The councillors for Health and Education and the rector of the UIB attend the presentation of a book that is the result of multidisciplinary work by students, healthcare professionals and users of mental health services.
Mots ignots is an illustrated dictionary of invented words that explores and reflects on the world of emotions and language in an attempt to break down stereotypes and pre-established words that pigeonhole people with mental disorders.
The councillors for Health and Education, Manuela García and Antoni Vera, accompanied by the rector of the UIB, Jaume Carot, among other authorities, today attended the presentation of a work designed to do away with the stigma that still surrounds these disorders and, at the same time, raise awareness among university students and students that having a pathology or diagnosis of these characteristics does not have to be defined with the current terms that still often disqualify and denigrate the people who suffer from them.
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Mots Ignots’, a dictionary of invented words to eradicate the terms that denigrate people with mental disorders
The councillor for Health and the councillor for Education have welcomed this initiative that seeks to eradicate once and for all from our vocabulary that people who suffer from some kind of mental disorder are violent, aggressive or can act strangely; that they are incapable of improving; that they are dangerous and should be isolated or kept away from other people or that they cannot carry out the same activities or tasks as others.
‘That’s why today I feel molt alegròtica‘, said Manuela García, alluding to a term included in this dictionary that defines an emotion of happiness in which one only perceives the positive and beautiful stimuli of the day and feels that everything will go well’, which is manifested with ‘a bodily expression that denotes euphoria’. For his part, Antoni Vera stressed that this publication is a tool to help tackle the stigmatisation suffered by people with a mental health disorder.
This peculiar dictionary, which in its prologue details that ‘it allows us to explore our emotions and ways of being without expecting them to fit into pre-established categories’, is the result of the work of the interdisciplinary collective on creation, literature and mental health The Shape of Dreams. If we don’t fit into the categories that pigeonhole us – be they diagnoses, labels or nicknames – we can invent new words to represent us. This is the message.
This collective begins the year with the presentation of its third publication Mots ignots, which follows the volumes Quimeras: sueños, literatura y salud mental (Disset edició) and Mostramos monstruos: una investigación creativa sobre el miedo (Ínsula).
The words have been compiled by the students of the subject Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature of the fourth year of the degree in Catalan Language and Literature of the UIB (promotion 2022-2023) from workshops carried out in different entities -IES Son Pacs, students of the degree in Primary Education of the UIB, users and professionals of the mental health day centre of the Hospital comarcal de Inca, Garrover Foundation, Amadip Esment and the Community Rehabilitation Unit of Inca – where emotions and ways of being outside the pre-established categories and the existing language have been explored.
The participation of the Institute for Coexistence and School Success (Convivèxit), a consultative body of the Regional Ministry of Education whose aim is to improve school coexistence in the Balearic Islands, was also decisive.
Users and students reflected on the mechanisms by which words are created and explored emotions, without diagnoses or labels, in order to invent new ones that do represent them.
The illustration of the volume has been carried out by the high school students of IES Berenguer de Anoia in Inca and the General Directorate of Mental Health has been in charge of the edition of this initiative that is part of the fight against stigma and the defence of human rights.
The book has been promoted by Mercè Picornell, lecturer in the Department of Catalan Philology at the UIB; Xavier Delgado, from the Mental Health area of the Hospital Comarcal de Inca; and Vicente Galaso, from the association La Nostra Veu, through the aforementioned collective La forma de los sueños, which proposes collaborative spaces for the promotion of emotional well-being and social transformation through literary, theatrical and artistic creation.
Apart from the aforementioned authorities, the presentation of this dictionary, which took place this afternoon at Ca n’Oleo, was attended by the poet and prologue writer of the volume, Laia Malo; the occupational therapist of the Mental Health Day Hospital of the Hospital Comarcal de Inca, Aimara Sejías, as well as teachers and students of the IES Berenguer d’Anoia de Inca and other participants in the volume. The event was enlivened by the musical performance of Benjamin Payen and Marie Delbousquet (violin and cello).