When it came time for Heather Stuart to choose a career, those who knew her well were hardly surprised that she chose psychiatry. After all, some her fondest childhood memories took place at a psychiatric hospital.
A professor in the Queen’s Department of Community Health and Epidemiology with cross appointments in Psychology and Rehabilitation Therapy, Dr. Stuart is the daughter of a former senior administrator at the Homewood Health Centre, a sprawling 130-year-old psychiatric facility on the banks of the Speed River in Guelph. The family lived a block away, and eventually moved onto the 50-acre campus.
It wasn’t unusual for her to strike up conversations and relationships with the facility’s patients. “It was normal,” she says. “The neighbourhood kids would make friends with many of the patients. We celebrated Christmas with them. We visited each other’s homes.”
Dr. Stuart knows that her neighbours were fortunate in the sense that most people who live with a mental illness don’t have a supportive community they can depend on. The problem, she says, is the stigma associated with mental illnesses.
Today Dr. Stuart is leading the way in the quest to eliminate that stigma. And as she heads into her fifth year as the first-ever Bell Mental Health and Anti-Stigma Chair, she acknowledges that stigma is the biggest obstacle for people who live with a mental illness and the number one factor that stops them from seeking treatment.
After studying the topic for more than 20 years, Dr. Stuart believes that eradicating stigma is the single most pressing challenge facing her field. And she believes that the only way to succeed is to change people’s behaviours. “We’ve learned over the years that it doesn’t matter if you give people more knowledge or change their attitudes,” she says. “The only way to remove the stigma is to change behaviours.”
And while changing behaviour on a national scale may seem like a daunting challenge, Dr. Stuart realizes that the lessons that will make that change possible are the same lessons she learned growing up at Homewood. “People are afraid of things they don’t know,” she says. “When we think someone is dangerous or unpredictable, we tend to avoid them. But simple things like listening to people, valuing them, including them socially, and treating them with kindness can go a long way.”
Dr. Stuart will join former Olympian and Bell Let’s Talk spokesperson Clara Hughes and Bell Let’s Talk Chair Mary Deacon on campus to discuss ways to combat stigma on Tuesday, January 24th in the atrium of the Biosciences Complex.
Find out more about behavioural changes you can make to help overcome the stigma associated with mental illnesses with five tips developed through Dr. Stuart’s research.
Dr. Stuart received her PhD in Epidemiology from The University of Calgary, Alberta. She is a Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, and cross-appointed to the Department of Psychiatry and the School of Rehabilitation Therapy at Queens University.
Dr. Stuart's main research interests are in the areas of psychiatric epidemiology and community mental health research. She has worked in both hospital and community-based mental health treatment systems and with international agencies such as the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, and the World Psychiatric Association. Dr. Stuart is Co-founder and Co-chair of the Scientific Section on Stigma and Mental Disorders for the World Psychiatric Association and the Founding Editor of the International Federation of Psychiatric Epidemiology Bulletin.
