Millions of individuals will be affected by poor mental health, although anyone can experience these problems, there are people from certain backgrounds and social situations who put themselves at greater risk; there are many more factors than can influence or worsen the disorder. There are current theoretical models that analyse mental health stigma as a complex theme that involves many features, such as; social environment/backgrounds, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, behavioural problems and discrimination (Świtaj et al., 2014). There are many authors of different articles that agree that stigmatisation cannot be understood to it full extent without considering the perspective of people with mental illnesses, who ultimately play an important
Schwartz, Sharon, Cheryl Corcoran, Christopher Peterson, and Peggy Thoits. "Chapters 4, 5, and 6." A Handbook for the Study of Mental Health: Social Contexts, Theories, and Systems. By Teresa L. Scheid and Tony N. Brown. Second ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. 64-124. Print.
However, mental health is more than just the absence of mental disorders and there are a number of problems that can interfere with a person’s cognitive, social and emotional abilities. Biological approaches to mental health view all psychiatric disorders as being caused by organic factors such as genetic and biochemical factors. The role of psychiatrists or clinical psychologists is to help the patient cope with the illness or control the effects of it by means of medication or therapy (Cardwell, Clark, and Meldrum, 2008). In contrast to the biological theory, the social theory to mental ill health offers a holistic approach to try and understand mental disorders. This means that there may also be social factors that may influence a person’s resistance or susceptibility to psychiatric disorders. These could be triggered by certain life events such as a tragedy or stress. It also takes into consideration the labelling theory where society labels a person as ‘mentally ill’ who then accepts that status (self-fulfilling prophecy) and may lead to a severe mental
Mental illness constitutes nearly one sixth of all health-related disorders. With the population on a rise, altering values, life-style, unemployment and frequent instability in incomes, lack of social support and increasing insecurity, it is predicted that there would be substantial increase in the number of people suffering from mental illness in both urban and rural areas.
And some researcher has suggested that this model does not reduce stigma. (Thomas Szasz, 2002) states “Liberation by oppression: a comparative study of slavery and psychiatry”. Szasz argues that mental health is a rhetorical invention itself. Psychiatric often stigmatise by insisting that mental illness problems are brain diseases and most Psychiatrist doesn’t see these things as ‘disease ‘ . Thomas SZAZ claims mental illness would only refer to behavioural deviations that have a well-defined organic basis. Other deviant behaviours the product of “problems of living”. Brown and Harris (1978) found major negative life events make people vulnerable to clinical depression. Other researchers found that certain types of life events are more likely to be associated with a development of mental disorders than others—events that are “no normative, unexpected, uncontrollable, clustered in time.” The key problem with this explanation is that coerced and forced medication is generally wrong and that psychiatrists do not warn individual about many of psychiatric drugs potential side
This essay will focus completely on Mental illness in the UK. To gather my research I used various resources such as websites and books. I have also viewed YouTube videos in order to expand my knowledge. The statistics gathered may not be totally accurate in discussing mental health within the UK for the sources are secondary but it is reliable for giving a view of what the distribution is like amongst gender, age, class as well as ethnicity.
Mental health is a broad subject that touches on the psychological, emotional and social well-being of a person and how it affects the way they feel, think or act. Mental health is a fundamental element in the handling of stress, making choices, as well as creating and managing social relationships. Comprehensive understanding of the mental health will be useful in improving healthcare for persons living with mental health problems. According to World Health Organization (WHO), there are about 550 million people globally who live with mental and behavioural disorders which fall under the mental health subject (Kessler, 2010). Scientists and psychologists have realized the possibility of a correlation between poverty and mental health. It is
The World Health Organization (WHO) highlights mental health as an important health issue through it’s overarching definition of health as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (1)." Mental health can be defined as the position in which a person is at an optimal level of psychological, social and emotional wellbeing (2). It is important to note that these definitions are framed within a health lense and it is necessary to understand that health is influenced by broader social determinants (Buse et al.
David Rosenhan questioned whether these characteristics of mental health “reside in the patients or in the situations and contexts in which the observ...
However the eastern culture has a tendency to ignores the aspect of mental health, which may be one of the reasons why a great amount of the population are unaware of the mental health disorders. Deeming mental health illnesses as an unknown aspect of health contributes to the stigma that is evident in societies. By taking community health nursing, and psychological disorders in the same semester, I was able to relate the stigma associated with mental health with social determinants of health such as income, employment, social exclusion, and housing. Social determinants of health are factors that can act as barriers to improving health, or factors that support health. For instance, if an individual is severely depressed and is unable to get out of bed to go to work, the individual will lose his/her job. Upon losing one 's job, the individual may not have a source of income, and may not have the means to have housing and is then evicted. This individual may or may not have the social support to receive assistance in this crisis, which can lead to homelessness or substandard housing. This is the unfortunate reality of what individuals with mental health illnesses, as well as physiological disorders may
Stuart details past problems in the field related to socioeconomic status. While the author concedes that socioeconomic status and mental health do have a strong negative correlation, earlier studies ascribed neurotic conditions to the more affluent members of society and psychotic conditions to poorer individuals. These findings changed the way mental health services were delivered for decades. The author presents the socioeconomic example as a means of showing that caution should be used in differentiating members of society, claiming that within group differences are much greater than between group differences. Stuart holds that, while differences are worth being noted, it is important not to but too much emphasis on a label. This idea is developed in greater depth later in the article, when the author discusses the differences between cultural sensitivity versus cultural stereotypes.
Social Psychology is the study of how people think about influence relate to on another, social is seeking
It is commonly associated that the deviant behavior of people is any specialized conduct that cannot be in compliance with widely-established and socially approved norms or cultural traditions. For instance, killing another person is a representation of deviant behavior, since it contradicts the legal, social, and cultural norms of the community’s well-being. At the same time, cultural deviations in behavior may include such cases as practicing pagan and neo-satanic religious rituals which are unacceptable by major traditional religions, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. Wicca religion perfectly demonstrates socio-culture deviant behavior, and the deviant patterns of the culturally-religious nature.
This theory leads research studies to be more complex than most because of the different cultural upbringings people possess. Although studies suggest there may be more than one factor that causes the lack of acceptance of those suffering from mental illness, there have been some studies providing detailed information on how society influences our attitudes. In the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, author Ng suggests that people stigmatize based on how society conceptualizes and labels illness (Ng 388). She states, “These are influenced by complex factors associated with culture, religion, values, social orientation, and system” (Ng 388). This article proves stigmatizing attitudes do not have an actual known origin and are unique to their own societies. The most important way to understand this argument is to view the concern using etic (inner) and emic(outer) approaches, to examine how mental illness stigma originates in order to stop stigmatizing
(Espejo) ¨ Mental illness is something we whisper about, hoping the neighbors don't hear. We skirt around the issue at family gatherings when we're asked why Jennie is still living at home, why Sam refuses to leave his room, why Joe keeps ending up on the news. But it's out there on every corner, and if it hasn't yet visited your family, it probably will.¨ I believe this statement because I have seen it first hand, and I live with someone who struggles with it. Mental illness is an anxiety disorder that can affect you mentally in different ways that make you feel helpless to the world around you. Mental illness is a serious problem in our society because it is difficult to treat, harmful to one's life and can lead to increased crime and other dangerous activities in society.