Lynne Friedli is a freelance researcher with a special interest in the relationship between mental health, inequalities and social justice. She works in the UK and across the EU to build public mental health policy and practice. Essentially, this is about identifying what supports, and what is toxic to, the mental health and wellbeing of individuals, families, communities and society.
Lynne provides research support to the Equally Well test site in Dundee, a programme testing new ways of working within public services to reduce health inequalities and increase mental wellbeing in disadvantaged communities. Over the next six months, she’ll be working with the test site and Dundee University on the final evaluation.
Lynne’s main concern at the moment is how to ensure that issues of social justice are central to debates about wellbeing. There is a real danger that in acknowledging the importance of the social, psychological and spiritual dimensions of human experience, questions of growing inequalities in the distribution of wealth and power are brushed aside. Lynne has written about these problems in relation to the resurgence of interest in ‘assets based approaches’, see Releasing Our Potential? Using Assets to Tackle Poverty. She is also interested in the work of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum on capabilities, and is currently writing a second report for WHO Europe, linking the capabilities approach with a framework for action on public mental health.
Lynne lives in London, spends as much time as possible in Scotland, and is a passionate advocate for the pleasures and freedoms of wild swimming.
