::Welcome to the website of SA Federation for Mental Health ::

MENTAL HEALTH

A state of emotional and psychological well-being in which an individual is able to use his or her cognitive and emotional capabilities, function in society, and meet the ordinary demands of everyday life.

MENTAL DISABILITY

Mental disability is the collective term for both intellectual disability and psychiatric disability as described herewith.

INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY (and why we don’t talk about mental retardation etc.)

Intellectual disability is a disability characterised by significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior as expressed in conceptual, social, and practical adaptive skills. Intellectual disability originates before age 18.

The term mental retardation is still used by some medical orientated context and in America. However, the term “intellectual disability” is more commonly used in South Africa. The other terminologies for this condition are “mentally handicapped”, “mentally / intellectually challenged” or “learning impaired”.

PSYCHIATRIC DISABILITY

Psychiatric disability may be the result of mental illness, which is an illness of the mind. Psychiatric disability is a term that describes a broad range of mental and emotional conditions. The term disability is used when mental illness significantly interferes or substantially limits the performance of major life activities, such as learning, thinking, communicating, sleeping, etc.

Someone can experience a psychiatric disability over many years. The type, intensity and duration of symptoms vary from person to person. They come and go and do not always follow a regular pattern, making it difficult to predict when symptoms and functioning will worsen, even if treatment recommendations are followed.

Although the symptoms of psychiatric disability can often be controlled effectively through medication and/or psychotherapy and may even go into remission, for some people the illness continues to cause periodic episodes that require treatment.

Therefore some people with psychiatric disability will need no support, others may need only occasional support, where others may require more substantial, ongoing support to maintain their productivity.

The most common forms of psychiatric disability are anxiety disorders, depressive disorders and schizophrenia.

EMPLOYABILITY

Employability is about having the capability to gain initial employment, maintain employment and obtain new employment if required. For the individual, employability depends on:

their assets in terms of the knowledge, skills and attitudes they possess;
the way they use and deploy those assets;
the way they present themselves to employers; and
the context (e.g. personal circumstances and labour market environment) in which they seek employment.

More comprehensively, employability is the capability to move self-sufficiently within the labour market to realise potential through sustainable employment.

SUPPORTED EMPLOYMENT

Supported employment has been defined as: Real work in integrated work settings with ongoing support provided by an agency with expertise in finding employment for people who are disadvantaged in the labour market.

EMPOWERMENT

"Empowerment" has become a popular term in mental health programs, yet it has lacked a clear definition. In a research project designed to measure empowerment in programs funded by and for mental health service users, they first undertook to come up with a working definition. Key elements of empowerment were identified, including access to information, ability to make choices, assertiveness, and self-esteem. Empowerment has both an individual and a group dimension. Details of the definition are provided, along with a discussion of the implications of empowerment for rehabilitation programs. Empowerment has a number of qualities, for example:

Having decision-making power.
Having access to information and resources.
Having a range of options from which to make choices (not just yes/no, either/or).
Assertiveness.
A feeling that the individual can make a difference (being hopeful).
Learning to think critically; learning the conditioning; seeing things differently; e.g.,
- Learning to redefine who we are (speaking in our own voice).
- Learning to redefine what we can do.
- Learning to redefine our relationships to institutionalized power.
Learning about and expressing anger.
Not feeling alone; feeling part of a group.
Understanding that people have rights.
Effecting change in one's life and one's community.
Learning skills (e.g., communication) that the individual defines as important.
Changing others' perceptions of one's competency and capacity to act.
Coming out of the closet.
Growth and change that is never ending and self-initiated.
Increasing one's positive self-image and overcoming stigma.

SERVICE USERS

Persons receiving direct services from one or other mental health professionals (either social worker, psychiatric nurse, psychologist or psychiatrist) are referred to as service users instead of clients or patients. Other terminology used for persons with mental disability is “survivors” or “consumers”.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

People’s human rights are being upheld and their basic needs regarding their education, care, housing, health, employment are addressed.

People are treated in a just and fair manner regarding their basic human needs, regarding education, care, housing, health, employment and decision-making.

Social justice is about preventing human rights abuses and ensuring adherence to international law.

HUMAN RIGHTS

The basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law.

Human rights, universal rights held to belong to individuals by virtue of their being human, encompassing civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights and freedoms, and based on the notion of personal human dignity and worth.