Promoting wholistic mental health, inspiring a journey of freedom.

Freedom Mental Health

Sharing experience, knowledge, and tools to support wholistic mental health and inspire a journey towards freedom.

Vision

To promote wholistic mental health.

Mission
  • To share life experiences that help each other overcome adversity.
  • To provide education that supports mental health wholistically (mind, body, and spirit).
  • To share tools that build resilience in multiple areas of our lives.
  • To use art as a medium for healing and transformation.
  • To support wholistic mental health through evidence-based research.

Inspiration

Many experiences have brought me here right now to Freedom Mental Health. My interest in mental health care comes from my own experiences with mental health challenges. Medication, family support, forming meaningful connections through peer support, my faith, and many other factors help me overcome day-to-day. As a mental health nurse and researcher, I found little to no integration of spirituality in mental health care. Believing the positive effects of spirituality on wellbeing and seeing the limitations of the biomedical model of health, I wanted to support mental health more wholistically.

When I think about freedom, I think about what happens when we have the tools to positively cope with negative symptoms of illness. I think about the freedom and peace that I receive through my faith. I think about an environment that supports the well-being of all people regardless of their race, creed, gender, socioeconomic status, sexuality, and other diversities. I believe freedom comes from caring for the mind, body, and spirit, speaking your truth and living it as well.

Michelle Solomon

Dr. Michelle Solomon

I am a mental health nurse and researcher who has been providing mental health care in hospitals and communities and participating in community-based research since 2010. I graduated from Western University’s PhD in Nursing program in 2024. My research explored spirituality in youth living with bipolar disorder. Participants took photos of what spirituality meant to them and shared them in a Photovoice Exhibit. A wholistic approach to mental health care interventions is my passion. I also enjoy the arts and incorporating them into wellness practices. Singing and dancing are my favourite pastimes. I believe music is a universal healing balm for the soul! Faith, family, and fitness are my compass.

In 2007, I founded a not-for-profit peer support organization called Connect for Mental Health which offered peer support, education, and motivational speaking services in the London community. I was the volunteer executive director until 2017. I believe that collaborating with community partners and individuals with lived experiences to find solutions to pressing health challenges is the best way to achieve desirable outcomes.

Wholistic Mental Health

Wholistic mental health is a state of wellbeing that involves the whole person— psychological, emotional, physical, social, and spiritual. It is influenced by our relationship with the environment. Mental health is not just the absence of mental illness but the ability to cope with life’s day-to-day stressors and challenges, engage in meaningful activities and have healthy relationships. It involves the integration of all aspects of ourselves to find balance and peace.

(American Psychiatric Association, 2023; World Health Organization, 2022; Welleum, 2023).

Spirituality

Spirituality can be thought of as the meaning in life that a person gains in relation to something bigger than themselves. This meaning may or may not come from formal religious traditions. The search for meaning and purpose is central to the human experience. When we are in spiritual distress, it is linked to difficulty in mental well-being, and mental suffering confronts us with existential questions.

(Huguelet et al., 2016; Mizuno et al., 2018; Abu-Raiya et al., 2015; Braam, 2017)

Spiritual well-being is a sense of meaning in life and peacefulness, and the sense of strength and comfort from one’s faith. It has many benefits for our overall health, including inner strength, comfort, peace, lower distress, less anxiety, fewer depressive symptoms, lower risk of suicide, and the ability to cope with debilitating feelings.

(Mizuno et al., 2018; Lavorato-Neto et al., 2018)

Certificates and Workshops

  • Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), 2015.
  • Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality, (CAMS)-care, 2020.
  • Motivational Interviewing, The Monarch System Level 1, 2021.
  • Mental Health First Aid, Mental Health Commission of Canada, 2022.
  • WRAP Level 1 (Wellness Recovery Action Planning)
  • Five-Day research workshop on religion, spirituality and health, Centre for Spirituality, Theology and Health, Duke University Medical Center, 2022.
Sources

Abu-Raiya, H., Pargament, K.I., & Exline, J.J. (2015). Understanding and Addressing Religious and Spiritual Struggles in Health Care. Health and Social Work,, 40(4) 126-134. doi: 10.1093/hsw/hlv055

Braam, A.W. (2017). Towards a multidisciplinary guidelines religiousness, spirituality, and psychiatry: what do we need? Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 20(6), 579-588. doi:10.1080/13674676.2017.1377949

Huguelet, P., Mohr, S.M., Olié, E., Vidal, S., Hasler, R., Prada, P., Bancila, M., Courtet, P., Guillaume, S., & Perroud, N. (2016). Spiritual meaning in life and values in patients with severe mental disorder. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 204(6), 409-414. doi:10.1097/NMD.0000000000000495  

Lavorato-Neto, G., Rodrigues, L., Rozendo da Silva, D.A., Turato, E.R., & Campos, C.J.G. (2018). Spirituality review on mental health and psychiatric nursing. Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem, 71(supple 5), 2323-2333. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0034-7167-2016-0429

Mizuno, Y., Hofer, A., Frajo-Apor, B., Wartelsteiner, F., Kemmler, G., Pardeller, S., Suzuki, T., Mimura, M., Fleischhacker, W.W., & Uchida, H. (2018). Religiosity and psychological resilience in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: An international cross-sectional study. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 137(4), 316-327. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/acps.12838

Welleum, 2023. https://www.welleum.com/holistic-vs-wholistic-whats-the-diff/

American Psychiatric Association, 2023 https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/what-is-mental-illness#:~:text=Mental%20illnesses%20are%20health%20conditions,Mental%20illness%20is%20common

World Health Organization, 2022 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-strengthening-our-response