MENTAL HEALTH

Mental Health



Mental Health

Overview of Mental Illness

Mental illness seems to be a growing problem in societies all around the world. Until the mid-twentieth century a large proportion of people who were classified as mentally ill and admitted to mental hospitals were actually suffering from physical ailments like epilepsy and brain tumors. Today researchers are learning about the biological origins of many mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, autism and alcoholism. The mental disorders that cause severe social problems are the most extreme forms of mental illness, like the ones that threaten the social order such as a sociopath who becomes a serial killer. The number of individual in society with these disorders is small, but they constitute a serious social problem because they are so violent and irrational. (Neale, 2001).

A more widespread social problem is severely mental ill individuals who cannot care for themselves without special attention. These individuals include people who are mentally ill and chemically addicted, and are likely to be indigent and homeless. Mental ill individuals experience a variety of symptoms such as unimaginable fear, uncontrollable hallucinations, panic, crushing sadness, wild elation, and mood swings. For society as a whole, their illness presents a range of social problems: stress in family life, heavy demands on health-care institutions, moral and ethical problems, the cost of treatment to society, etc. It is said that the mentally ill suffer twice: They suffer from the illness itself, and also from rejection or the stigma that comes with being diagnosed from illness, as if their illness was their own fault (Smith, 1988).

Statistics of Mental Illness

The most common forms of mental problem in the United States are panic attacks and phobias. Phobias include severe fears such as fear of going outside, fear of heights, or enclosed spaces. It is estimated that about 20 million Americans suffer from panic attacks or phobias in any given year. Another 18 million Americans suffer from other mental illnesses, such as depression, including manic, major, or minor depression. Alcoholism is also classified as a mental illness, and has been diagnosed in approximately 14 million people. A problematic group of mentally ill individuals are substance abusers with a mental illness like schizophrenia that live in urban areas. This constitutes about 6 million Americans. These people are referred to as mentally ill chemical abusers (MICA) (Kornblum). A general problem with mental illness is the social impact of deinstitutionalization, or discharging patients from mental hospitals directly into the community without the intermediate steps like group housing, or assisted living. Some of these patients may not be able to function like normal members in society. This can cause conflict and consequences to both the patient and the people they come into contact with(Alexander, 2006).

Statistics say that there are about 350 million mentally ill individuals in the world. Approximately 80 percent of the worlds 350 million mentally disabled people live in developing nations. Depression is extremely common in elderly individuals, which is usually worsened by isolation and chronic pain ...