal to have anxiety, or to not be able to get up in the morning. There is a sense that you’re supposed to laugh it off, make a TikTok, and go to work.”

It carries a sense of solidarity among a generation struggling with financial disillusionment. They believe the system is broken because wages are not keeping up with the cost of living, and housing prices are too high.

It’s a heavy burden. Research indicates that economic conditions and related factors, including unemployment and poverty, can significantly impact suicide rates. Moorhouse highlights a study from the UK-based Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, which shows that 46 percent of people in debt have a mental health issue, and 86 percent of survey participants said their financial situation worsened their mental health problems and led to increased stress and anxiety. Likewise, 18 percent of individuals with mental health issues fall into debt, with 72 percent reporting that their mental health problems worsened their financial situation, creating a never-ending cycle.

Serena Dawson (a pseudonym), 19, observes some of these issues within her social circle. She lives in a major city in Ontario and is taking a gap year while working multiple jobs. She and many of her friends consider retirement a myth because of the astronomical cost of living and wages that don’t cover shelter expenses in nearly every city in Canada; they feel that policymakers are unaware of how to reform the system to benefit young people.

“Most young adults have at least three jobs, and I know people with up to six jobs,” she says. “One job doesn’t provide enough to meet basic needs, so people supplement with additional part-time jobs, contract work, and operating side hustles such as baking businesses out of their homes.”

Working all the time with competing commitments leaves little time for socializing or sleep, she says. “The toll on mental health is heavy. Conversations about anxiety, depression, and chronic health issues are everyday occurrences.”

Hustle, anxiety, repeat

The usual antidote to economic woes has traditionally been self-improvement. However, for many, traditional paths to advancement — like higher education — no longer feel worthwhile. Degrees don’t always guarantee jobs or stability, raising doubts about whether the investment pays off.

This confluence of conditions is something seemingly distinct to Generation Z. Psychology Today characterized this generation’s grief as one about unattainable developmental milestones, such as starting a family, owning a home, or retiring with financial stability.

“The disappearance of additional cultural anchor points, such as affordable education, a shared sense of truth, and community cohesion, only deepens the distress.”

For millennials, there was a different framing of their challenges with putting bread on the table.

“It was annoying to see the characterization that we’re lazy, avocado-toast-over spenders,” Moorhouse says. “We have three jobs! If we weren’t going to figure it out, we wouldn’t have three jobs – we would just give up.”

In this regard, traditional financial advice falls flat. This generation and those that follow are inheriting a different set of rules than their parents or grandparents did.

“Boomers, especially, did have a lot of privilege and gains on their homes,” Moorhouse notes, “and they took it as a baseline – as if everyone can afford a house or get a job at an executive level without advanced degrees. There was a big shift after that generation. You just can’t get that anymore.”

From debt to despair and back again – rethinking financial advice

The idea for this series grew out of young people’s perspectives—those finishing high school, launching careers, or trying to find footing in a shifting economy. Their common refrain: financial dystopia and distress. Stable jobs, home ownership, and retirement feel out of reach, with early setbacks snowballing into lifelong hurdles. Economists call this “scarring.” We ask: What are the mental health impacts, and what policy shifts are needed?

Whether you view artificial intelligence as an opportunity or an extinction event, its propulsion marks an inflection point in our society, and its impacts on the job market are playing out in real time. How do we build resilience—personally and collectively—while weaving psychological health and safety into economic policy?

As the world changes, what advice and tips do we need now? How can financial literacy be connected to emotional awareness as linked concepts? We ask practitioners and people with lived experience for their strategies.

Watch for the entire series published in October and November 2025 for Financial Literacy Month in The Catalyst, the magazine of the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Follow us on LinkedIn to see new articles and resources.

Further reading: Housing First – What’s Next?

Resource: Mental Health and the High Cost of Living Policy Brief

Author: Fateema Sayani doesn’t overspend on avocado toast. She makes her own at home and researches and writes regularly in The Catalyst.

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A Strategic Approach to E-Mental Health

Ian Peralta — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 12:13:54 +0000

By Fateema Sayani

If you’re in certain filter bubbles, it can feel like mental health is everywhere. “So many people are consuming mental health information, but without a critical eye,” says Jessica Ward-King a self-described fierce mental health advocate with a PhD in experimental psychology who uses the moniker The StigmaCrusher (“heavily educated and heavily medicated”). She uses online talk therapy and also finds information through TikTok and YouTube. “I consider that e-mental health too,” she says. Ward-King informs her influence with research from her doctoral studies, her lived experience with bipolar disorder, and other evidence-based sources, but this isn’t necessarily the norm for online mental health.

Technology is undoubtedly transforming the way people in Canada receive health care with countless applications, influencers, and digital tools popping up everywhere, but how does one sort through the many options?

“E-mental health services in Canada provide crucial benefits—offering anonymity, reducing stigma, and allowing people to access support in ways that work for them,” says Maureen Abbott, Director of Innovation at the Mental Health Commission of Canada. “Whether it’s the flexibility of choosing their own time and format or the ability to find help in urgent moments when in-person services are unavailable, e-mental is transforming mental health care. One individual shared with us that accessing a peer support group in the middle of the night literally saved their life,” Abbott says.

Maureen Abbott, Director of Innovation at the Mental Health Commission of Canada at the Electronic Mental Health International Collaborative (eMHIC) conference in Ottawa in September, where the strategy was launched. With countless e-mental health solutions available, clear guidelines are essential to ensure clinical quality, user safety, and data security. Photo: eMHIC.

A strategy for the future

The Mental Health Commission of Canada launched Canada’s first E-Mental Health Strategy in 2024. It provides guidance for the development of e-mental health with emphasis on clinical safety, frameworks for data collection and retention, and culturally appropriate care.

“While e-mental health services offer many advantages, challenges like privacy and service quality must also be addressed. That’s why the Mental Health Commission of Canada, with the support of Mental Health Research Canada, developed a national strategy—shaped by a diverse advisory committee, with more than half the committee comprised of those with lived experience of mental health challenges,” Abbott says. “This guiding star document sets priorities for the future of digital mental health, ensuring meaningful engagement and collaboration across the sector.”

By supporting those creating e-mental health policies and solutions, the MHCC can inspire and improve the field at a systemic level ensuring that best practices cascade through to app developers, policy makers, and healthcare leaders and empower them to establish and adopt standards that will improve user outcomes.

In this way, it is a strategy that meets people where they are – because e-mental health keeps growing. According to the American Psychological Association, in 2021, more than 20,000 mental health apps were available on the market.

The proliferation is bound to continue because e-mental health tools can offer greater choice, convenience, lower cost, and, in some cases, higher-quality care than traditional services, according to an editorial called The “Uberisation” of Mental Health Care: A Welcome Global Phenomenon? by Ian Hickie, professor of psychiatry, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney, Australia.

“If those with lived experience and research capacity in this field don’t respond appropriately, it leaves room for others to step in to respond consumer priorities: access, choice, competitive pricing, and user experience. Worldwide, demand for personalized mental health services far outstrips supply,” Hickie writes.

Here in Canada, the E-Mental Health Strategy serves as a blueprint, offering six recommendations and 12 priorities to chart the future direction of development of e-mental health in Canada and drive innovation – with consideration.

For example, one priority is to address the quality of e-mental health solutions and services, including privacy and data protection concerns. The strategy references the First Nations principles of ownership, control, access, and possession to guide health leaders, provinces and territories, jurisdictions, community organizations, and researchers around consent, collection, and data sovereignty.

“Trust is at the heart of e-mental health,” says Michel Rodrigue, president and CEO of the Mental Health Commission of Canada. “The efficacy and safety of e-mental health apps and supports should be paramount. People in Canada need assurance that these options meet the highest standards of safety and quality, prioritize equity-first data governance, maintain confidentiality, and include the perspectives of people with lived experience of mental health challenges.”

Stigma Crusher Jessica Ward-King notes that when people are in the midst of a crisis or struggling with their mental health, they may not be necessarily asking about how their data is being managed.

“Privacy is a huge concern that many don’t even think about,” she says. “Safety is another big issue. If a chatbot responds to suicidal thoughts, what protection is in place? If you’re getting advice from someone who doesn’t know your medications, what’s the risk there? A strategy makes sure someone is asking those questions before they become problems.”

Some of the recommendations in the strategy touch on issues of workforce and user readiness. People want help determining the quality and safety of options when there are so many options and no common standard. As e-mental health solutions continue to improve in quality and efficacy, there needs to be a means of communicating about evidence-based solutions with practitioners and to prove that they are both safe and efficacious.

With the speed of change, the e-mental health community is calling for specific guidelines related to AI use in mental health care; something that goes deeper than existing domestic and provincial guidelines and standards on the ethical use of AI in Canada.

Throughout the strategy-development consultations, the creation of a mental health app library and assessment process was one of the most discussed topics among both international experts and domestic collaborators. A database for assessed apps and a national assessment process would directly address some of the largest issues facing e-mental health in Canada, along with ongoing reviews and updates of best practice guidelines, since technology, legislation, and research evidence are constantly changing, particularly in relation to data security and privacy standards.

Addressing risks and readiness

E-mental health can offer access to care for people in rural areas who may not be able to travel to a care provider. It allows people to find culturally appropriate care for their situation, preserves privacy, and is usually less expensive than in-person services – for both the provider and the user. During the peak period of the pandemic, electronic mental health solutions allowed people to access care while physically distancing, isolating, or recovering from COVID-19.

Virtual consultations for mental health, substance use, and healthcare services went up during the spring and summer of 2022, with nearly three in five people in Canada accessing care this way, according to Statistics Canada.

According to a 2021 Canada Health Infoway survey, 63 percent of people said they would not have sought mental health care if virtual options had not been available.

Shaleen Jones knows this firsthand. She is the founder and executive director of Eating Disorders Nova Scotia, a community-based charitable organization that offers all of its services without a referral or a diagnosis.

Like many organizations, Eating Disorders Nova Scotia became 100 percent virtual in 2020, delivering all their services, supports, and training online, something that allowed the organization to expand its reach, says Jones.

“Technology is really a tool that allows us to connect with others – I believe it is that personal connection that has the greatest impact,” she says. “Like any new tool, thoughtfulness in how it is utilized is critical. The MHCC e-mental health strategy serves to identify potential challenges and strategies as we work to chart the future course of e-mental health services in Canada.”

Canada’s First E-Mental Health Strategy: The Six Priorities

Improve perception, awareness, and engagement in e-mental health.
Develop resources for evaluating the effectiveness of e-mental health solutions and programs.
Address the quality of e-mental health solutions and services, including privacy and data protection concerns.
Reduce barriers and address system challenges to e-mental health solution adoption.
Embed IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility) principles in all e-mental health development, tools, and delivery.
Support the mental health workforce to integrate e-mental health into their practice.

Canada’s First E-Mental Health Strategy: The 12 Recommendations

Advance the development and promotion of a readiness assessment tool for service providers.
Develop and launch comprehensive e-mental health training for the mental health workforce.
Advance and promote a best-practice guideline for using e-mental health tools.
Increase safety with the use of artificial intelligence in mental health care.
Develop a national mental health app library.
Establish a champions network.
Develop a navigation site and public awareness campaign for quality e-mental health solutions.
Leverage e-mental health to support the continued utilization of interdisciplinary health-care teams, including mental health professionals.
Consider the role of e-mental health in Canada’s high-speed bandwidth initiatives.
Invest in the development of e-mental health solutions for a spectrum of intensity of services.
Allow for e-mental health solutions in all funding models for provincial and territorial health systems.
Advance interoperability of mental health data between providers and personal data ownership.

Further reading: Find the strategy in full.

Resource: E-Mental Health: What is the Issue?

Author: Fateema Sayani is the manager of content at the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

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Book Club – Mind the Science

Ian Peralta — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 05:00:32 +0000

By Fateema Sayani

The Book Club series profiles good reads that challenge stereotypes and stigmas.

I imagine Jonathan Stea has an “I Heart the Scientific Method” fridge magnet because his book, at times, has the ring of your high school science teacher trying to drum up enthusiasm for the concept to a tough crowd. Eventually it may land.

Mind The Science

Stea comes by it honestly. He is an adjunct assistant professor in the department of psychology at the University of Calgary and a full-time practicing clinical psychologist. He frequently takes to social media to debunk myths and correct facts. (Sometimes his mom even hops online to take on the trolls).

He writes for a lay audience with nuance, avoiding finger-wagging or dumbing-down tones. Stea offers compelling stories along with an overview of how to evaluate research and explains the importance of assessment, testing, peer-review, and various research methods. It’s solid information.

Except that he is battling a tide of speedy hot takes in our online world – a vast hyper-verse of snake oil-type claims from innumerable self-appointed “experts” in physical and mental health, celebrity endorsers, and others that cluster under the all-encompassing nebulous term “wellness.” It’s a vast and largely unregulated domain where many an influencer can hang up their shingle and freely offer tips that can range from cutesy to deadly.

Is it all bad? No. For example, you can shell over good money for a menu plan that aligns with the season and sounds vaguely spiritual. It likely tastes great and offers a cozy kind of comfort, but then there are more grim cases like that of Kirby Brown who attended a “Spiritual Warrior” retreat in Arizona. In 2009, Brown and two other participants died in the final activity of the retreat, a poor imitation of a Native American “sweat lodge.” Twenty other participants were taken to local hospitals.

Consumer safety

The Brown family focused their grief into an organization called SEEK Safely, designed to educate the public about the potential harms of the wellness industry, provide consumer information, and promote safety and accountability. Stea details their story in the book subtitled, “Saving Your Mental Health from the Wellness Industry.”

What might we need saving from? Well, it depends. Stea writes with humility about humanity – recognizing our contradictions, flaws, and changing circumstances. He shares his personal experience of caring for a loved one, grappling with the frustration of ineffective treatments. As a young person, he felt bewildered by science’s limitations. How is it that something capable of sending a man to the moon could also leave those closest to you in “a fog of health uncertainty”? he asks.

As a fellow mere mortal who will eventually fall sick, Stea wonders what he might do in the future. “Will I reach for the healing crystals? Maybe. Desperation is intoxicating.”

That vulnerability in moments of crisis can leave people open to being exploited at a time when they may be seeking growth, deeper meaning, connection, and a soft place to land in a world that is chaotic and confusing. Moreover, ineffective treatments can produce harm, drain your pocket, and erode trust in scientific foundations. At the same time, Stea notes, some wellness treatments may provide coziness and a sense of warmth in a fragmented healthcare system that may not have time for comfort or calm bedside manners. It’s a matter of knowing the difference.

More than just fluff: Is your therapist real or a feline? The case of George the Cat illustrates the importance of understanding how wellness practitioners are regulated in your jurisdiction.

Stea seems hopeful and offers faith in people’s capacity to sort through piles of information. I try to share that view, but more often I wonder about our ability to constantly evaluate the material coming at us in order to make informed decisions.

Do most people, moving through life at breakneck speed, pause to reflect on their “favourite” thinking errors and logical fallacies? I am fond of self-awareness, but not everyone may have it at all times, or in moments of heated exchange, the kinds that are perpetuated by online interactions and algorithms.

The key is to develop it. “This awareness is our friend when trying to figure out the legitimacy of particular mental health-related assessments, diagnoses, and treatments,” Stea writes. In addition to quantitative and qualitative scientific methods, Stea talks about Indigenous ways of knowing as something not to be co-opted as well as the value of lived experiences, where people share subjective takes on their lives, events, and ideas.

Things to watch for

Stea offers helpful tips for developing science literacy, and includes a lay overview of randomized control trials, and other evidence-based processes. He warns of pseudo-clinical jargon that masquerades as science but does not adhere to research methods. A key flag – the evasion of peer-reviewed studies.

“Science is a self-criticizing machine,” he says. “Peer review essentially involves having experts in a scientific field grade each other’s work and decide if it passes or fails,” he explains. “People who promote pseudoscience are experts at dodging the peer review process. They will either avoid it entirely or self-publish on blogs, websites, newsletters, or social media. They will claim that their pet theories cannot adequately be tested with current scientific methods, or they will claim that the ‘scientific establishment’ is biased against them,” he writes.

Stea demystifies the concept of science overall, noting that it’s something to regard as a tool or process and not something to believe in, he says. “Science isn’t a God. Or a unicorn.”

Healthy skepticism

To stem the tide, Stea offers an easy-to-implement practice – tame your search bar. Essentially, he explains, it is like going to the grocery store and avoiding impulse buys. The key: Go with a list. “Why are you looking online? Knowing what you need – such as ways to improve your health or a therapist – can keep you out of rabbit holes,” he says.

Thinking critically about information is a helpful skill when navigating an overwhelming online landscape and if you need a reminder, you can make George the Cat your screensaver. The domestic orange-and-white housecat was registered as a hypnotherapist with three UK industry bodies by a BBC journalist, exposing the flaws of certification and credentials. This example, while amusing, can serve as shorthand. “We all fall for fake science news at times to varying degrees, and it’s easier in hindsight to see what went wrong,” Stea writes.

Learning from those errors and developing media and scientific literacy can offer a sense of structure and control, as fake science news continues to perpetuate.

Further reading: Book Club – All in Her Head: How Gender Bias Harms Women’s Mental Health.

Resource: Online Disinformation: If it raises your eyebrows, it should raise questions.

Author: Fateema Sayani feels like “regression analysis” can be used ironically, these days. She frequently writes The Book Club section for The Catalyst.

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Best of The Catalyst 2024

Ian Peralta — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 05:00:15 +0000

By Fateema Sayani

If we gave The Catalyst magazine a sub-theme for 2024, it would be Learning and Listening. Stories covered lived experience of mental health and new approaches to therapy, as well as deeply insightful reflections on wellness, mental health research, and new ideas. If you missed some of these stories in 2024, we welcome you to take a tour through the magazine with notable highlights from the year that was. Happy 2025.

Good reads and recommendations

Books on mental health cover the gamut from research to personal tales, to a combination thereof. The Book Club series looks at works by Canadian authors, exploring the sub-themes and ideas. For example, the book Lifeline: An Elegy by author Stephanie Kain, centres around the author’s complicated relationship with a woman diagnosed with suicidal depression. Kain writes about the indignities of a locked ward, having to administer heavy medications, supporting someone through the after-effects of electro-convulsive therapy, and her own well-being. This article about this book received a Canadian Online Publishing Awards nomination. The awards will be announced in February 2025.

Read it: https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/catalyst/book-club-lifeline-an-elegy/

Have you picked up a copy of All In Her Head: How Gender Bias Harms Women’s Mental Health? In it, author Misty Pratt shares her story of a nervous breakdown, anxiety, and depression; her strategies, sessions with therapists, and how these intersected with life stages, such as the birth of her children. The Ottawa author and science researcher weaves in her lived experiences with trenchant analysis of contemporary research through a biopsychosocial lens (a model that looks at biological, psychological, and social factors that influence our lives). It’s a great read with captivating storylines and analysis.

Read about it: https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/catalyst/book-club-all-in-her-head/

Did You Know?

Jessica Ward-King is known as the Stigma Crusher and contributes frequently to The Catalyst through service stories that offer insights and tips. She shows how to be a good ally to transgender and nonbinary people in a political and social climate that can be downright hostile and dangerous.

Read: Rallying as an Ally: https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/catalyst/rallying-as-an-ally/

Naloxone kits can reverse an opioid overdose and should be easily accessible. It is not only those members of the population who live with substance use concerns who could owe their lives to naloxone; it is also people who live with chronic pain and take prescription pain medications – or someone who could get into that pain medication by accident. It is all of us who, in our daily lives, could come across other people who – for whatever reason – have overdosed on opioids.

Read: Kit in Hand: https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/catalyst/kit-in-hand/

Hip-hop therapy is a fusion of hip-hop, bibliotherapy, and music therapy. Toronto therapist Freda Bizimana, MSW, RSW, works with Black and racialized youth in conflict with the law at The Growth & Wellness Therapy Centre. She shared how challenging it is to reach Black youth, particularly those who have come to therapy because of their interaction with the justice system. “They don’t want to be there talking to a stranger,” she says. “Hip-hop gives us a bridge, a way to connect through something they love.” This article received a Canadian Online Publishing Awards nomination. The awards will be announced in February 2025.

Read Remix Your Therapy: https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/catalyst/remix-your-therapy/

Her Story and Her Story

A personal narrative offers particular insights into a life story. The Lived Experience section highlights these stories. In 2024, we met 26-year-old Gillian Corsiatto of Red Deer, Alta., a published author – her debut novel, Duck Light, asks the serious question: “How can one break free of societal expectations?” – and more books and plays are underway. She’s also been a keen improv performer with Bullskit Comedy. She has three part-time jobs: She is a community educator and youth group leader for the Red Deer branch of the Schizophrenia Society of Alberta and has been a guest speaker for The Mental Health Commission of Canada’s Headstrong youth program; she manages social media and recruitment for the Red Deer Royals marching band (in which she used to play the tuba); and has taken a job wrapping and packaging caramels for a small, home-based business. If you have never met a person who lives with schizophrenia – you just did.

Read: What is It Like Living with Schizophrenia?: https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/catalyst/what-is-it-like-living-with-schizophrenia/

Meanwhile, Jessica Ward-King, who you know as the Stigma Crusher, frequently shares her personal stories, in addition to writing educational articles. In Yes, Me, the mental health advocate – who has a doctorate in psychology and first-hand knowledge of bipolar disorder – explains why her mental illness has classified Ward-King as a person with a disability under the employment equity act.

Read: Yes, Me: https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/catalyst/yes-me/

Watch for more great stories in 2025 – you can receive them directly in your inbox once a month by subscribing here: Catalyst Sign-Up – Mental Health Commission of Canada

Fateema Sayani edits The Catalyst and contributes frequently to the Representations and Book Club sections.

Fateema Sayani edits The Catalyst and contributes frequently to the Representations and Book Club sections.

The post Best of The Catalyst 2024 appeared first on Mental Health Commission of Canada.

Eight Great Ideas Changing Lives Worldwide

Ian Peralta — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 05:00:23 +0000

Satya Hinduja of Alchemic Sonic Environment leads an immersive sound experience. Photo: Alex Barankevych

By Fateema Sayani

Is spirituality back? Can micro-messages delivered via WhatsApp offer measurable improvements on well-being? These, and other ideas, were on the table at the 9^th annual Electronic Mental Health International Collaborative (eMHIC) congress, hosted in September in Ottawa by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. Hundreds of delegates from dozens of countries came together to expand their thinking under the theme Digital Building Capacity: 24/7 Mental Health Support for All. The Catalyst team drew selected snack-sized insights and concepts for inspiration.

1. The Big Three

If you’re a young person, this likely comes as no surprise: their top three concerns are jobs, mental health, and climate. This finding from UNICEF guided the development of USupportME, an on-demand psychological support platform for youth. Piloted in several Eastern European and Central Asian countries, the platform is flexible and can be branded for use in different regions. With GDPR compliance and security support, it offers scalable white-label mental health services.

2. Ending the Google Loop of Despair

SANE, an Australian health organization for people with complex mental health issues, coined the term for a familiar cycle: being sent to a website, then a helpline, then a primary care physician, and finally referred to a psychologist—only to face a six-month wait, leading people back to “Dr. Google.” To break this cycle, SANE created a new model of psychosocial support focused on choice, continuity, open access, and quick response. Their approach includes self-referral, telehealth, digital programs, and group sessions, with an Indigenous-governed online learning space in their recovery community. They offer ongoing care, eliminating the traditional discharge model. “The future is in blended care models,” says CEO Rachel Green. It’s tech in service of people.

3. Soul Decisions

“Where did the soul go in clinical psychology?” asks Allan Donsky, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Calgary and consultant at the Canadian Institute of Natural and Integrative Medicine (CINIM). He advocates for more contemplative therapeutic practices, beyond strictly diagnosis driven interventions, aimed at fostering self-awareness. Developing inner literacy can help people transition from languishing to flourishing by addressing big questions of self-acceptance, purpose, freedom, and relationships. Donsky notes that existential therapy was largely discarded in the 1970s, but there is a renewed interest in exploring inner dimensions—what might be called the heart, spirit, or soul. “What does it mean to be human?” he asks? It’s a universal question. “Every culture around the world has its ways of contemplating the deeper aspects of life.”

4. Family First

Mental health advocate Nicole Waldron referred to family caregivers as the very first responders. They are first on the scene to help family members, and they are often the unseen link in mental health care. Waldron gave a powerful address calling for better data collection and ecosystem support for family caregivers for their wellness, advocacy, and education. “What does a CTO mean? What does an SDM mean? How do you navigate a system where your loved one has been criminalized?”

(A CTO refers to a community treatment order and an SDM stands for substitute decision-maker).

5. One-Stop Help

Where to start? When there are so many options to choose from and you need support, what is the first step? Kids Help Phone launched Resources Around Me at the conference. It’s a directory of trustworthy resources from all across Canada. Kids Help Phone had 20 million interactions in 2020, and this directory helps them provide more support in more places and in more ways – virtual, text, in-person, and more.

6. Expressing Emotions in Sign Language

In Bangladesh, there are a total of 500 practitioners – 300 psychiatrists and 200 psychologists – for a population of 180 million – that’s a giant gap to fill. That’s where PhD researcher M Tasdik Hasan of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, is piloting a project co-designed with deaf people, caregivers, healthcare providers, and sign-language interpreters. He notes deaf communities, in Bangladesh and the world over, are historically ignored when it comes to accessible and inclusive mental health solutions. They co-designed culturally and linguistically tailored tools to provide basic mental health terminology – such as PTSD, stress, and depression – in sign language.

7. Building Capacity in Small and Remote Communities

The ATIPAN Project provides telehealth services to Indigenous communities in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines, where access to healthcare is often limited by distance, challenging terrain (including islands, mountains, and agricultural or coastal areas), armed conflict, language barriers, and financial constraints. To address these challenges, the project implemented community-based patient navigators and infrastructure development over two years. Named after the Hiligaynon word atipan (“to take care of”), the project offers free consultations, training for community coordinators, and basic medications.

8. What’s App with That?

The Pode Falar project provides mental health support to Brazilians aged 13-24 through a website, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It features a chatbot named Ariel, who handles automated triage and offers assistance based on the complexity of users’ concerns. Users can access self-care tips (“I want to take care of myself”), read or share anonymous stories about overcoming challenges (“I want to be inspired”), and connect with a human agent for additional support (“I want to talk”). This large-scale initiative addresses mental health in an under-resourced area and was highlighted in a panel discussion: “Are Low to Middle Income Settings Ready to Benefit from Digital Mental Health Tools?” The program supports text, email, and WhatsApp messaging services.

Steal These Ideas

The congress’ regular sessions titled “Brag & Steal” offer permission to take projects that have worked well elsewhere and apply them to your own work. In that spirit, we want to underline a few cool concepts.

Pop Up Mental Health

Those attending a mental health conference tend to be a niche bunch, so why not bring it to the people? The Time to Change program that ran for 15 years in the UK until 2021 campaigned to reduce stigma through social contact. People with lived experiences of mental health issues had two-way conversations with unknown members of the public to debunk myths about mental illness. They went to concerts, libraries, and farmers’ markets, said Sue Baker, OBE, founder of Time to Change.

Of Sound Mind

Composer, sound artist, producer, and DJ Satya Hinduja, founder of Alchemic Sound Environment, taps into the connection between sound, music, technology, and health. Hinduja led a deep listening experience, designed to invoke states of reflection, receptivity, and exchange. Thinking about sound as a therapeutic experience gave participants a chance to reflect on the noises around them, frequencies, vibrations, and their own interiority.

North Star

There are so many mental health apps out there – how do we know what to trust? At the congress, the Mental Health Commission of Canada released Canada’s First E-Mental Health Strategy. This guiding star document has six priorities and 12 recommendations to chart the future direction and development of e-mental health in Canada. Use it to advocate, guide, and develop your work.

Narrative Care

Step by Step is a web application used in Lebanon that provides mental health support through storytelling. In the program, fictional characters with depression visit a healthcare worker, and users learn coping skills from a 15-minute illustrated story, observing how the character applies these techniques in their life. The second 15-minute segment is interactive, with the healthcare professional character delving deeper into therapeutic techniques and offering activities for users to reinforce what they’ve learned.

Overheard at eMHIC

On getting things done: The words “collaborative action” – shortened to “collaboraction” was the name of the game – working together to advance mental health access.
Beyond shiny objects: It’s not about technology per se, rather, “it’s about people and trust.” The tools enable this work and digital has no geopolitical boundaries.
Making space for our work: Ian Hickie, professor of psychiatry, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney, Australia, talked about “the Uberization of mental health.” If those with lived experience and research capacity in this field don’t respond appropriately, it leaves room for others to step in to respond consumer priorities: access, choice, competitive pricing, user experience. Worldwide, demand for personalized mental health services far outstrips supply.
The meaning of it all: “We all get lifted when someone believes in us,” said eMHIC executive director, Anil Thapliyal, in his closing comments.

Coming up: The 10^th annual congress takes place in Toronto, November 2025. Register your interest and learn more at: https://events.emhicglobal.com/register-your-interest-for-emhic-2025/

Further reading: Tech Support: Online mental health support is breaking down barriers.

Author: Fateema Sayani is the Manager, Content, at the Mental Health Commission of Canada. In the spirit of collaborative action, she writes regularly on technology, society, pop culture, and its intersections with mental health.

The post Eight Great Ideas Changing Lives Worldwide appeared first on Mental Health Commission of Canada.

Book Club – All In Her Head

Ian Peralta — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 14:22:35 +0000

By Fateema Sayani

The Book Club series profiles good reads that challenge stereotypes and stigmas – part of our Representations section on pop culture and mental health.

It’s not just gender bias – though that’s a useful umbrella term for the various societal ills, long-held beliefs, lack of data, historical hangups, and stigma that negatively impact mental health care for women.

All In Her Head

Author Misty Pratt is a science communicator and researcher based in Ottawa. She brings in medical research, interviews with practitioners, and her lived experience with mental health care into a book (Greystone Books, May 2024) that dismantles outdated concepts like hysteria, critiques the self-care industrial complex, and examines cultural constructions of mental illness.

It’s not you, it’s capitalism

In chapter 7 – titled Are You Mentally Ill or Mentally Overloaded? – Pratt underlines the link between burnout and depression, based on a study of Finnish employees. It suggests that people suffering from burnout are more likely to become depressed, while those with depression are more vulnerable to burnout.

Within this loop, Pratt notes that when women experience burnout – in a broad sense of being overly exhausted by the mental load and daily life – it is sometimes diagnosed as anxiety or depression. However, this could be a false diagnosis that overlooks larger economic and social issues – such as the patriarchy (Chapter 6) – leading to ineffective treatments.

Pratt asks readers to consider their situation more holistically. In other words, is the reason you can’t get out of bed more about the climate catastrophic world you live in, your economic situation, or a lack of power– rather than about you as a person?

Empowering eye-opener

“Personally, this realization completely changed the way I relate to myself and my mental illness,” Pratt writes. “I believe that misdiagnosing burnout feeds the illusion that mental illness is due to a personality flaw, negative mindset, my family’s genes, or an imbalance in my brain rather than an understanding that is closer to the truth: I’m facing a social problem that has real, lived emotional consequences.”

She found this realization freeing but notes it can be distressing to know you don’t have as much control over your well-being as you may have thought or been led to believe. However, a broader more fulsome view can set you “on a path to rediscover your own capacity, the ways in which you are limited, and what tiny actions of resistance you can make.”

Pratt is careful to not define what that resistance could or should look like for anyone. She checks her own biases in the book, actively avoiding what she calls the trap of “White Woman Wellness Syndrome,” that carries a privilege and often pushes simple fixes that are trendy or culturally appropriative. There are no affiliate links to jade eggs or corny affirmations to be found here. Rather, wellness culture and self-care are reimagined in a way that touches on our multitudes: spiritual, social, relational, cognitive, emotional, and financial.

**Rewriting her story**

Pratt shares her story of a nervous breakdown, anxiety, and depression; her strategies, sessions with therapists, and how these intersected with life stages, such as the birth of her children. She weaves in her lived experiences with trenchant analysis of contemporary research through a biopsychosocial lens (a model that looks at biological, psychological, and social factors that influence our lives).

Another through line is the story of Pratt’s grandmother, Dorothy Mavis Buckler, who was contending with bipolar disorder in the 1980s, a time when we knew much less, stigma was painfully and systemically strong, and treatments were rudimentary. Pratt recalls her view as a then-five-year-old observing her grandmother’s state.

“When we lose our mind, where does it go?” she writes. “As our mind drifts past, do we jump and try to grab at it, as a young child would chase after a wayward balloon on a windy day?”

Clinicians acted as if her grandmother’s symptoms were exaggerated. Pratt explores the narrative of hysteria and wonders what might be different now for her grandmother. Contrasted with Pratt’s own experiences and research, the reader is left with a hopeful feeling – that things have improved, even if there is so much more to do.

For example, when Pratt gets lightly “manifesto-y” toward the end, her call-to-action is so sensible and straightforward that one wonders – why aren’t we there yet?

“My wish is for all women to have access to effective biopsychosocial treatment options, to consent only once properly informed, to receive support for their preferences and values, and to have better care in coming off medication,” she writes.

“This can be done in collaboration with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, patient advocates, and anyone else working toward better mental health care. In other words, we can find common ground to stand on, a place where the door opens to choices for each and every individual who wants them.”

Further reading: Lifeline: An Elegy: Stephanie Kain’s novel changes the narrative on supporting someone with mental illness.

Resource: Where to Get Care – A Guide to Navigating Public and Private Mental Health Services in Canada.

Author: Fateema Sayani has not yet written her manifesto. She is the Manager, Content at the Mental Health Commission of Canada, and frequently writes The Book Club series in The Catalyst.

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Design Your Digital Diet for Mental Health

Ian Peralta — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 19:02:19 +0000

By Fateema Sayani

Are you reading this in the bathroom? You wouldn’t be the first.

Digital culture has invaded intimate parts of our lives – bedrooms, dinner tables – and in those formerly stolen moments like the line at the grocery store or, dangerously, sneaking a glance while driving.

Those notes, texts, scrolls, and posts add up until it becomes a habit – and that becomes the stuff of your life. Your mental space is crowded.

Increasingly, I hear friends and strangers say they want their brains back. They’re looking for meaningful ways to do that – a new hands-on hobby like the piano – or they’re installing concentration apps.

Thinking in Facebook posts

I remember reading a think-piece where the author talked about missing important life moments, such as observing a toddler’s first steps, and how his brain was already focused on filming it or even mentally drafting a tweet about it. I’ve caught myself doing something similar and missing the beauty of the moment. It’s insidious. Suddenly we think more about performing our lives over living them.

So, what can we do? Johann Hari’s book Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention (2022) notes that simplistic solutions like, “just don’t touch your phone” don’t reflect the realities of how these devices are engineered.

They are designed to release dopamine making us spend way more time than we intended to, says Sophie H. Janicke-Bowles, a media psychologist and associate professor at Chapman University in California, in Psychology Today. Janicke-Bowles says, we need to know what “healthy” tech use actually looks like to foster it.

Technology differs in each of our lives

That’s why we’ve called this piece “design your digital diet.” It reflects the differing natures and needs of our technology use. Yes, we know – we’re online telling you to go away from the screen. However, is that not the challenge of our times? A digital diet means different things to different people. For example, a colleague uses the saying “sunshine before screen time,” to start and set the tone for the day. It works for her.

Making plans, ordering food, requesting a lift, looking for a date, finding a new shirt, or applying for a job requires interaction with a screen. It also taxes our mentality, time, focus, sense of self, and relationships.

To be sure, there are positive aspects. At the Mental Health Commission of Canada, we develop, promote, and encourage the use of quality, safe, culturally appropriate electronic mental health tools to bridge gaps in the healthcare system. Instant mental health care in your pocket. That’s a plus.

All to say, we can’t stop technology, but we can advocate for more control in the way it’s used so that we don’t ruin our capacity to pay attention.

Pay attention to your friends

The watering hole in my neighbourhood has a “pay attention to your friends” sign on the wall and printed on the menu. It’s part scolding and part invitation to disengage and reengage in a lost art – eye contact and conversation. The place is moody, low lit, and has great service – that should be enough to take us away from the vortex of our phones, yet it’s not. This nudge is kind of like holding up a mirror – um, duh, when did this phone thing become so normalized? If we need to be reminded, then it’s hard to wonder why we have a loneliness epidemic. I try to frequent that place. Elsewhere, it feels like everyone is always looking down, more engrossed in screens than in other humans’ expressions.

Surgeon says

When the U.S. surgeon general weighs in, you know stuff is serious. In June 2024, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy called for health warning labels on social media to address youth mental health issues. An advisory is reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate awareness and action – though, I’d argue it’s not confined to America, social media crosses borders.

The advisory notes that because adolescence is a vulnerable period of brain development, social media exposure during this period warrants additional scrutiny. Extreme, inappropriate, and harmful content continues to be widely accessible by children and adolescents, it notes, while underscoring the fact that social media also provides positive interactions and social support, especially for youth who are marginalized, including racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender minorities.

It notes that researchers believe that social media exposure can overstimulate the reward centre in the brain and, when stimulation becomes excessive, can trigger pathways comparable to substance use or gambling.

The features that keep us hooked are burrowing our brains: push notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll, likes and hearts, and algorithms that continually serve us the things we want. Ding! Ping!

Feel it

This technological invasion can manifest in strong responses: periods of complete disconnection or an engagement with more haptic elements – hands-on woodworking, say, or a new vinyl collection. For many, it’s also about re-engaging with in-person experiences like live theatre or concerts.

I like those shows where phones are banned. An early 2024 Trevor Noah comedy gig made me feel really present. I observed the design details of the old theatre, people’s reactions, the stage set up, and the issues being dissected through trenchant comedic bits. It took a security-endorsed phone ban to feel that good.

There was relief in taking in the experience unmitigated by a sea of small screens and feeling that collectivity. I admit wanting to steal a snap for my feed or personal memories. I also remember the olden days when we simply bought the t-shirt to say, ‘I was there.’

This is a generational bridge. Ensconced in a Gen X frame of reference, I straddle virtual and offline worlds. I know what it is to have made a call on a dial phone using a number I memorized – sometimes from a phone booth. I write in cursive, mail letters on paper, handled and paid in cash, read newspapers, found a location on a paper map, a phone number in the phone book, looked up something on microfiche, made mixed tapes as a form of flirtation and social currency, and took photos on film and had to wait until they came back from the camera shop – or 1-hour photo for the impatient – to see how they turned out. I often wonder about the different experiences of digital natives.

Another longing from an older era would be the craft of storytelling – whether it be oral histories or the written word – to convey meaning or share personal narratives. The essay The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han traces the change in storytelling. Once a communal bond over campfires that connected us to our pasts and provided a picture of the future, now those settings have been replaced by screens. The author calls this a transition to storyselling, a distinction that removes the artfulness and puts our personal lives into a commercial frame, which is, in essence, what we are doing. Like the saying goes, in social media, you are the product.

Ultimately, our relationship with technology is personal. We have to design our digital diet to reflect our realities, values, and needs – and consider the way it can enrich our lives. Mindful choices and intentional pauses can mitigate some of the nefarious effects of technology to support our mental well-being.

Log in, share your ideas for better digital engagement, and then log out for another activity. Books, friends, outings, or a digital pause. We’re crowdsourcing ideas on maintaining a balance. What do you do? Tell us on social media or via email: mhcc@mentalhealthcommission.ca. (We aren’t accepting postcard submissions, but we probably should).

Further reading: Tech Support: Online mental health support is breaking down barriers. We look at the potential of artificial intelligence and strategies for avoiding pitfalls.

Author: Fateema Sayani

Fateema Sayani

Fateema Sayani has worked in social purpose organizations and newsrooms for twenty-plus years, managing teams, strategy, research, fundraising, communications, and policy. Her work has been published in magazines and newspapers across Canada, focusing on social issues, policy, pop culture, and the Canadian music scene. She was a longtime columnist at the Ottawa Citizen and a senior editor and writer at Ottawa Magazine. She has been a juror for the Polaris Music Prize and the East Coast Music Awards and volunteers with global music presenting organization Axé WorldFest and the Canadian Advocacy Network. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism, a master’s degree in philanthropy and nonprofit leadership, and certificates in French-language writing from McGill and public policy development from the Max Bell Foundation Public Policy Training Institute. She researches nonprofit news models to support the development of this work in Canada and to shift narratives about underrepresented communities. Her work in publishing earned her numerous accolades for social justice reporting, including multiple Canadian Online Publishing Awards and the Joan Gullen Award for Media Excellence.

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Book Club – Lifeline: An Elegy

Alex Barankevych — Tue, 14 May 2024 18:46:26 +0000

By Fateema Sayani

What happens when someone you love cliff-dives off the edge of mental illness?

This question appears on the cover of Stephanie Kain’s novel-memoir Lifeline: An Elegy (ECW Press, October 2023). Kain answers that and other questions over 210 pages of prose, text exchanges, short stories, and essays.

The book is stunning in its fragmented format, befitting the author’s experience of grappling with a frayed healthcare system, one’s own perspectives and biases, the mental illness of a loved one, and daily life challenges during the emergency phase of the pandemic.

Complicated romantic, platonic, and familial relationship dynamics are named and noted with dry wit and underscored with pop culture references and lyrics (Shawn Mendes, Sara Bareilles, and Mumford & Sons, among them).

In Lifeline, advocating for one’s care is “Shirley MacLaine-ing” in a reference to Terms of Endearment. In a notable scene from that film, you hear a frustrated bellowing of, “It’s after 10!” as MacLaine’s character nearly has a breakdown at the triage desk trying to get her daughter a pain shot. Her pleading eventually works, and the volume and tone suddenly change. “Thank you,” she tells the nurse just above a whisper.

Kain has similar moments of raw reality. The story centres around the author’s complicated relationship with a woman diagnosed with suicidal depression. Kain writes about the indignities of a locked ward, having to administer heavy medications, supporting someone through the after-effects of electro-convulsive therapy, and her own well-being. The author – a creative writing professor at the University of Ottawa – spends time in PEI, and the island figures prominently as she looks to find a way forward.

The book’s format is jaunty and compelling, and its portrayal of the frustrations and realities of helping a loved one through mental illness is done with intensity and honesty – yet free of judgement and stigma, the things that can hold people back from seeking care.

The insomnia is camped out permanently like an adult child moving home for quarantine, knowing you can’t kick it out, even if it’s on its worst behaviour.

A chapter called Eight Things I’m Putting in Your Care Package offers insight as the author rationalizes each choice.

Multicoloured Pens: Blue and black are depressing as f–k, and since you hate any pencil crayons that aren’t your top-of-the-line artist brand, I’m not even going to try sending you any. Instead, you can draw with multicoloured pens and stop judging yourself and your work because nobody expects drawings made with multicoloured pens to be good. They’re just supposed to pass the time.

You might not recall because #Depression, but the last time you were in there, you made something in art class and spent half an hour criticizing it before I finally screamed at you that you were in a psychiatric hospital and the art wasn’t supposed to be good for the love of f–k and maybe this was the problem!

In this way, the book made me think about portrayals of mental illness in contemporary fiction. The Mental Health Commission of Canada’s magazine, The Catalyst: Conversations on Mental Health, has a section dedicated to this topic called Representations. It takes on popular narratives of mental well-being to mark their shifts. If you’ve watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest or Thirteen Reasons Why, you can see there is room for improvement with regard to nuance, honest portrayals, and false notions.

I was inspired to start this feature after reading a series in The Walrus reflecting on problematic classic works. This re-examination brings to light the ways in which society and literature have changed. Author Myra Bloom looks at the darker side of Leonard Cohen through a re-examination of Beautiful Losers’ stereotypes with discussions on the genius myth and what historian Martin Jay calls the “aesthetic alibi” used to justify bad behaviour. Writing about The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Amanda Perry says, “At seventeen, I could still assume beautiful phrases were true ones and take characters as guides for living.” Perry reflects on “the male writers whose words have shaped my psyche and whether it’s time to shake them off.”

Stephanie Kain

Reading that sentence, I think of depictions of mental health that live in my psyche. I grew up listening to The Ramones, whose many titles send up mental wellness (“I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Go Mental,” “Mental Hell,” “I Wanna Be Well” – I made an entire playlist), as well as their live-in-your-head video for “Psycho Therapy.” I think about how Sylvia Plath, who, like all of us, was a product of her time. Re-reading The Bell Jar now makes me think about how it’s a case study in self-stigma and structural stigma. Terms we didn’t use then. We know more now.

Problematic depictions in the mass media won’t end – sensationalism and romanticization frequently propel narrative arcs – but the huge role that popular culture can play in the understanding and representation of mental health makes a book like Lifeline such a notable work in illustrating the story of living with and supporting someone with mental illness through ups and downs, contradictions, contours, and textures.

“Healing is not linear, darling,” the author writes—and the book’s format artfully follows that statement by jumping around in time as the author reflects and looks forward, trying to imagine a time when the person she cares for so deeply might be better.

Further reading: Breaking Stigmas, Saving Lives.

Resource: A Vision for Quality Mental Health Care for All.

Author: Fateema Sayani

Fateema Sayani

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Best of The Catalyst 2023

Nasreen Hamed — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 14:47:49 +0000

By Fateema Sayani

Fateema Sayani

The post Best of The Catalyst 2023 appeared first on Mental Health Commission of Canada.

Mental Health For The Holidays

Alex Barankevych — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 19:07:34 +0000

By Fateema Sayani

Our annual literary series touches on the complexities of the season.

Our tagline for The Catalyst is “Conversations on mental health.” This idea is meant as shorthand for our magazine’s purpose and a signal to our readers that the door is open to discuss mental health.

This welcome mat also speaks to the larger mission at the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) to reduce stigma. When we speak openly about challenges, illnesses, problems, and wellness, we recognize that mental health is part of our overall health. Such conversations can be a gateway to meaningful change, and the holiday season feels like an especially good time to tackle the complexities and multitudes of our mental health.

So every December, we run our Mental Health for the Holidays series to touch on the things not seen in those sparkly commercials. The goal is to normalize some of the challenges the holidays can bring and give readers a sense of hope with a touch of humour.

Each year has a subtheme. In 2023, it was Moping, Hoping, and Coping. For 2024, we’re going with Good Tidings, Bad Partings, and New Traditions. While pithy and catchy, our hope is that they also speak to a trajectory of hope and promise through real voices and real stories.

I launched the series in 2022, some months after joining the MHCC as the manager of content and strategic communications. The Catalyst is one part of my portfolio and among the most visible parts of our work at the commission, whose other initiatives include research reports, public engagement, and knowledge translation projects such as guides, tools, courses, and webinars. The Catalyst is designed to be conversational, accessible, and even chatty while covering a gamut of issues, ideas, and research within mental health. It’s a little bit of Psychology Today with a dash of the New Yorker and a good dose of neighbourly advice.

The “recipe” for this annual series is to find stories that bridge the gaps between expectations and realities. It’s people taking their lumps and making honey lemon tea out of lemons, with a side of tin box cookies. They’re narratives about people facing challenges, told without tropes or platitudes.

Finding your way

Authors usually share a personal tale tied to a theme. For example, in 2022, Rheostatics rock band member and West End Phoenix newspaper publisher Dave Bidini wrote about skating, the germination of his memoirs, nostalgia, rinks, and rituals with richly beautiful detail and a certain musicality.

I was grateful that skating had delivered this creative idea to me at the expense of having to relive the stress, pain, and anger that came with reconstructing those times. I’d tried to make art through a discovery of this nostalgia. But nostalgia often uncovers the raw truths of the past while celebrating the best parts of being young and simple and new to the world.

Read Getting Outside to Get Into Your Head here.

Writer-instructor Moira Farr wrote with a witty self-awareness about navigating the holidays with a mood disorder and aging parents while highlighting the value of small talk.

Comfort and joy don’t just happen. You have to create them, and that requires generosity of spirit (as Scrooge famously learned) instead of going so far inward you can’t see beyond your own navel.

Read May Your Days Be Merry and Bright As Possible here.

Author Debra Yearwood grappled with her complicated relationship with Kwanzaa as she tried to unknot — like so many strands of tree lights — questions of identity and the commercialization of Christmas. Her rhythmic writing rollicks with insights as she wrestles with the emotional toll of holiday traditions and expectations.

Then comes the guilt. I ate way too much. All that butter and sugar. Ugh. I think I can hear my arteries hardening. The familiar commitments to do better follow. Tomorrow I’ll have a salad. . . but then someone invited me out for lunch. Dinner with friends is on for the next day and of course all those friends I haven’t seen in, like, forever. Drinks! Wasn’t that a special bottle of rum! Oh, and the best Côtes du Rhône I’ve had in an age. Recriminations arrive in the morning, delivered in that scathing voice I reserve just for me. Ugh, again! But the see-saw of pleasure and punishment is just getting started.

Read Sugar and Spice and Trying to Be Nice here.

This year

Writer Eleanor Sage tackles a timely subject in “Sister Acts,” where she details her efforts to bring a sibling out of a misinformation rabbit hole in order to recapture some sort of relationship while grieving the connection they once had. Watch for it in our December issue.

Putting this series together feels like a gift and an honour. It’s a delight to coach emerging and established writers, and work with an extraordinary team of authors, editors, digital and web experts, project managers, translators, and illustrators. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoy presenting it. Happy holidays.

Author: Fateema Sayani

Fateema Sayani

The post Mental Health For The Holidays appeared first on Mental Health Commission of Canada.

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