An Interdisciplinary Approach to Mental Health Literacy
Jessie Quintero Johnson, Associate Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders and Undergraduate Curriculum Coordinator for the Health and Social Change Major at Emerson
WHAT’S YOUR BIG IDEA?
An institute within Emerson that offers different ways of thinking about, educating about, communicating about, and advocating for the destigmatization and treatment of mental health issues.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Increased mental health literacy is desperately needed in all areas of society.
As a clinical social worker, and now, as curriculum coordinator of Emerson’s newly launched Health and Social Change major, Communication Sciences and Disorders Associate Professor Jessie Quintero Johnson has increasingly been asked to serve as an armchair expert on mental health treatment and trauma.
It got her thinking: That kind of information should be integral to training people in all sorts of professions.
“How cool would it be if Emerson was one of the places where we [teach] trauma-informed journalism? It is part of the program, and it’s not just [for] our students here, but it’s a thing we offer to all kinds of media professionals, alums, etc,” said Johnson, who also would include educators, storytellers, policy advocates, and community leaders among the people who could benefit from this kind of interdisciplinary training.
Higher ed in general, and Emerson in particular, is well positioned to take a lot of its energy and passion around social justice and social change and apply that to the issue of mental health, she said. “We have such a rich community of people…who want to make the world better.”
There are a number of reasons this kind of work around mental health education isn’t done on a large scale, she said. For one, mental health practitioners and academics tend to be narrowly trained, and aren’t encouraged to think in an interdisciplinary way. For another, there still is a pervasive stigma around mental health.
And then, of course, there’s the value proposition. How to convince institutions that the time and money going out into the community—which would likely outstrip the resources coming back into the institution—is worth the effort?
But Johnson believes that mental health must be put front and center of any social justice work if real change is to come about.
“There’s a growing recognition that we can’t do health and we can’t engage with communities and really make sustainable social change if we’re not addressing mental health, too, and in all of the ways that it can be addressed,” Johnson said. “So I think maybe the value proposition piece is getting better.”
