The Psychology Of Mental Illness

When people think of an “illness” they typically don’t automatically think of mental illness. They think about HIV, cancer, or even a cold or flu. However when it comes to mental illness it is a whole different idea. But is mental illness even real? Addressed in the book, The Myth of Mental Illness (1961), a psychiatrist Thomas Szasz argues that the idea of classifying psychological and emotional difficulties as “illnesses” takes away sense of control. Instead of holding people personally and morally responsible for their actions, he states, doctors attempt to “treat” the person, often with medications. Diagnosing mental illness, on the other hand, argue that mental disorders are as real as physical diseases and diagnosing them allows people

Making it difficult for patients to receive adequate health care for their psychological issues. From a nursing standpoint, this book was interesting and informative. It demonstrated that the legal and psychological health care systems need to be fixed. At the end of the story, Pete concluded that mental illness is a disease that his son must endure for the rest of his life. However, he will be there to help his son, and will never abandon Mike (Earley page 361).

In 1973, psychologist David Rosenhan published “On Being Sane in Insane Places” which documents the results of studies he and his confederates conducted at 12 different psychiatric hospitals across the United States. The studies were an examination into the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis methods. Rosenhan’s research focused on testing the hypothesis of whether or not psychiatrists and medical staff can distinguish the sane from the insane and if the characteristics that lead to diagnoses relate more to the patient or to the environment and context in which they’re being assessed. (Rosenhan, 1973) The study was divided into two main parts. Participant observations and comparative information studies were noted as well as they gave valuable insight into the treatment of psychiatric patients, conditions in psychiatric hospitals, and the effect that diagnostic labels had on how patients were perceived by staff. Ultimately, the study discovered that psychiatrists could not reliably distinguish the sane from the insane and insight was gained into how diagnostic labels and environmental context play a strong role in the perception of behavior.

Mental illness and the stigma associated with it illustrate the concept of the sociological imagination. Living with a mental illness is a private trouble, affecting the individual personally, physically, psychologically, socially, and even economically. The trouble is made even more private in the respect that those with anxiety/depression/etcetera often suffer in silence since their affliction is not necessarily visible to others. The stigma associated with mental illness exacerbates the individual, while simultaneously lending itself to the public issues regarding mental illness.

Wright Mills talked about the sociological imagination, he described it as “ the capacity to see an individual’s private troubles in the context of the broader social processes that structure them.”(Mills, 2013, p.5) Mills believed that people's private struggles for example obesity or not having a job are personal in nature. Mills says that if private troubles are shared with others then it exemplifies that it is a common social problem. (Little, 2013,p.5) It is hard to relate to mental health and illnesses if you yourself have not personally experienced it. The sociological imagination is based on being able to step away from your everyday activities to be able to look at them with a fresh pair of eyes. It is your ability to view everyday things socially and compare how they interact and impact one another. (Little, 2013, p.5) The main reason why mental health is a stigma is because individuals suffer from it in silence and are often afraid to speak out. Often people are embarrassed of admitting they have mental health issues. Our society has a stereotype towards mental health and illnesses, this is primarily due to the fact that having mental health problems are internal rather than visibly noticeable. It is safe to say that it is hard for individuals to understand something when they don’t experience it, let alone if they can’t see it either. However, if people openly and regularly talk about the issue than it wouldn't be

Forget all the stereotypes of mental illness. It has no face. It has no particular victim. Mental illness can affect an individual from any background and the black community is no exception. African Americans sometimes experience even more severe forms of mental health conditions because of unmet needs and barriers to treatment. According to the Office of Minority Health, African Americans are 20 percent more likely to experience serious mental health problems than the general population. That’s why UGA third year Majenneh Sengbe is taking action as the co-founder of her upcoming organization Black Minds Daily.

Within this unit I will be showing my past and learnt knowledge of the main forms of mental health problems according to the psychiatric classification system. I will be looking at the strengths, Limitations and alternative frameworks for understanding mental health. I will also demonstrate ways in which mental health problems can and do impact the individual and there social network.

The ‘medical model’ (Beecher, 2009), also called the ‘biomedical model’ (Germov, 2009), basis its beliefs on the theory that there is not a connection between the mind and the body (Sarafino & Smith, 2014) and illness is caused by ‘biological’ (Germov, 2009) factors that can be diagnosed and treated with medications (Germov, 2009). The biomedical model becomes problematic when applied to the treatment of mental health illness due to the cause being widely unknown and so how can mental illness be successfully treated using this model? Social factors that may have a contributory effect or allowance for preventative measures to be implemented are also not taken into consideration with the ‘medical model’ (Germov,

Consequently, mentally ill patients as well as those placed in psychiatric facilities are often branded as zombies (Hochwälder, 2013). Therefore, the recovery process of such people is often difficult because they face humiliation verbally or physically from others. As such, this website is very useful to people who are trying to liberate themselves from the stigma that comes with being a psychiatric patient. The design of the “Antipsychiatry Coalition” website is such that it makes use of links to provide information on various issues that revolve around mental illness and psychiatry (Antipsychiatry, 2015). For instance, the link on “myth of psychiatric diagnosis” enables the reader to read and learn about the things that people believe about psychiatry yet they are false.

In 1961 Thomas Szasz penned a book by the title The Myth of Mental Illness that would go on to cause quite the stir in the world of psychiatry. In the book, Szasz stated his belief that what most psychiatrists would label as mental illnesses are in fact not illnesses at all, but instead what he would go on to call “problems in living.” This article will take a critical approach at Szasz reasons for his belief in these “problems in living” including an objective outline of his argument, a discussion on the validity of the argument and its’ premises, and finally the strongest objections to the argument. Szasz is an important figure in modern psychiatry and his opinions are very divisive but certainly worth discussing.

The social model of mental illness emphasizes the social environment and the roles people play. Thomas Scheff maintains that people diagnosed as mentally ill are victims of the status quo, guilty of often unnamed violations of social norms; thus the label "mental illness" can be used as an instrument of social control. I agree with Scheff's analysis, and I strongly concur with the view Thomas Szasz takes on the notion of mental illness. Szasz argues that much of what we call "mental illness" is a myth; it is not an illness, but simply "problems in living", troubles caused by conflicting personal needs, opinions, social aspirations, values, and so forth (Szasz 13). It thus follows that the widely

The United States has their own view on mental illness when compared to other developed countries. The developed countries that were analyzed with the United States were England and France. Our research question was “Does the United States view mental illness differently than other developed countries?” The research that I conducted was over the policies and ideologies of mental illness in the United States.

As a nursing student, I’ve learned to appreciate learning about mental health. I’ve been given the opportunity to learn evaluate others and critically think about how I will care for patients with different disorders. The purpose of this paper is for me to critically evaluate a character from a film I chose called Fight Club. Since I saw this movie years ago, I am able to understand that mental disorder perspectives can be different in the eyes of the public thank from someone who has studied about mental health.

Approximately one in five adults experience mental illness in a given year in the United States (Mental Health By the Numbers, n.d.). Adequate mental health care is extremely important to the general well being of the world’s population, and therefore should be focused on in nursing. Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) was crucial in increasing the quality of care given to the mentally ill in jails and asylums. She saw that poor people with mental illnesses were suffering due to lack of quality healthcare and she dedicated her career to advocating for those people and their right to proper healthcare. Her impact as well as the impact of others working towards proper healthcare for those with mental health problems in today’s society is that, while we absolutely have a long way to go, mental illness is less stigmatized than it ever has been before: basic insurance covers mental health care and mental illness is something regularly talked about in our society --- when Dix was working to transform mental health care it was believed that most people with mental health problems were incurable.

Mental illness can be a taboo subject, and people learn different facets of it by different means. I was first introduced to basic concepts of mental illness during my high school years. At that time, I had a very close friend who suffered from depression. She confided in me that she was considering suicide. Shortly after our talk, I called her mother because I believed that her disclosure wasn’t a spontaneous, knee-jerk statement but a true threat to my wonderful friend. Her parents took her for evaluation, and she spent time in Havenwyck Hospital where she began treatment. She is still my wonderful, beautiful friend today, and I shudder to think what may have happened if she didn’t reach out that day.