Summarise and Discuss the Presentations of Mental Health in the Two Newspaper Articles Given in Appendix 1. (1500 Words).

As you will see in this paper, mental illness has been a serious situation for many years. Over the years, there have been different thoughts relating to the causes of mental illness including what the actual situation is and observance of how to treat the mentally ill. This paper will inform you of three different historical periods: Colonial America, Depression & the New Deal and War & Prosperity in which an important aspect of mental health happened in each. I will include some religious and economic information for each period due to the relationship that religion and economy had to the way mental illness was viewed and treated in those periods.

Mental illness in this manner is the belief that such illnesses can be identified and classified (As in the DSM & ICD)

Most books about depression focus heavily on the negative and, frankly, depressing. These kinds of texts tend to scare the public and raise pity for those who are suffering. Although this serious look on mental health is effective in getting the public to notice the plights of those with depression, PTSD, schizophrenia, or any other mental illness it does not leave a lasting impression. The reason for this is because of the sheer amount of written work that displays mental health and illness in a fatalistic view. In contrast to the dreary and bitter outlook on mental illness, Jenny Lawson introduces a distinct point of view. As well as introducing an atypical way to share her own experiences with mental illness, she also gives the public a perspective on depression that isn’t normally

Emotional sickness has been a mind boggling point since the development of its known presence. While the meaning of dysfunctional behavior has developed, and been re-imagined for quite a long time, it can be best marked as a mutable, or a regularly changing thought that for all intents and purposes changes the result for treatment. (DeYoung 259) In early developments, up until about the nineteenth century, having an emotional instability was rejected as a man being under an obscure stupor which could bring about those being secured away mental homes forever. The other more radical conclusion had a tendency to be individuals who were rationally unwell were controlled by some kind of wicked compel and the best way to evacuate this underhanded drive was by expulsion or conceivable murder. While human blunder and

The mentally ill of decades past particularly of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were not necessarily seen or treated as a criminal element although the services and techniques that were employed by the medical establishment could be seen by today's standards as barbaric, this was not in ill will or some form of belligerence on the part of the doctors from the recent past but more attuned to not really understanding the complexities of the human psyche. Today although there appears to be a better grasps on the mental conditions that afflict people with mental disorders the asylum and mental hospitals that remain today do not suffer as much from the shortcomings of treatment and diagnostic techniques of the past, but a more plebeian

A strong case can be made for investing in mental health, whether to enhance individual and world wellbeing, improve life span, or even to enable people living with mental illnesses to have a better quality of life. Mental health problems account for a quarter of all ill health yet they receive less than 6% of all health research funding, people with these health conditions usually experience poor access to help services and lower quality care than those with physical health problems. Addressing mental and physical health needs together would be more cost effective for the NHS and would benefit the increasing numbers of people dealing with untreated mental illness.

Allen Frances criticizes the widespread of diagnosing and medicating normal people in his book, “Saving Normal”. Frances has written a clear and detailed discussion about the apparent explosion of psychiatric disorders in the United States. The first three chapters demonstrate the intimate knowledge Frances has regarding the process and thoughts behind making a new diagnosis and the intention of pharmaceutical companies. It was important to learn about the history of creating the DSM and the history of the changes doctors have made to assist those with mental health problems.

Mental health problems are considered to “interfere with how a person thinks, feels and behaves” (Australian Government Department of Health, 2007, para. 3). Considered to be more prominent, yet less severe than mental illnesses, mental health problems are experienced for

In the last 100 years there were major challenges in the field of mental health in regards to a lack of international consensus on diagnostic categories for mental disorders between the most used manuals the (ICD) international classification of diseases and (DSM) diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders which are still elusive until now and still struggle to fulfil its purpose (Hickie, Scott & McGorry, 2013) as both of them depends on observation of mainly middle-aged people with persistent mental disorders although most mental illnesses begin before the age of 25 years which does not address the earlier and specific clinical presentations of primary care and clinical setting and also does not relate the risk factors

The “History of Mental Illness” is an informative podcast based off of an interview with Dr. Rodger Christenfeld, the research director at the Hudson River Psychiatric Center located in Poughkeepsie, NY. Dr. Christenfeld spoke of the psychiatric centers change of names over time from an “Insane Asylum” to the present name “Psychiatrist Center” as well as the possibility of different labels in the future. He discussed a time of social reform approximately 50 years before Freud in which Charles Dickens presented the idea of psychological disorders being an illness . Christenfeld addressed the treatment of the mentally ill throughout history.

In the last 100 years there was a major challenges in the field of mental health is the lack of international consensus on diagnostic categories for mental disorders between Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM) and the international classification of diseases (ICD) which still elusive until now and still struggle to fulfil its purposes (Hickie et al 2013 ,p. 461) as both of them depends on observation of mainly middle-aged people with persistent mental disorders although major mental disorders begin before the age of 25years which does not address the earlier and specific clinical presentations of primary care and clinical setting and does not relate the risk factors and neurobiological and genetics (Hickie et al

Since the statement has been made until now several practitioners do not believe it and as a result have explored alternative method of diagnoses and interventions for mental health issues. This has led to the development of psychological interventions. Some practitioners believe that most causative factors of mental illnesses are environmental. These environmental factors interacting with some other risk factor (which could be biological) could be responsible for some mental illnesses (Brown, 2011). As a result of the above position many practitioners believe that while it may be necessary to use some medication in the treatment of mental illnesses that drugs alone cannot do the work. This has led to the development of several tools for psychological or therapeutic interventions. There are those however who take extreme position about

Eventually hospitals and other facilities were set up for the treatment of mental disorders in which humane care and occupational therapy were used for treatment. By 1829 the “moral-treatment hospitals” seemed to justify therapeutic claims of treating patients. Throughout history those susceptible to mental disorders have changed going from upper classes most likely to develop mental disorders to lower classes being most likely to develop the disorders (Dain, 359). We have discussed the historical background of mental illnesses. Next we will look at current treatments and diagnoses of mental illness in more specific areas such as stress disorders.

Humans are complicated creatures, and during the nineteenth century, science began an exploration into the secrets behind the mind. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “psychology” as ‘The scientific study of the nature, functioning, and development of the human mind, including the faculties of reason, emotion, perception, communication, etc.’ Psychology and psychiatry both involve studying mental illness, while psychiatry also involves the medical pathology in treating mental illness. Nineteenth-century psychiatry struggled for ‘professional legitimacy against surgeons and medical doctors’ while simultaneously dealing with popular beliefs. Multiple discourse surrounding Victorian mental illness illustrates the mutability of the phenomena. This chapter will discuss the tropes within Victorian psychology along with the public discourse about mental illness. This chapter will end with a brief examination of two manifestations – hysteria and multiplex personality.

Mental health was a very misunderstood concept within Victorian England. Everything a doctor knew was based off of pseudosciences. Their mental illness studies were conducted based off of the beliefs of phrenology, physiognomy, palmistry, and graphology. Phrenology was a belief that mental illness could be detected dependent upon the size of a person’s brain. England’s doctors also believed mental illnesses had to do with a person’s facial features, the lines in their hands, their race, or even their handwriting. These misconceptions influenced psychiatrists to research and test irrelevant regimens and did not advance their knowledge on current mental illnesses. Their lack of knowledge caused healthy people unnecessary treatment and confinement and lead to inaccurate diagnoses of the patients.