Look Again: Mental Illness Re-Examined

Television and film like to portray people with schizophrenia as young, white men. And yet, in real life, schizophrenia is not as seen on TV — especially for women. Scientists are now seeing how illnesses like schizophrenia can impact men and women differently, which means more research needs to be done around women and serious mental illnesses...

It’s not easy to talk about the effect schizophrenia can have on one’s family members, especially a sibling. It can have a significant emotional, psychological, and physical impact on loved ones, as they balance their love for their family member and the sharme around this disease. In this episode, we have a very honest, frank, and vulnerable conversation with Yusuf Faqiri about his brother Soleiman who lived with schizophrenia until 2016, when he died in an Ontario jail...

If you’re the child of a parent who lives with mental illness, you can be faced with a lot of tough challenges. You may feel overwhelmed, sad, scared or even angry. You may resent your parent for not being like the other parents. Or you could also wind up as a caregiver and try to fix everything. In her lifetime, Dr. Grace Cho, author of her memoir Tastes Like War, says she has had three mothers. The mother of her childhood, before schizophrenia...

While there's no way to predict whether a person with a mental illness will become violent, there's still a common understanding that those diagnosed with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, are unpredictably aggressive. This can be seen in how people living with mental illness, substance use, and violence are portrayed through the news, TV, or movies. But these misconceptions can fuel the stigma towards people living with severe and persistent mental illness...

It is not an easy decision to call the police or an ambulance to take a loved one to a psychiatric facility - all in the hopes that they get the treatment they need and deserve. But sometimes people with an untreated mental illness lose insight into the fact they are ill and will not accept voluntary treatment, even when their illness may be causing harm to themselves or others...

In its third season "Look Again: Mental Illness Re-examined" wades into some controversial territory. Launching Oct. 12th, join us every two weeks as we dive into some hot topics -- involuntary treatment, the consequences of refusing medication, how race and gender impacts diagnosis and treatment, just to name a few...

Most people have seen movies or TV shows that have used schizophrenia as part of their story. But how often do we stop to think about what those representations actually mean or look like? Do they portray the experience of people living with schizophrenia accurately? As studies have shown, schizophrenia is one of the conditions that the general public views most negatively and generates a lot of stigma...

Since we kicked off our second season talking to someone who embraced her diagnosis of schizophrenia — we thought it would only be fitting to end this season with another guest who also doing her own heavy lifting when it comes to educating, creating awareness, and breaking myths about schizophrenia. In this episode, Faydra will be introducing you to Lauren Kennedy. She's a mental health advocate, social worker, wife, a step-mother to two children, and mom to a new baby...

In many cultures around the world, mental illness is still highly stigmatized and rarely talked about. Today, we’ll be taking a closer look at how mental illness is viewed and talked about in the South Asian Community, one of the largest ethno-cultural groups in Canada. Talking about mental illness, getting help, or even getting diagnosed is hindered by generational gaps, language barriers, and perceived taboos, just to name a few...

Schizophrenia. It's neither new nor rare and in fact it's existed for centuries — and it's the one mental illness that seems to be synonymous with madness. And despite being around for a long time, virtually everything we know about schizophrenia has been learned in the past 200 years — and mostly in the later parts of the 20th and 21st centuries.

With the help of Dr...