DESTIGMATIZING MENTAL HEALTH? THE EXAMPLE OF AN OUTREACH PRACTICE IN PSYCHOLOGY
Destigmatizing mental health? I have thought a lot about this question while trying to understand the stubbornness of our collective stigmatizing heritage to be transmitted in the language and representations related to mental health, and then while questioning my professional posture in contact with adolescents and young adults in a very precarious situation for whom the day center where I worked for more than 20 years was designed. My outreach practice represented an extraordinary opportunity to participate in the development of an ethic of solidarity and cooperation that has changed the face of mental health. Deconstructing prejudice means becoming aware of our own biases, revisiting the values and principles that guide our culture of care, and accepting the imbalance necessary for any transformation.