Re: cohousing & mental health
From: Hans Tilstra (tilstrasmartchat.net.au)
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 22:53:01 -0600 (MDT)
My perception of "us" as a cyber community is that we create the conditions
that are conducive to a helpful discussion about mental health issues. I'd
be wary of anything that feels like "outing" someone or pathologising a
problem.

Some definitions my students find helpful:

A mental illness is an umbrella term of illnesses showing a significant
disturbance of thoughts, mood and/or perception. Then, it can become
"disabling" when the mental illness significantly interferes with the person
meeting their social, physical and/or social needs.

The degree that qualifies the "signifance" is spelled out in the DSM IV
(http://www.geocities.com/morrison94/ ). When applying such a diagnostic
tool please be careful of the so-called "medical-student-effect", where this
newfound knowledge gets applied to everyone and anyone but one self.

>From my study of cohousing I think it's fair to say that we can pat
ourselves on the back for making a concrete contribution to creating
tangible protective factors fostering the mental health of our
neighbourhoods (eg. see http://www.togetherwedobetter.vic.gov.au/ ).

I'm gathering a range of materials on the link between mental health &
cohousing, so if anyone does have great leads, please feel free to email me
direct.

Hans
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~cohouse



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