My two artifacts explore issues of mental health and the stigmas that lie around it.

This first artifact is relatively recent, created sometime in the last 5 years or so. It is a PSA for mentalhealth.org, whose slogan is “Let’s talk about it.” Their aim is to end the stigma around mental health in hopes to encourage more people to reach out for help when they need it.

My second artifact was created by the Social Hygiene Divisional. This Progressive Era initiative is much older, beginning in the early 1900s. Their main focus was on sexual education and disease control. Later on, they branched out into a mental health initiative as well. This focused on training healthcare providers properly and working on more sympathetic care for mental health patients.

I chose these artifacts because I think it will be interesting to explore the way we look at mental health now compared to back then. I also think that even though we have made progress in mental health initiatives, we still have a long way to go. Mental health struggles are something I see every day, in myself and my loved ones, but not something that is talked about enough. When someone loses their battle with mental illness, everyone jumps in to say what a tragedy it is, or on the other side of it, when someone is doing better people are quick to applaud them. However, when someone is actively going through it, people rarely understand and often look down on them. There is such a stigma around mental illness that it often prevents people from reaching out and getting the help that they need, but I believe it should be treated like physical illness is.

These two artifacts are related in that they both put focus on ending the stigma between mental health, but the way that they do so comes off completely differently. As they were made almost a century apart, the way that mental health is viewed is considerably different which I think will be interesting to explore. I also notice that, despite its good intentions, the diction used in the 1900s poster is the type that the more recent one seeks to break down. Overall, I think there is a lot to unpack between these two posters about mental health and the differences between them.