Across the Zoom screen, Sarah, a HR manager in a large IT company, shook her head and said to me, “I’m pretty sure this employee is suffering from mental health at the moment, so maybe we should just wait ’til she’s better before we talk to her about mediation.”

Ah, for me as a mediator with lived experience of mental ill-health, there was so much to mull over in that statement!

First of all, let’s consider the language we use around mental health. Sarah suggested that the employee might be ‘suffering from mental health’, but we all have mental health! Just like we all have physical health. And our health is dynamic and changing all the time. Some people may experience ‘poor mental health’ or ‘mental ill-health’, or have a diagnosable mental health condition, or mental health needs. A person living with a mental health condition may or may not be ‘suffering’ – and to assume as such indicates a misunderstanding about the fact that many of us will live well, and thrive, with even quite complex or ‘severe’ mental health conditions….