A Cambridge-based academic who spoke last month about her own experiences says mental health services in New Zealand are severely compromised in terms of providing support that is more helpful than harmful.
Sarah Gordon, an Associate Professor with Otago University’s Department of Psychological Medicine and the daughter of Waipā councillor Roger Gordon and his wife Jo, told last month’s Cambridge U3A meeting the story of her own mental health journey from a psychiatric patient to a high-achieving academic who now advocates for the sector.
She said around 92 percent of New Zealanders with mental illness access community-based rather than hospital-based mental health services, and that 90 percent of those will have experienced some form of trauma.
Much of the ‘treatment’ given serves to re-traumatise the individuals through discrimination and isolation, she said, adding: “We need to end discrimination, promote recognition and social inclusion for those experiencing mental distress, and respect human rights.”
Matt Doocey
Days after the meeting, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey announced the upcoming trial of a new mental health and addiction peer support service to be funded in hospital emergency departments (EDs). He said its use of trained specialists, each with their own experience of mental health and addiction challenges, would better support the at least 13,000 people in crisis presenting to EDs annually. If proven successful, the trial will be rolled out across the country.
Sarah responded to the news by saying it was known that peer support services were immensely valuable and that extending them should be explored, “not only because workforce numbers need to be boosted, but because peer support services can enhance the quality of that support”.
Relating her own mental health journey, she gave a visceral account of a sexual assault during an offshore holiday when she was just 11. She spoke movingly of the triggers that turned the initial experience into a full breakdown when she first went to Otago University, the ongoing search for treatment (which included two years in hospital and electro convulsive therapy) and the lifelong legacy of being ‘disabled by prejudice, discrimination and social exclusion’.
With the strong wraparound support of her family and the careful management of her condition, she went on to achieve exceptional academic success, attaining a BSc in psychology, a law degree, a master’s degree in bioethics and a PhD.
She also married and has her own family, yet still today, with a cocktail of drugs and careful management procedures in place, triggers related to that initial trauma affect her life. Flying creates a “white knuckle fear” because of its link to that holiday … other triggers are men wearing glasses or the soft Scottish burr she associates with her attacker.
Sarah has spent the last 20 years advocating for an improved mental health sector, and her work with Otago University’s Department of Psychological Medicine has resulted in the establishment of ‘World of Difference’, a service user research team she heads and one that strongly aligns with the new peer-focused initiative announced by the health minister.
“The team of people I lead have all had their own experience of mental distress,” she said. “They use that experience to inform their teaching and research, and to improve the provision of mental health support and social perceptions of those who experience mental distress. Our primary strength is our personal experience of the subject.”
Cambridge’s Dr Sarah Gordon spoke here recently about her own traumatic experiences with the mental health sector. Photo: Bruce Hancock
