Masters project helps challenge mental health stereotypes

UQ graduate Jen Lee Teh has used her own experiences with bi-polar disorder to pursue important research into mental health issues for her masters degree.

Ms Teh, who attended her graduation ceremony on Wednesday, shared her story in a community book project that was launched in Singapore earlier this month and contains a foreward by the country's president S.R Nathan.

Focusing on the area of communication for social change, Ms Teh's master's project involved researching people with mental health issues to see how stigma is related to decreased willingness to communicate and seek help.

“There are some in society who think that people with mental health conditions are less capable, and I just wanted to share my story to say that it is not true,” she said.

“The odds may be against people like us, but with the help of God, family and friends, it is possible to beat the odds.”

Ms Teh said mental health issues were not discussed widely in Singapore, and only became a talking point when associated with crime.

“In recent years, as the spotlight on environmental problems grew more intense, the coverage of such news has become more common, so when I was diagnosed with bipolar in 2008, it seemed timely to focus on covering mental health issues instead,” she said.

Ms Teh received a high distinction for her thesis course despite tackling a few obstacles along the way. She managed to recruit a large number of respondents for her qualitative survey in a short amount of time, and also wrote her thesis with her hand in a splint after suffering a wrist injury earlier in the year.

Ms Teh said she wanted to share her experiences in the hope they would raise awareness of mental health issues and combat negative stereotypes.

“I came to UQ with the purpose of equipping myself to communicate on mental health,” she said.

“People do not want to talk about their mental health conditions because of stigma and the stigma remains because the stereotypes are not challenged by real stories of people with such conditions.”

Ms Teh worked as a journalist at a Singaporean newspaper for seven years before arriving at UQ and hopes to pursue a PhD in mental health communication in the future.

Provided by University of Queensland