Jake Pointer is a second year Sociology PhD student at Newcastle, studying the experiences of migrant workers in the British meat processing industry. Here he writes about something external to his research but just as important to him – mental health and how it can be approached through a sociological lens.

In general, there are two social issues which I seriously care about. I’m sure most people who know me can guess the first, it begins with a V and involves eating lots of grass if the latest internet memes are accurate. The second is perhaps not so easy to decipher as I rarely talk about it: mental health problems (MHPs). The reason, which I imagine is the reason for most people who take an interest in this area, is because I suffer, sometimes quite severely, from MHPs, specifically the D-word (I dislike that word, I’m not sure why). Here are my thoughts on some things that can be done about it at a societal level.

First, it’s worth taking a few moments to consider what mental health is and what happens when it goes wrong. Everyone has mental health, but I think it’s only when it starts to deteriorate that people give it much thought. As MHPs have been kicking down the societal door for some time now it is affecting us more though, I’m sure most people at least know somebody with a mental ailment. Here’s what an MHP might look like based on what I know and my own experience. The individual with the D-word will likely spend much of their time in bed, often due to an inability to get up and disruptions to sleep patterns. Their appetite may drastically increase or decrease. Socialising and working become harder, perhaps impossible. Things once interesting become mundane. Jokes are no longer funny. Anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure, will likely have a strong grip on the individual’s psychic windpipe. To put it lightly, it’s not a great place to be.

A New Approach

The current method for dealing with these ills is to focus on treatment, that is, waiting until people become mentally entropic and then addressing the problems. This may involve medications, therapy, diet changes, exercise, mindfulness practices, diary keeping and so on.  These are all effective tools, but, in my opinion, more focus should be on prevention. It is clear that MHPs are more likely to arise when people are exposed to certain influences. These include, but are not limited to, an unstable homelife, childhood abuse, loneliness, over exposure to social media, traumatic events and unemployment. More focus should be on neutralizing these. A new field of psychology is investigating whether nutrition can affect mental health. This also holds promise. Additionally, I believe that MHPs have been romanticised somewhat; with narratives of ‘battling’ or ‘overcoming’. Viktor Frankl might identify this as making meaning in suffering, but it would be better to allow people to find meaning whilst in a state of mental flourishment. One example of how prevention could be implemented is a ‘mental health day’ at school, giving children the knowledge and tools to not only cope with any issues, but to identify potential influences before they start to wreak havoc. Everybody now knows smoking is bad, thus many people have now chosen to not smoke in the first place – an example of prevention via education. Perhaps the same can be done for MHPs. I’d even like to recommend a potential reading for school students, Flow: the psychology of optimal experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I read this recently and it is overflowing with researched-backed information on how to have a deep impact on your own mental welfare and those around you in many areas of life.

With all this in mind (excuse the pun), it is perhaps unrealistic to believe we can have a hundred per cent mentally healthy society. Either way, I’m convinced the best way to stop MHPs arising is to prevent them from getting a foothold in the first place because once they do it is no easy task to repeal them. I don’t like it when people say mental health is the same as physical health, because I think they are quite different. Nonetheless, we have successfully eradicated plenty of physical diseases in the past. Can the same be done for MHPs though? I’d like to think so, but this is up for debate. We’ve always known that mental health rates fluctuate depending on certain social influences, something Durkheim demonstrated back in the early day of sociological thought. If we can identify the influences in the 21^st century, perhaps we can start to take steps to reduce them. It is a success when an individual removes the Atlasesque weight of an MHP from their cerebral shoulders. But whilst it may not be recognised as such, it is an even greater success when those same shoulders never have such a load on them in the first place. That should be the goal.

References

Csikszentmihali, M. (1990) Flow: the psychology of optimal experience, New York: HaperPerennial.

Durkheim, E. (2006) On Suicide, London: Penguin.

Frankl, V. (2004) Man’s Search for Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust, London: Rider.

https://www.boredpanda.com/depression-through-art/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Dr Helen Jarvis is a Reader in Social Geography at Newcastle University and a member of Tyne and Wear Citizens (part of Citizens UK). Here she reflects on the importance of the language we use during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

We need to talk about physical distancing….

Please stop using the phrase social distancing. This is my plea. As a social scientist who also volunteers with Citizens UK, I am deeply uneasy about social isolation and segregation outliving the Coronavirus crisis, and wish to add my voice to the growing chorus of those calling for a change in the language we use.

What we need is physical distancing and social connectedness. The words we choose to use make a difference.

Since March 2020, the UK government has been urging people to reduce their social contact.  Measures have been introduced that require all except key workers to stay home, to only go out for restricted daily exercise and groceries, and when out in public to stay two metres from other people at all times.  These confinement measures are spatial, intended to reduce virus transmission through physical contact.

There is nothing intrinsically social, or indeed anti-social, about practising safe distancing. When we walk or cycle to school and to work, the Highway Code and road safety education emphasise keeping a safe distance (a wide berth) between pedestrians and vehicles travelling at speed. We would find it odd to hear that ‘social distancing’ reduces road traffic accidents, so why is this language being used to enforce essential hygiene in a global pandemic?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently acknowledged that it had made mistakes in this regard, and have since changed their communications around this.  A spokesperson from WHO HQ in Geneva observed that colleagues are:

“practising physical distancing as one measure to stop COVID-19 transmission:  (we) use the phrase physical distancing instead of social distancing to highlight that essential distancing to prevent the virus from transferring to one another doesn’t mean that socially we have to disconnect from our loved ones (and responsibilities toward wider communities). We’re changing to say physical distance and that’s on purpose because we want people to remain connected”¹. 

The confusing and ambiguous language of ‘social distancing’ makes the same mistake as the false ‘social’ signification in ‘social contact design’ – popular among civic leaders who have adopted principles of ‘new urbanism’ and ‘nudge’ theory.  The guiding principles of ‘social contact design’ falsely represent physical contact as social contact – believing that a sense of community can be ‘engineered’ by designing ways for residents to meet and interact in public space, such as the park or street. Critics observe that meaningful social interactions are rarely engineered by design but instead reliant upon ‘soft’ relational cultures – relationship assets of shared purpose, mutual trust and understanding.

In recent years I have been part of Tyne and Wear Citizens (part of Citizens UK), a broad-based alliance of civic institutions working together through a mutually agreed framework of community organising to listen to our communities and agree priorities. The Citizens model of community organising, which is rooted in a relational culture of deep listening and alliance building, strengthens the relationship assets that are necessary to mend the fractured fabric of our civil society.  This contrasts with the limited extent that well-designed public spaces (although greatly missed when use is rationed) can forge mutual trust by ‘thrown togetherness’ alone. We recognise that these social characteristics of alliance building are flourishing in our member institutions in the current emergency situation. This is also evident in groups of volunteers organising mutual aid throughout the Coronavirus outbreak in the UK.

Unfortunately, the more accurate term ‘physical distancing’ is not taking off. Once terms become normalised (by government and mainstream broadcasting) they are very hard to shift. This worries us because we have witnessed in a climate of austerity and post-Brexit how careless talk quite literally costs lives. That social distancing contributes to both structural and physical violence is evident when comparing such careless talk to rising hate crimes, the toxic state of public discourse, social injustice in poverty wages, poor mental health and patterns of increasing domestic violence and misogynistic abuse.  Citizens UK recognise that community organising around issues of shared concern is more important than ever to ensure we can remake civil society and build a better future, in the united way that we respond to Coronavirus. This requires social connection, not distancing.

From the beginning of this period of unprecedented restriction to movement and effective house arrest, friends and neighbours have been acting on their impulses to help those around them. This includes forming Mutual Aid Groups and swelling the ranks of the New Volunteer Service, delivering groceries and telephoning those who are sick at home or in protective isolation. In my own neighbourhood, people who previously knew little about each other have been connecting socially in creative ways (swapping jigsaws, stories and vital baking ingredients) without physically being in the same space.

In short, how we talk about distancing (physical, not social) influences the cultural context in which we navigate and negotiate our collective exit from this pandemic. For all our sakes, we must build on the common ground of mutuality and unity – rediscovering a spirit of community that respects and values all human beings. 

This blog also appears on the Citizens UK website: https://www.citizensuk.org/physical-distancing

¹ WHO (2020) Covid-19. Available at: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/transcripts/who-audio-emergencies-coronavirus-press-conference-full-20mar2020.pdf?sfvrsn=1eafbff_0