{"id":4512,"date":"2025-02-03T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/?p=4512"},"modified":"2025-01-28T15:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T21:21:07","slug":"cchr-applauds-call-for-human-rights-based-approach-to-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2025\/02\/03\/cchr-applauds-call-for-human-rights-based-approach-to-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"CCHR Applauds Call for Human Rights-based Approach to Mental Health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/em>A new article in Health and Human Rights Journal calls for an approach to mental health in which every aspect of it and its determinants is endowed with respect for, and the realization of, human rights.<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

by\u00a0CCHR National Affairs Office<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new perspective article calls for a more comprehensive, human rights-based approach to mental health that addresses the wider social, economic, and environmental factors that cause emotional distress. The article<\/a> was published in Health and Human Rights Journal<\/em>, a joint publication of Harvard University\u2019s FXB Center for Health & Human Rights and Drexel University\u2019s Dornsife School of Public Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors contrast a human rights-based approach with today\u2019s biomedical approach, which assumes increased psychiatric screening, diagnosis and treatment of mental health symptoms will lead to mental well-being for individuals and nations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article\u2019s authors note that there has been criticism of the psychiatric influence, or \u201cpsychiatrization,\u201d of the Sustainable Development Goals issued by the United Nations, which identified improved mental health as a priority for global development. Psychiatrization refers to the increasing influence of psychiatry through its institutions and practices affecting an increasing number of people and areas of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cConcerns about psychiatrization stem from the fact that the focus is predominantly on scaling up the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, without paying attention to how a biomedical approach is limited in addressing the environmental, social, economic, and political determinants of mental health,\u201d wrote lead author Lisa Cosgrove, PhD, a professor in the Counseling Psychology Department at the University of Massachusetts and co-founder of the Centre for Mental Health, Human Rights, and Social Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cosgrove and colleagues call for a human rights-based approach to mental health which \u201censures that every aspect of health care and its determinants is imbued with respect for, and the realization of, human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article references Dainius P?ras, a child psychiatrist and former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, who argued<\/a> that mental well-being should not be defined as the absence of a mental health condition, but instead is the result of a social, political, economic and physical environment that enables people to live a life of dignity, with full enjoyment of their rights in the pursuit of their full potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Citizens Commission on Human Rights applauds the call for a human rights-based approach to mental health,\u201d said Anne Goedeke, president of the CCHR National Affairs Office.\u00a0\u201cCCHR is dedicated to ensuring human rights and dignity in the field of mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new article in Health and Human Rights Journal calls for an approach to mental health in which every aspect of it and its determinants is endowed with respect for, and the realization of, human rights. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A new article in Health and Human Rights Journal calls for an approach to mental health in which every aspect of it and its determinants is endowed with respect for, and the realization of, human rights.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[58,46,149],"class_list":["post-4512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","tag-human-rights","tag-mental-health","tag-un-sdg"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-1aM","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}