Mad in America

Please join the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts-Boston for this important conversation about the future challenges and opportunities to respect, protect, and advance the right to mental health.

This will take place on Thursday February 27^thfrom 1:00 – 2:30pm at the Ethics Center, 124 Mt Auburn St, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Event Description

A rights-based approach to mental health is based on respect for the inherent dignity of all people. In his country visits over the past five years, Special Rapporteur Pūras has observed that mental health is grossly neglected within health systems around the world. Where mental health systems exist, they do so in isolation, segregated from regular healthcare despite the intimate relationship between physical and mental health. As a result, the Special Rapporteur has made mental health and emotional well-being a priority focus since the beginning of his tenure and the intended legacy of his work from the U.N. mandate. Dr. Puras has argued that good mental health and well-being cannot be defined by the absence of a mental health condition, but must be defined instead by the social, psychosocial, political, economic and physical environment that enables individuals and populations to live a life of dignity, with full enjoyment of their rights and in the equitable pursuit of their potential. In an attempt to contribute to the discussion around mental health as a global health priority, the Special Rapporteur calls for a shift in the paradigm, based on the recurrence of human rights violations in mental health settings, all too often affecting persons with intellectual, cognitive and psychosocial disabilities.