Depression And African-Americans

First of all it is important to understand what really constitutes depression. All of us feel down from time to time perhaps based on having a "bad day". However when feelings of sadness last for several weeks, months, or years, and are accompanied by other symptoms such as change of appetite, isolation from family and friends, sleeplessness, etc. these are symptoms of depression.

Chapter one covers the history and definition of racism. It also covers different pathways of racism and how racism is manifested. Within this chapter the impact of racism of people of color is discussed and its effects, such as depression. Symptoms beyond the mental and physical aspects are also discussed such as incarceration.

The World Health Center Organization has identified depression as the fourth leading cause of total disease burden and the leading cause of disability worldwide. Research has focused on the role of socioeconomic status and the environmental risk of the underlying cause of these disparities in depression diagnosis and treatment. Research has also proven that African American women have lower rates of diagnosis, treatment, and control of hypertension compared to non-hispanics. Women are twice as likely as men to experience

Racism against African Americans and other ethnicities is still prevalent in our society. Salis (2015) mentions a recent poll of Caucasian and African Americans and found that sixty percent of those surveyed felt racial relationships ha vent improved and forty percent felt they were worse. In this paper, I will identify how a counselor can reduce the effects of racism and discrimination that has affected African Americans. Additionally, I will address what role a counselor plays in reducing the stigma of mental illness within the African American community. Furthermore, I will highlight the legal and ethical issues identified in the video

13.2% of the United States population identifies themselves as Black as African Americans, and of those over 16% had an mental illness that was diagnosable. The socio economic impact of a history of slavery, sharecropping and race-based exclusion from health, racism, spiritual beliefs, social and economic resources, education and other factors are key factors that contribute to African American disparities today. Many of these things are linked to mental health. According to the US department of health, African Americans are 20% more likely to report having serious psychological distress than in non-Hispanic whites (. Despite knowing this, African Americans are less likely to seek mental health services than white Americans.

When experiencing a mental illness, African Americans face obstacles “related to understanding the problem or situation and limitation in awareness of possible solutions, strategies remedies and resources” (Hines-Martin, Malone, Kim, & Brown-Piper, 2003). In a study by Hines-Martin (2003), participants verbalized that they did not think they were “crazy” and therefore did not need mental health services. In this instance participants showed a lack of knowledge about what mental health illness looks like. They identified mental illness as dichotomous states (Hines-Martin et al., 2003). A study by Mental Health America found similar results. In this study, a majority of African Americans surveyed believed that depression was a “health problem” and in some cases “normal” (MHA, 2012). Talking about mental illness is taboo for African Americans, and as a result they possess little knowledge about specific mental health problems or available treatments (Alvidrez et al., 2008). For African Americans, stigma serves as an impediment to problem recognition. Because they have a misconstrued idea of what mental illness is, they are less likely to contemplate that they have such problems. Alvidrez (2008) found that stigma prevented 65% of their survey respondents from contemplating that they had such problems. Because many African Americans are uninformed about what mental illness is and how it

David R. Williams and Ruth Williams Morris write in “Racism and Mental Health: The African American Experience” that negative attitudes of white Americans resulting in the formation of racist policies contribute to mental health problems for African Americans, as they attempt to cope. Mental health issues, Williams and William Morris continues, can be a consequence of living within a lower income bracket with decreasing prospects for future improvement, an inability to attain needed “resources” e.g. the choice between prescription medications and food, or finally, internalizing the damaging opinions.

African Americans experience specific events of danger related to race that overwhelm the nervous system and require us to recover. These dangers may be real or perceived discrimination, threats of harm and injury, police incidents, and humiliating and shaming events. The aggressors may be black or white. These events stand out in our memory and have long-term impact on our perception of ourselves and our social environments. As mentioned in the previous discussion, some African Americans are stronger after recovering from these events, and others have long-term declines in their ability to cope with future stresses and threats.

According to Franklin et al., (2006) Race-related stress is an outcome of perceived that can cause emotional abuse and psychological trauma. The stress, emotional abuse, and

Countless studies have researched the connection between perceived racial discrimination and the likelihood of developing a severe mental illness. Currently, research shows that visible minorities in North America are inherently more likely to fall victim to mental health stress, which is commonly believed to be associated with their exposure to discrimination (De Maio & Kemp, 2009). In which case, allows them to be more susceptible to further mental stressors such as hate-crime victimization and a poor socioeconomic standing (Vega,

Mouzon, D. M., Taylor, R. J., Keith, V. M., Nicklett, E. J., & Chatters, L. M. (2016). Discrimination and psychiatric disorders among older African Americans. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. It is with extreme sadness that I read this article. The thought, that an entire population of people exist every day feeling less than, treated less than and receive less than their white counterparts for no other reason than the color of their skin, is sickening. Then to find that many disorders and mental health issues are the result of this treatment is beyond horrifying. The purpose of this article is to determine how racial and non-racial discrimination affect the mental health and psychiatric disorders regarding older African Americans. A population of people who have dealt with years of segregation, poor education, poor housing and unfair treatment in the workplace. Major discrimination is defined as occurrences that involve being denied or severely limited in access to opportunities in important life domains such as work, housing, and education (Williams et al., 1997). I will focus on what is considered everyday discrimination, three disorders that are relevant to discrimination along with the results for these cohorts.

One of the limitation of this article is that the scale of subtleness of racism that affects the psychological health of the Black people was not mentioned. The real-life stimulator does not provide immediate response that can be further analyse for accurate results. Prather, C., Fuller, T., Marshall, K. and Jeffries, W. (2016). The Impact of Racism on the Sexual and Reproductive Health of African American Women.

On a daily basis the African American community is met with constant racism and discriminatory stressors that are unavoidable in most cases. Behavioral factors, socioeconomic status, and psychological stress all have a damaging effect on individuals both physically and mentally taking a huge toll on each person’s health (LaVeist & Isaac, 2013). Elements such as one’s socioeconomic status, a reality often witnessed in communities where blacks are the majority, causes anxiety for many as these neighborhoods are not the safest to live in. Due in large part to gang violence, robbery, home invasions, car thefts, and verbal misunderstandings that can potentially lead to murders, many people are faced with the burden of keeping themselves and their families safe by limiting their time spent outdoors (LaVeist & Isaac, 2013).

In a study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Health (2003), researchers addressed mental health disparities between communities of color and the White community in several areas of health and well-being. Results indicated that although the amount of Asian Americans and African Americans students living in Greater Minnesota is relatively small, they reported much higher levels of several key risk behaviors than do their counterpart. More specifically, African Americans tend to score twice as worse as their White counterparts in most areas (sexual activity, fighting, emotional distress, smoking, drinking, family ties, activities, and etc.).

Therefore, one factor that might be important to consider when examining the relationship between delinquency and disproportionality is personal experiences of racial discrimination (Martin et al., 2011). Personal experiences with racism often have a substantial impact on individuals. For example, building on previous research on the impact of racism on the mental and physical health of people of color (e.g., Carter, Forsyth, Mazzula, & Williams, 2005; Clark, Anderson, Clark, & Williams, 1999; Dohrenwend, 2000; Klonoff, Landrine, & Ullman, 1999; Loo et al., 2001; Perilla, Norris, & Lavizzo, 2002;Taylor & Turner,2002), Carter (2007) argued that race-based stressful incidents produce psychological and emotional injury similar to other events