Psychological Disorders In America Essay

There are many people in the United States that have a mental illness that is either not

The emphasis on the dangerousness of the mentally ill has only helped fueled the stigma against mental illness in America, harming those who need help the most. Although the stigma against mental illness in America is perhaps comparatively weak when compared to the stigma in developing countries or Asian countries, it is strong enough where “despite the availability of effective evidence-based treatment, about 40% of individuals with serious mental illness do not receive care and many who begin an intervention fail to complete it” (Association for Psychological

Over 90% of people who commit suicide have a mental illness in America. Don’t you believe if people gave mental disorders/illness more attention, those suicide rates would decrease? Mental illness is a serious issue in America. To understand Mental Illness, you need to know what it means. Based on Merriam Webster dictionary Mental Illness is “ Any illness with significant psychological or behavioral manifestations that is associated with either a painful or distressing symptom or an impairment in one or more important areas of functioning.” If America gave more attention to mental health, suicide rates would decrease, crime rates decrease, and death rates could decrease.

Mental illness is an increasingly big issue in the United States. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, there are 2.4 million American citizens over the age of 18 that have confirmed cases of schizophrenia. Many of these cases stem from poor living conditions, such as abusive households, drug use, and social interactions, along with other causes like neurology, and genetics are leading factors in the development of mental illness.

One is the Universalist view, where there are similarities in mental illnesses across all culture but the expression of the disorders differs. The other view is cultural relativists, in which some disorders are unique to a culture and these disorders are commonly only understood from the cultural perspective. Culture plays a part in deciding how serious an illness is, an illness that occurs commonly in the United States may not be viewed as serious as if the illness was in another country that was not as familiar with the illness. I believe culture plays a very large part in the acceptance and standards on mental illness.

Mental health is among the most common ailments that affects millions of people around the globe. According to NAMI (National Alliance on Mental

While America is in part driven to spread its beliefs of mental illness for economic purposes, it is also motivated by its own cultural understanding of mental illness as a biological and universal thing. Western mental health practitioners often feel that their extensive knowledge of the brain has somehow transcended any trace of cultural influence that limits other diagnostic and treatment methods in other cultures. Rarely is it recognized that our own scientific beliefs about mental illness are culturally shaped and

America has a lot of issues as all of us know. But what people don't realize though is that most of our problems are directly related to psychology. If you really think about it, everything can somehow be blamed on psychology, but that doesn't mean that we have to make an excuse for our actions.

Weze, et al states that 36.5% of Europeans (the Black Dog Institute suggests this number is even higher in Australia, at a rate of 65% of Australians with mental health disorders never actively seeking treatment) never actually seek medical help or other official medical treatment or

Psychological disorders can be determined biologically or a genetic predisposition and the chances to show the symptoms are higher than other people who doesn’t have these factors. However, studies shows that external factors can cause these disorders; factors such as losing a job, parenting, poverty, deprivation, etc. Although psychological disorders can happen to anyone at different ages, there are many associations and ways to decrease this to happen in society.

In society, psychological disorders can be hard to understand. Sometimes the media can portray how people act with a certain disorder that is unlikely of the person with the disorder. Not everything that is shown in the media is right about psychological disorders. Media can make psychological disorders very clear, exaggerated, and some could be completely wrong.

medicine has provided answers yet haven’t fixed the fact that many Americans still suffer from

I thought it was interesting that almost half of all Americans (46.4%) meet the criteria for a mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder sometime during their lives. This statistic stood out to me because a diagnosis of a mental illness can often come with a stigma attached to it. It makes me wonder how

Often hailed as the one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world, the United States, and the Western world in general, is heavily invested in medical research and healthcare management, offering a plethora of resources rooted in science and objective evidence to treat health issues of all kinds. Subsequently, we have constructed a system of mental health care presumed to be all encompassing when it comes to categorizing mental illnesses and providing the best treatments for them. However, what the Western world considers to be ‘all encompassing’ and the ‘best’, doesn’t translate to being universal. Everything about our lifestyles, from our relationships to the way we dress, can be drawn back to the culture from which we were brought up in. Similarly, the way mental illness is perceived by others and the affected individual’s experience with it can dramatically differ across the world. Cultural and social forces play a huge and important role in shaping experiences of mental illness, in regards to as whether the culture recognizes the illness and explains its basis, the general attitude towards individuals with the illness, and what treatments are deemed appropriate,

According to Satcher, Friel, & Bell (2007) mental health is a publication of worldwide importance. As is the case for many health conditions, Satcher et al., (2007) stated, “There are discrepancies in mental health between groups defined publically, economically, geologically, and demographically” (p. 2541).