Although mental illnesses can be treated and even cured, they should not be taken lightly. Treatments are more than just simply eating to cure anorexia or just relaxing for a burn-out cure. Promoting mental health and destigmatizing mental illnesses is the goal of the Douglas Mental Health University Institute’s major awareness campaign in Quebec, launched this week. The campaign involves placing billboards around Montreal and inviting people to consult micro-sites related to those issues. It will also serve to encourage giving to increase funding for mental health research.

“With around 20 percent of the population affected, mental illnesses are important health issues,” says Douglas Director General Jacques Hendlisz. “People who suffer from these disorders are pushed to the fringes or directly excluded from society. With our new campaign we are looking at ways to turn this around and remove the shame of living with a mental illness. We want people to seek the help they need so that they can once again become active members of society.”

The Douglas’ mental health awareness campaign, an initiative of the Douglas Foundation, will primarily focus on eating disorders and burnout/depression - two mental disorders that are important to both the general public and employers. This campaign will continue throughout the year.

“Eating disorders do not just afflict affluent adolescent girls,” says Howard Steiger, PhD, director of the Douglas Eating Disorder Program. “More than 60,000 Quebecers are affected and they are teens to seniors, males and females, from all social and economic groups. Improved awareness of the eating disorders leads to better treatment and prevention efforts, and helps people in need seek help without shame. These are goals we hope to achieve with this new campaign.”

“Burn-out is a debilitating syndrome that can mean different things to different people” says Camillo Zacchia, PhD, Douglas’ chief of psychology. “The symptoms vary from frustration and cynicism to hopelessness and may evolve to depression. Treatments and therapy used for depressed patients may benefit those with burnout and awareness of the severe symptoms of these illnesses is important.”

The billboards will encourage the public to learn more about eating disorders and burn-out/depression by visiting two mini-sites.

This campaign is being made possible thanks to the Douglas Foundation, the support of its donors and the following partners: National Public Relations, Astral Media, Communication BleuBlancRouge and Absolunet.

About the Douglas Institute Foundation – The Foundation raises funds to increase understanding of the causes of mental illnesses, improve treatments, develop cures, and share knowledge with others in the mental health field.