MENTAL HEALTH

Mental Health

Abstract

Mental Health is as important as physical health as it enables us to develop an understanding of ourselves along with the people around us. Although people belonging to different cultures tend to perceive it differently based on the perception or the norms of the society that group or individual belongs to. Since mental health seems to be defined by the norms of the society similarly mental illness is also defined as per the norms of the society. This means that the act which appears normal to us might seem unhealthy in the context of the society we tend to live in. Thus, if an individual tends to change it there is a possibility that he might face resistance from the society. Therefore, in the context of this peer we intend to understand the concepts related to the mental health from different perspectives in order to develop a sound understanding of the subject.

Table of Contents

Abstract2

Introduction4

Thesis Statement4

What Is Mental Health6

Conceptions of Mental Illness7

Madness as Illness: The Hippocratic Model8

Antipsychiatry's Critique of Mental Illness9

The European school9

The American approach10

Impact of the new theories10

Problems Resulting From Reforming the System11

Causes of Mental Illness12

Types of Mental Illness12

Conclusion13

Annotated Bibliography15

References22

Mental Health

Introduction

What is "normal" varies greatly from one historical period or culture to another. The histories of health and mental health are many-sided and far-reaching. Traces of their past are still seen in problems and controversies that focus on how mental health and mental illness are defined. Sociologists anticipate civilization to comprise diverse groups of people. But as diversity is expected, it is also anticipated that the culture will show prototypes of behaviors that sociologists consider to be normal for the society. Those behaviors are identified as norms. Behaving in accordance with the norms, the populace will interact as they go about their family, social and business experiences. Mental health becomes an interest of sociologists when individuals within a society fail to behave in ways that are considered normal or when they violate the society's norms for behavior. (Valenstein, 2006)

Thesis Statement

Ideas of "Health" and "Mental Health" depend on cultural, social, political, and economic concepts.

Discussion

In his late nineteenth-century study Le Suicide, Émile Durkheim became the first social scientist to scientifically study an abnormal social action, the act of committing suicide. Organizing his research around statistical procedures, Durkheim considered the probability of an individual committing suicide based on the individual's identification with various aspects of social organization that help build social norms. Included among those norm building agencies were the suicide victim's family structure, involvement in religion, business activities, and participation in political processes. In essence, it was not the act of suicide itself an act considered by most to be one of an individual in a state of poor mental health that Durkheim as a sociologist studied. It was the individual's incomplete social organization, specifically one lacking adequate norms (a condition described by Durkheim as anomie), that Durkheim felt led to or might even have helped to predict the suicide. (Ting, 2011)

Most of us have encountered people whose ...