In All Candour: Taking Off the Mask

Abstract

Louise Bradley, president and CEO of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, reflects on more than a decade of challenges and opportunities faced by the country's first such commission. She delivered the following speech at the 23rd World Congress of Social Psychiatry on October 24, 2019, in Bucharest, Romania. Using her own lived experience as a springboard for combating stigma and spurring discussion, Bradley is a mental health advocate who has straddled both sides of the care divide. Amplifying the voices of lived experience and caregivers is among her proudest achievements. Through her extensive international exposure, she is convinced that every country is a developing country when it comes to mental health – and this is particularly true when one trains a lens on the mental health outcomes of Indigenous peoples – in Canada and around the world. As a former clinical practitioner and hospital administrator – and a lauded voice for equity and inclusion – Bradley's goal is to challenge her audience to acknowledge their own biases, confront self-stigma, and find our shared humanity