Mental Health Is Less Important Than Physical Health, Term Paper Example

Stigma in mental health

There is certainly a stigma in our society that is associated with mental illness.  This can result in a lack of funding for services, public education, and difficulty in finding jobs or obtaining insurance.  The stigma is because these people are seen to behave in a different manner than what is expected of normal behavior; as such it is associated with madness.  The tabloid papers fuel this by use of words like nutters, psycho, bonkers, etc.  This imposes a degree of ridicule as opposed to recognition of mental illness that requires hospital treatment.  This often leads the mentally ill person to feel socially excluded and isolated.  In essence an outcast of society.

People often see the mentally ill is shameful, weak characters and feel that the illness may impact the development of other family members.  They don’t see the benefits of care, compassion and understanding, that are equally important elements of self growth.  Without such support stigma can turn inward on the patient and reduce their sense of self-worth and well-being as such make them deteriorate more rapidly.

Stigma in other cultures

In the USA and Europe sound mental faculties are an important part of survival and the basis for contribution to the family, work and society.  Many mental people find themselves outside of the health care system and end up as poor people living on the streets.  We see these people as vagrants, worthless people who do not contribute to society and as such, we reject them.  Other cultures like that of the poorer nations have a different view and try to look after them as part of the family unit.  The onset of HIV –AIDS has created a huge problem of mental illness in places like Africa.  They are trying to help one another here with limited medical funding and support.

Mental and Physical illness connection

Mental and physical health are connected, they are linked to one another.  Those who maintain physical fitness and have better spatial memory in the brain.  Rest is also an important part in avoiding mental fatigue.  The strong evidence to support that child abuse can cause brain alterations and resulted future mental illness.  People with uncontrolled anger or rage are considered to be tenfold the risk for heart related illness.  Keeping physically fit helps your body to do with negative emotions and reinforce the positive side about life balance.  This means getting quality sleep and monitoring dysfunctional behavioral patterns.

Overcoming Stigma of Mental Health

There are campaigns like that, conducted by the Royal College of psychiatrists and the changing minds program has launched originally in 1998.  These type of programs aimed at reducing the stigma attached to mental illness, schizophrenia, depression and dementia

If more people knew about the nature of mental illness, they would understand that it doesn’t mean people are unable to contribute to society. The mentally ill are the most keen to work out of all those with disabilities, and yet it is a common experience for people to be discriminated against at work after being diagnosed, to be passed over for promotion, to lose their job or not even be considered when applying for one.

Getting people to become more informed  about mental illness and generally create more awareness through articles in medical magazines and other journals greatly assists in reducing stigmatization of inflicted individuals.  Journals like the Lancet series (Lancet, 1998) have provoked discussion within professional circles, and beyond. Psychiatric Services and the UK-based Journal of Mental Health have been major forums for research and debate on this subject, and more recently the Psychiatric Bulletin has featured a number of key articles.

It will be important to gain access to the media and try to influence their coverage and attitude towards the mentally ill.  These sort of interventions are required if we are to put forward a more positive image and challenge current misrepresentations and stigma associated with the illness. The nature of the discrimination will change as these practices receive more learned challenges from the medical community.  The task is to eliminate prejudice and make people far more socially aware of how acute these problems are.   We need to address the ethnic minority situation where this has a double effect on those with problems of mental illness. There is a need for psychiatric medicine to collaborate with other medical fields in order to challenge the prejudices associated with mental illness. It is important to get more people involved at the local and community levels, particularly with those people who have been turfed out onto the City streets and are essentially clinging to the very basics of sustaining life. In this sense we need to become a more caring and tolerant society and help these people to obtain the medical treatment that they deserve as opposed to being rejected by society and simply dumped away from the mainstream of social welfare and justice.