The Importance Of Mental Health

Your brain undergoes massive changes that transition you from an adolescent to an adult, which can be arduous. Students are already plagued by societal and peer pressures, the need to be accepted and feel validated, and the addition of academic and parental pressures and their own development can put a lot of stress on a person. This can lead to the development of anxiety or depression in a student, and with the stigma surrounding mental illnesses, it is unlikely that a student would seek help even if they recognized the signs. This stigma is worsened by the absence of mental health information and support in schools. Both students and educators need a deeper understanding of what mental illness is, how and why it occurs, and how to help those who suffer from it.

The beginning of my paper focuses mainly on the problems of mental illnesses on a college campus. I intentionally laid out the problem to allow my audience to realize it’s seriousness before I wrote the solution to this problem was in the hands of the high school students. Because the Board of Education’s main focus should

According to the director of national health, “the States have cut $5 billion in mental health services from 2009 to 2012. While also distinguishing at least 4,500 public psychiatric hospital beds.” Decreasing funds for mental health has resulted in an overcrowded population of homeless patients who either spend their time on the streets, in prisons, or in coffins. Overtime, mentally ill patients have nowhere to go, the jail systems are failing to provide proper treatment, and the government has already reduced mental health fundings as it is. It is time to take a stand, and say yes to increasing funds towards the mentally ill and health facilities.

“One in five young people in the United States suffer from a mental illness, that’s twenty percent of our population.” Mental illnesses are disorders that affect your mood, thinking, and behavior. The problem of mental illnesses among teenagers needs awareness because so many young people are affected by emotional disorders. If we allow ourselves to remain ignorant about this topic, we are hurting the youths in our community and creating stigmas; we are causing irreparable damage to the ones we are supposed to be looking after. Stigmas surrounding mental illness should neither be accepted nor prevail as they make life harder for the mentally ill. The points at issue of mental illness stigmatization contain unique dimensions: it takes away people’s

Growing up, especially in the United States, teenagers constantly hear “the sky is your limit.” Our country puts a big emphasis on infinite opportunities, but such options gives these generations reaching adulthood even more worries. What was once a motive to encourage others is now becoming one that hinders growth, confidence, and independence. Education instilled within schools is the first key to creating healthier mindsets. We must educate our generation and the following ones with how to deal with stress, obsessions, and personal mental health. This means that within our schools, where education is the primary goal, we must provide better assets for mental health education. Schools should set up workshops for adults, teenagers, and children to learn more about mental health and obsession, as it is important to tackle all generations in order to create genuine change all around. These workshops should cover a variety of topics, from educating people about the link between obsession and overthinking to mental health, to practices such as

Accessing appropriate support and early intervention is widely recognized as a protective factor for youth mental health concerns, improving quality of life and overall success (Rickwood, Deane, & Wilson, 2007). As approximately 70% of adults living with a mental illness experience the onset of symptoms during their teenage years, it is imperative that youth become comfortable accessing help (Kessler, Berglund, Demler et al., 2005).

Educating the public on mental health is necessary be teach community members the importance of mental health and to remove the stigma and stereotypical image of weakness or extreme violent behavior as the only manifestation of mental illness. Respectively it is necessary for health care providers to become more knowledgeable in the assessment and management of psychiatric conditions to meet the needs of the community and deliver appropriate early identification of concerns and provide referrals for continuing care. This need for training and additional education does not stop short at the medical field, but extends in to the area of educational field, more directly schools. The mental health status of children in the school setting has also been overlooked. In spite of the understanding that student illness can result in difficulty learning in class, mental health symptoms go unaddressed. Failing to address mental health issues in children may result in impairments that will extend beyond academic struggles and continue well into adulthood. School personnel need additional training in making appropriate referrals for mental health evaluations to avoid a continuous cycle of identifying concerns without seeking

Involuntary psychiatric commitment has been like a pendulum, sometimes in favor as a government policy to treat mental illness, and other times not. Mental illness treatment has been evolving throughout history. Society once believed that mental illness was due to a reversed to an animalistic level of consciousness, possession of demons, a sinful soul, or a chemical imbalance. The medical journal Nature and Genetics, recently reported that, a defect in chromosome number six which has been identified for schizophrenia could also be responsible1. As doctors, counselors, courts seem to understand mental illness better, the question presents itself, does the government have the right or obligation to confine and treat an individual without their consent.

The author Susan Rogers states that “all around the world children lack treatment for mental behaviors.’’(pg1) Children do not receive the right professional treatments to help them with their disorders.They are told to “get over it” or simply ignored. One issue in our society pertaining to health care is, is it possible for mental health clinics to be attached to American high schools. That means if mental health clinics were attached to high schools how would it benefit anyone. One huge benefit is the impact on the idea of mental health and the negative connotation of the word.

The stigma against mental health issues is one that has roots in both our political atmosphere and our daily social interactions. A person struggling with depression or schizophrenia is viewed as defective or undesirable by the uninformed, seemingly ignorant public. Mental health issues are very real and more common than most people care to believe and if these illnesses are going to continue to be dismissed then issues such as suicide will continue to become more and more prominent in society. For years those with mental health issues tend to stay quiet about their conditions in order to veer from society’s stigma against mental health conditions and this stigma then leads to those who face illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, OCD, and many more serious mental health problems from seeking treatment. The first step to battling this social stigma is through awareness and educating the masses and a college education in the field of psychology will be a most helpful tool.

Mental health is often overlooked in today’s society. Some people don’t understand the seriousness of mental health towards a person’s and other peoples well being. Mental health can affect many different people. According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, “Approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experience mental illness in a given year.” (NAMI)Mental health is not acted upon as seriously as it should be, and should be treated like any other illness in the world. Living with poor mental health can affect the rest of your life. Mental health is one of the key components to living a healthy and long life, if your mental health is poor, it can affect your daily life and bring other health obstacles along the way. In today’s news, school shootings, along with other shootings around the world, have been taking place more frequently. The attackers of these attacks are often ruled out to have been suffering from a mental illness. Mental illness, as defined by the CDC, refers to as disorders generally characterized by dysregulation of mood, thought, and/or behavior, as recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th edition, of the American Psychiatric Association.(CDC)

A component of this campaign should be developed to include a school-based initiative. This initiative should include interventions for children, adolescents, and teachers. One researcher on this topic stated that anti-stigma interventions at a school-based level can help reduce social exclusion and ridicule that children with a mental illness frequently experience. It can also help enhance other school children become more empathic, tolerant, and understanding towards people with a mental disorder (Moses, T., 2010). Along with learning more about mental health, children and adolescents can learn important mental health habits. These include, “coping techniques, resilience and good judgment, to help achieve overall wellbeing and set the stage for positive mental health in adulthood” (Office of Adolescent Health, 2010).

Mental Health is a never-ending concern for the American population due to the lack of data. This lack of date fails to give accurate information and better understanding on seeing how suffers of mental health illness is being addressed. Due to the unpredictability of when a mental illness may strike would be the leading factor to fully link how to predict and quickly find corrective resources to better educated, or reach the right people to better manage their mental health. Therefore, many communities suffer from mental health illness and like the Native American, and Alaskan Native it has become an epidemic and concern. The Native American Population in the states are twice at high risk with mental health and go untreated, leading to high rate of suicides and attempts on American soil.

This paper has looked at two school based interventions, one that occured in 2011 in Japan among University students as well as one that occured in 2014 in Canada among high school students. The 2011 intervention was aimed at improving individuals senses of selves and their coping skills while the 2014 intervention was aimed at improving mental health literacy. For my intervention I am going to focus on a large scale intervention geared towards young men enrolled in Canadian universities and high

Everyone is different in society. There are special individuals, which are affected by mental health illnesses. Mental health issues can affect society both negatively and positively. There are cultures that treat these individuals like the reincarnations of gods. On the other side, there are cultures that isolate these individuals and look for cures to these pathologies. Mental health illnesses are important because they have to be studied to understand their cause, whether it may be biological or environmental. These issues are important because like every type of illness they have to be delicately studied, focusing on treatments to either cure them or reduce the symptoms of the pathology. These people were either conflicted with the ideals of society or they were praised by it. Cultures, which didn’t accept them, closed them up into asylums. Patients inside these facilities were brutally used as guinea pigs for their experiments. The way these people were treated shows how cruel and ignorant people were to the unknown. By learning from histories mistakes we can move forward in improving our society and achieve greatness.