Manifesto on  Women mental health Promotion

If we agree  to the  gender point of view that:

the main risk factors for women's mental illness are: poverty, lack of autonomy and power, violence experiences, double work, motherhood stress, skills in taking care for others ;

If we  agree that: the high diffusion among women of mental disorders derives from their bad life conditions which are the main cause of low self esteem;

We will agree that:  the psychiatric and psychological treatment must not implement the risk of mental illness;

we will agree  that  theory and clinical practice must not  produce or confirm  in women the self-perception of incapacity and weakness.

We will agree that, for promoting  the women mental health , it is necessary:

1.      To modify  the Diagnostic Assessment for not  dividing  symptoms in different nosographic categories and not separating from the events of daily life;

2.      To define  a new treatment (psychiatric and psychological) able to strengthen the woman's skills for  knowing,  managing , and  overcoming  own disease .

3.      To establish   technical practices oriented  to:

-         give to women the appropriate information about their health status, linked to those daily life risk factors which are the main causes of illness;

-         trace  the pathway out the illness, finding in daily life of  each woman the specific causes of "illbeing" and finding with woman the most  appropriate strategies for reaching personal "wellbeing" without  damaging self image  and self esteem;

-         give the pharmacological treatment  only  in the acute phases  and with the most caution in  dosages; don't give the pharmacological treatment as a prevention tool.