Women warriors in mental health

The stigma around mental health prevents many from seeking help. Photo: Pixabay

Women are wired to help and when they are exposed to problems their desire to improve the lives of others kicks in.

Take the case of clinical psychologist Ellisha Othman.

The 40-year-old says having access to mental health care while she was in university abroad showed her just how important it is for students her to have the same.

Instead, when she returned to Malaysia, she noticed the stigma and inequities around mental healthcare compared to general healthcare.

Now, as the managing director of SOLS Health, she has made it her mission to break the stigma and increase access to mental health facilities, especially for the underprivileged.

Elisha wants to break the stigma around speaking about and seeking help for mental health issues.

“My experience (in university) changed my perspective on the importance of mental health to my overall wellness and health as a student at the time. It also demonstrated the importance a supportive environment is to an individual’s well-being and how mental health services in university should be normalised, ” she says.

Ellisha adds that she was also drawn to the field after short volunteer stints while working in the corporate sector.

“After five years, I decided to pursue a career in clinical psychology and to use my theoretical and practical knowledge in psychology to go into the helping profession.

“During my training, I developed a further understanding of community mental health and I have not looked back since then, ” she adds.SOLS Health is a community-based mental health centre that connects clients to individual, family and community mental healthcare providers.

There, Ellisha’s job is to lead and supervise mental health practitioners who are doing their postgraduate training.

The organisation receives clients from a diverse demographic but a large number of them have mental health disorders that, she says, are made worse by their social and economic conditions.

Trauma from chronic poverty, domestic violence, financial distress, school place bullying, workplace issues, family and marital discord exacerbate their situation, she adds.

Since the pandemic, the centre is now offering the “Jom Sembang” programme in collaboration with the Finance Ministry and Yayasan Hasanah.

To sustain programmes for the underprivileged, Ellisha says the centre depends a lot on external funding mainly from corporations and government-linked funding organisations or foundations.

However, she says, this is not enough as it only covers “direct mental health” services for this community.

“This means funding is more short-term and is output-based, shorter session durations and one-off in nature, covering partial costs of the services and often affected the quality, efficacy of the overall delivery and impact to beneficiaries, ” she adds.

She says long-term efforts are needed so that the clients actually benefit from the treatment.

The organisation has also started a Community Mental Health Fund which is meant to fund capacity building programmes to train more volunteers in mental health organisations, improve the knowledge and skills of volunteers, increase accessibility to quality basic mental health services and encourage public and community advocacy of mental health.

She adds that it is time to address immediate gaps in the existing mental health services by incentivising public-private partnerships beyond the healthcare system.

We also need to increase research, especially in terms of understanding the social determinants of mental health, she adds.

“This will also help with developing legislation and policies that truly addresses immediate needs.”

Fighting the stigma

Malaysian Mental Health Association (MMHA) executive director Cheong Sue Jen is relatively new in the field but that does not mean she has not made any sort of impact in creating mental health awareness.

She joined MMHA in 2016 as an executive secretary before becoming executive director in 2019, at the same time expanding the association’s psychological support services by establishing The Mind Hub.

Chong believes that mental health should be incorporated into occupational health and safety policies at workplaces.

The Mind Hub is the association’s psychological support services centre for managers, employees, and executives to understand their own emotional well being.

The association is also the country license holder for the Mental Health First Aid programme, and Cheong is part of the Mental Health First Aid Malaysia pilot group of instructors, having conducted close to 200 hours of training for various industries.

For the 39-year-old, advocating for those facing mental health challenges in the workplace stemmed from her previous job as an occupational and safety engineer.

“It helped me realise that mental health is important, and should be incorporated into occupational health and safety policies at workplaces, ” she adds.

Cheong says there was a rise in people coming in to receive treatment for mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and anger after the movement control order began in March 2020.

“Having to adjust to the movement restriction, and face uncertainties in their finances, employment, education and even obtaining daily provisions or food supplies can be very stressful, especially in more remote areas, and may worsen loneliness and increase the risk of domestic violence, ” she adds.

She also says that mental health awareness in Malaysia is still relatively low and treatment is always delayed due to the stigma attached in our society.

“We cannot expect the government to do ‘everything’, we have to collectively champion mental health, ” she says.

Overall, she says Malaysia has seen more and more initiatives aimed at improving people’s mental health these days.

“But honestly speaking, there is still a vast room for improvement before we are able to shift from addressing mental illness to being able to start conversations around mental well-being.”

A matter of survival

A battle with depression after returning from studying overseas drove Dr Chua Sook Ning, 38, to establish Relate Malaysia in 2015.

Now, the trained clinical psychologist has made it her mission to help those facing similar battles get the help they need, and not necessarily through her organisation.

She fell into depression in 2014 due to a few stressors, which included transitioning back to Malaysia from Canada and coping with a new job.

“I think I could have coped in a healthier way but I told myself to just push through because everyone deals with stress.

Chua wants to aid those in need of mental health services access help.

“Even though I had graduated with a PhD and accumulated this wealth of knowledge in clinical psychology, the self stigma was still quite strong in me.

“I judged myself for being depressed. But I worked towards recovery and made some life changes, ” she continues.

She adds that it occurred to her that if she was having a hard time overcoming depression, even with her understanding of the human psyche, what about others?

Chua dedicates a lot of her free time to not only raise awareness but also help those in need, while still holding a day job as a senior research fellow.

She says the non-profit organisation was established to help raise the standard of mental health education and services for all Malaysians.

“Our mission is to close the gap for those who find it difficult to gain access to high-quality, affordable mental health support, to conduct research and raise awareness of mental health and social issues so that we can help drive much-needed change, ” she says.

Chua says her interest in clinical psychology started at the age of 15 when she noticed her family members struggling with mental health issues. On top of that, there was not much help available for them.

Chua says her mother was also instrumental in her decision to enter the field of psychology by “entertaining all my questions about why people did this or that.”

Her day-to-day tasks at the organisation includes conducting research, supervising clinicians, sometimes seeing clients and updating the website.

Just recently, she worked on a research about the economic costs of youth suicide and another paper in collaboration with IDEAS on youth suicide in Malaysia.

Being a non-profit, they depend on external funding and charging, mostly subisidised rates, for their psychotherapy services.

Like other mental health organisations, they also struggle to raise enough funds.

“Our aim is to break even, ” she says, adding that the organisation aims for “a slow but steady growth.”

Chua believes that the level of mental health awareness has improved in Malaysia but as she pointed out, international research has shown that more awareness does not mean de-stigmatisation.

“One way to destigmatise is to have more contact with people with mental health conditions that are counter-stereotypical, ” she says.

“This is also one of the reasons why I came forward with my own experience with depression.”

She says the mental healthcare sector in Malaysia is still quite new and more can be done in terms of providing adequate help to those facing these issues.

“It’s so young and I think a lot of people are working behind the scenes to improve it but there’s always room for improvement.”