All Correct Answers 2026-2027 Updated.
Mental Health - Answer The capacity to think, feel, and act in ways that enhance the
enjoyment of life and ability to face life's challenges
It is a positive sense of emotional and spiritual wellbeing that respects the importance of
culture, equity, social justice, interconnections, and personal dignity
Mental Illness - Answer A group of diagnosable conditions that include combinations of
altered thinking, mood, behaviour, or will that can be linked with distress and impaired
functioning
Serious and persistent mental illness (SPMI) - Answer Formerly described as chronic mental
illness
Term used to describe a nonspecific diagnosis, usually schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, substance
misuse, personality disorder, or severe depression resulting in a social and functional disability,
a prolonged illness and long-term treatment
SPMI is disproportionally represented in: - Answer The Canadian homeless population
Estimates that anywhere between 25 & 50% of homeless individuals suffer from mental illness
History of Mental Health Care - Answer Historically took place w/in context of culture, gender,
and sociopolitical attitudes
Formal management of PMHIs began in poorhouses and jails that provided little but
containment
Mid 19th C: large institutional hospitals or asylums
Philosophical shift - Answer 1960s, proposed that humane treatment would be best achieved
in the community
People discharged from institutions were - Answer marginalized, with families lacking
adequate resources to assist them
, Many former patients became - Answer homeless, with limited means to secure food, housing
and employment, and manage these new stressors
The Kirby Report - Answer Canada's first national report addressing deficiencies and inequities
of mental health services
The recovery model - Answer -Identified life beyond symptom management.
-Based on collaborative, consumer-driven process that challenges previous conceptions of
intervention goals
National mental health strategy - Answer -Developed in 2012
-Aims to improve both the mental health outcomes for all Canadians and to rectify inadequacies
w/in current mental health system
DSM5 - Answer Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Criticism of DSM - Answer Gender bias, cultural insensitivity, reliance on non-empirical
evidence, tendency to pathologize normal behaviours and occurrences, may oversimplify some
conditions such as depression and schizophrenia
Ex: earlier versions of DSM included homosexuality as a psychiatric category
Psychiatric survivors movement - Answer began late 1960s in the wake of the civil rights
movement during which multiple stories of abuse and trauma experienced by current and
former psychiatric patients surfaced
Mad Movement - Answer -the early 2000s
-expanded through the work of numerous grassroots activists and supporters who advocated
for PMHIs rights, self-determination, dignity, and safety following negative experiences with
involuntary committal, forced treatment and discrimination
Risk factors - Answer -Aetiology of mental health issues not fully understood
-certain populations are at higher risk of mental health issues because of greater exposure and
vulnerability to adverse sociopolitical, economic, environmental and biological circumstances
ACEs - Answer Adverse Childhood Experiences
-ACE are linked to multiple mental and physical health problems
-experiences across the lifespan such as trauma, violence, poverty, and discrimination have a
fundamental impact on mental health