The Potent Potential Of The Relationship Between Mental Health And Social Justice

“It can be overwhelming to witness/experience/take in all of the injustices of the moment; the good news is that they’re all connected. So if your little corner of the work involves pulling at one of the threads, you’re helping to unravel the whole damn cloth.”

This is a quote from writer and educator Ursula WolfeRocca, and while it illustrates the interconnectedness of all social movements, it also perfectly illustrates the thread that runs through mental health and activism.

An individual’s lived experience is almost always interdependent on the entire culture, community, and systems that raise them. The oppressive systems at work in our current zeitgeist depend on the poor mental health of its people, and it’s up to us all to confront these truths.

We can confirm this phenomenon in infinite social justice statistics, but one major public health model that best illustrates the relationship between mental health and social injustice is the minority stress model. This model helps us better understand the lived experiences of people in historically and intentionally oppressed communities, suggesting that increased incidents of stress due to prejudice and discrimination lead to greater negative mental health outcomes.

It’s also important to remember that people with different cultural upbringings might see increased stigma in their own families or communities, leaving them with very little support to ask for help or lean into vulnerability. Poor mental health is often upheld by layers of generational and systemic trauma.

With all of that in mind, we’re left to wonder: If mental health is so clearly connected to our social identities, why do mental health challenges feel so isolating? And how do we best pull at the thread to cultivate the relationship between mental health and social justice into one of hope and symbiosis; not one of continuous harm?

Activism is mental healthcare and mental healthcare is activism. By creating better lives for people through policy and social transformation, we improve their mental health. And by protecting our mental health, we are better equipped to fight injustice.

The Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA) aims to more deeply explore the link between personal and societal transformation. Based in New York, the organization is a coalition of mental health workers, clinicians, psychiatrists, advocates, artists, survivors, and current and prior users of mental health services who dare to create a new paradigm in mental health.

By working to shift policy and practice, IDHA hopes to account for the complexity of personal, social, and collective traumas, open up the narrow definition of “normal,” and look to regenerative and transformative practices to help us heal in more ways than one. IDHA offers training courses, memberships, resource libraries, cross-movement organizing, and community events to anyone deeply interested and connected to transformative mental health.

Learn more: idha-nyc.org

Of course, that’s easier said than done, but when we take the small steps to acknowledge the interdependence of these experiences, we invite a greater awareness into both the social justice and mental health spaces.

Think about some examples where you’ve seen this in your own community or in the news. For example, after the horrific mass shooting in the predominantly Hispanic city of Uvalde, Texas, helpers worked to prioritize long-term mental health support for the community. In LGBTQ+ affirming spaces, loving adults are trained with suicide prevention curriculums. And among the ongoing ripple effects of the Black Lives Matter movement, coalitions of Black therapists have rallied together to change the landscape of their field.

Systems-wide change is necessary to build a sustainable and inclusive future, but as Wolfe-Rocca writes, pulling at the threads one by one does help change these systems. Below, check out a few resources and ideas for creating a more interdependent and intersectional culture of wellness.

Whether you actively engage in programs like IDHA’s, educate yourself about (and reject) oppressive systems that continue to cause trauma, or simply continue on your own mental health journey by unraveling your own threads, there is power in the connective nature of healing. This work might look like:

Actively advocating for policies that make people’s lives better (such as increased wages, affordable housing, stronger social nets, or funding for culturally significant arts programs)

Investing in and strengthening a wide variety of treatment modalities in the mental health field (like regenerative and holistic practices that embrace and understand the intersections of culture)

Prioritizing the mentorship and growth of diverse therapists and practitioners — and helping folks of all backgrounds find the right therapists to affirm and guide their experiences