No health without mental health, no recovery without physical health. Addressing the health inequalities elephant in the room

Almost 70 years now Dr Brock Chisholm, a Canadian psychiatrist and the first Director-General of the World Health Organization famously said that “without mental health there can be no true physical health”.

Good health is a state of physical, mental, and social wellbeing. Globally Mental health services have often seemed underfunded, a Cinderella service compared to other health provisions. But on a positive note over the last 25 years, we have the growth in the promotion of mental health recovery and potentially better outcomes for people as we have moved away from an institutionalised clinical system.

This focus on mental health recovery is good, but what about our physical health who was taking care of that?  Experiencing a significant mental health condition at some stage of our lives increases the risks of physical health problems as we age. There are increased risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, increased risks of cancer, chronic pain the list continues.  Why is this the case when people had so much interaction with health services.

There is no health without mental health, but without addressing the physical healthcare inequalities for people accessing mental health services we cannot say we have recovery focused services.

This workshop explores from a personal, lived experience perspective the impact that a mental health condition can have on our physical health and how this might be a threat to our mental health as we grow older.