Mental Illness: A Psychological Analysis

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Mental health and mental ill health is a wide subject that includes many different categories of mental health problems. According to the organisation Mind, mental health problems affect one in four people in Britain (Mind, 2013). Although, that is a big number it still is a sensitive topic for many people. The term mental ill health is defined by Mind as ‘mental health problems that can affect the way you think, feel and behave’ (Mind, 2013). This means that it is a serious disorder in a person’s behaviour which can impact their thinking, feeling or mood and it may also affect their ability to participate with others and function on a day to day basis. There are many types of disorders and some are more common than others. For example, mood …show more content…

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 …show more content…

A person’s social and emotional well-being has a profound effect on their mental health. Social well-being includes the relations that you have with others, both in wider social groups, one-to-one and family level. Strong and supportive relationships with those close to you can provide you with trust and a sense of belonging. This goes hand-in-hand with emotional well-being which sets the capacity to be able to cope with the ups and downs of life and level of resilience to deal with difficulties and tackle day to day routines (Health, 2010). In regards to Louise, there is evidence in the case study to suggest low levels of social and emotional well-being. Being her first year at university she may not have had many friends to begin with and build a social circle of close relationships. The stress and workload of university studies may have been too much for her to tackle and the increasing pressure may have been above her level of resilience. She allowed herself to be isolated from society, preventing any form of socialisation. Leading towards an aggressive downward spiral of her mental

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