Health Care "As Usual": The Insertion of Positive Psychology in Canadian Mental Health Discourse

The recent shift to a "positive psychological" approach that emphasizes a "health model," rather than a "disease model," in mental health discourses is intended both to reduce the stigma around mental health issues and to enable people to play a role in monitoring their own mental health. As a component of a larger study on access to and utilization of mental health services by immigrant women, and a partial reflection of the current ideological context of mental health policy and practice in Canada, this shift was examined by analyzing the Canadian Mental Health Association's mental health discourse as posted in Web-based text using features of critical discourse analysis. Although considered an improvement over previous approaches by some, the current mental health discourse continues to reflect ideologies that assume a universal psychology of individual mental health. Framing this research with aspects of sociocultural and postcolonial theories, this article seeks to identify the possibilities of this new discourse and expose its limitations in relation to immigrants to Canada.