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Lissette Calderas

Professor Trisha Herrera

English 1A

22 November 2017

The Stigma on Mental Health

The American dream for some is far from that, we live in one of the greatest countries in

the world so why are we not so happy on the inside? Mental heath issues are on the rise in the

United States and yet they arent treated like other health problems. When in fact it is just as

important as physical health and should be treated as seriously as cancer, but the stigma against

depression, anxiety, stress, ptsd and schizophrenia disorders keeps viable treatment options from

being developed. Many people continue to suffer because the stigma on mental health isnt a

vital concern and having access to help and treatment options is declining.

Researchers such as the Canadian Mental Health Association has reported that shame is

another reality for many sufferers because they fear how others will judge them. Suffering from a

mental disorder is already hard enough because of prejudice views or being misunderstood and it

keeps the individual from living a complete and satisfying life. We have the power to free our

minds from official definitions of things and how it shapes our understanding of the world, Neil

Postman, a great American author, educator, and media theorist asserts that the world is not

the way we see it. What we see is a summary- an abstraction, if you will- of electronic activity.

But even what we can see is not what we do see. Furthermore, calling somebody crazy or stupid

because they have a mental illness is long in the past. Researchers from Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit

medical practice and research group in Rochester, Minnesota, point out that, Stigma doesn't just
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come from others. You may mistakenly believe that your condition is a sign of personal

weakness or that you should be able to control it without help. Seeking psychological counseling,

educating yourself about your condition and connecting with others with mental illness can help

you gain self-esteem and overcome destructive self-judgment. This can be the biggest

vulnerability for most people, accepting they have a problem and seeking help.

We as a society are not viewing and treating mental health as seriously as our physical

health. Judith Weissman, a lead study investigator of the CDC data and a research manager in the

Department of Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center puts it best, When a person goes in

to get their blood pressure checked, they need to be screened for depression, anxiety and suicidal

ideation. Mental illness needs to be viewed as something as serious as having a stroke or

cancer.. Most insurance companies are not addressing mental health in coverage, when it is the

most vital part of our health. Many are only willing to pay for antidepressant drugs but refuse to

pay for psychotherapy, booth which are very important for successful treatment. We need to

encourage insurance providers and physicians to incorporate behavioral mental health check ups

just as serious as yearly physical exams. Only since the past century has the field of psychology

helped us into better understanding the infinite universe that is our minds. Not to mention that a

recent report published by the nation's leading community-based nonprofit, Mental Health

America has reported a drastic decline of mental health professionals to meet the demands for

services. In order to bring more attention to the field of mental health, we need to talk about it

without biased beliefs, invest in research, and simply educating everyone on these topics,

whether it affects them or not.

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Mental illness doesnt just go away over time, but with therapy one can learn skills that

can be used to manage their own mental state and an overall well being. Some dont have that

option, mental health services can be a money drainer as affordability is the number one cause of

seekers not getting help. States across the country have suffered from massive budget cost, thus

closing down state mental hospitals and leaving behind those with the most desperate need.

Although, it seems that some states are trying to reestablish lost programs due to those budget

cuts in alternative ways such as privatized mental health care, also known as managed care in

which referred patients go to a network of private providers contacted by the state. Some critics

will argue that a business plan is the only way to keep mental health care cost effective because

managed care approaches destroy the safety net that a good mental health community system can

provide. It seems both private and government funded institutions are battling the line between

mild cases to the most severe through a chaos of funds. In her online article, Rachel Pruchno, a

professor of medicine at Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, reports that:

[T]hose favoring CBT and those believing it is ineffective for persons with severe mental

illness agree about the magnitude of the effect size (a measure of the strength of a

finding) in these meta-analyses. The two recent meta-analyses found effect sizes for CBT

to be approximately .3 similar in magnitude to that of studies examining the effects of

clozapine [sedative drug] for controlling psychotic symptoms. But drugs have serious

side effects, and at least 50% of patients either refuse or fail to take them. This is not true

of CBT.

It seems further research needs to be done on one of the most effective treatments out

there, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for example is promising positive results. It teaches
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people how to change negative harmful thoughts and beliefs into positive reinforcement. It is

also very helpful in the treatment of people with severe symptoms and how having that mutual

trust and agreement between patient and psychiatrist or therapist is vital for successful treatment.

While medications are beneficial in some way their needs to be a fine balance between the intake

and therapy talk, as both are necessary in on-going treatment. Training and increasing mental

health specialist wont necessarily help those who need care because most specialists need to

take into consideration about further serving those in the poorer urban and rural areas. Those

with low socioeconomic status are generally more affected than those in high socioeconomic

status, with higher chances of psychiatric disabilities, and poorer access to health care. However,

some psychotherapist are seeking alternative ways to help those who cannot come out and seek

support. Setting up an online counseling therapy gives a patient more privacy in the comfort of

their own home, and is becoming increasingly popular in our sky rocketing digital era. It seems

more research needs to be done on what works with individual patients and what they feel is

helping them, whether it will be through talk therapies such as CBT, psychoactive drugs, group

sessions, and many more to meet their needs.

Cognitive behavioral therapy wasnt always an option until the founding fathers on

psychoanalysis, brought new hope and ideas to how society has viewed mental health throughout

centuries, to some extent. It wasn't too log ago that mental asylum victims endured harsh prison-

like conditions with no hope or cure, but were restricted of their lives in many ways. They faced

personal changes in state laws, restrictive marriage laws and the thousands of involuntary

sterilization laws that were put into effect; insulin coma therapy, bloodletting, metrazol-shock

treatment, electroshock therapy, and lobotomy, just to name a few. The unfortunate ones between
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the years 1907 and 1940, suffered inhumane and poor surgical sterilization, often leading to

disastrous results such as brain damage, chemical poisoning, and bone fracture. The saddest part

is that more than half these experiments were being done here in California. Only with time,

precarious experiments, and improvements in technology has the world been able to better

empathize the psychological effects of the mind. Once again, as Neil Postman best puts it, Of

special importance are the ways in which the forms of questions have changed over time and

how these forms vary form subject to subject. Postman (295). It seems we have come along way

in so little time with psychiatrist improving in internal medicine to classify patients according to

what has provoked their symptoms and family history of mental illnesses.

Edmund S. Higgins, a clinical professor of psychiatry and family medicine at the Medical

University of South Carolina, asserts that despite people consuming more psychiatric medicine,

progress on mental health, research has drastically stalled. It seemed that the life-changing

medications brought to market during the turn of the 20th and 21st century brought new hope to

some of the most mentally ill. Although in contrast their has been an increase in substance abuse

in opiates, suicide rates, and especially the struggle on U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to

keep up with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As Higgins best puts it, I would argue that

a lack of precision and objectivity in diagnosing and treating mental illness has stalled our

progress. We must embrace new strategies in research and prevention to move forward. It seems

that their is still a lot of controversy on the vague nature of psychiatric diagnostic test. In

addition, an improvement on medications pros and cons has significantly improved but only to

an extent, S. Higgins further argues, The new medications tap into the same brain mechanisms

as the old ones, albeit with fewer side effects. Finding novel treatments for mental illness has
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become so discouraging that several pharmaceutical companies have shut down or reduced

neuroscience research.

In addition, pop culture has brought more attention to societys stigmatized views on

mental health. People talk about their struggles on popular talk shows such as that of the Oprah

Winfrey show, and spread into the realm of sitcoms shows of The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and

many more. Some critics will argue that the publicizing of milder illnesses does not help people

suffering of more severe mental illness. These people in real life who receive successful help

usually stay silent on their psychiatric illness and thus don't speak out. American clinical

psychologist, professor and author on bipolar disorders comments that, We need to start within

our own clinical community and have more honest and open discussions about impaired doctors,

psychologist, and nurses. Unless we are willing to talk about how to deal with mental illness

among professionals the problem is going to remain Unless we are willing to talk about how to

deal with mental illness among professionals the problem is going to remain undiscussed,

creating more fear and more stigmatisation. We also need to standardise the teaching of the

clinical science underlying these illnesses. Some of the stigma associated with mental illness

exists because there has been so much bad teaching and inadequate treatment over the years.

Another movement that took place in the 1960s and 70s was that of the antipsychiatry

movement in movies such as One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest and The King of Hearts. Their

message about psychiatry being oppressed was clear; the inmates were not the crazy ones, but

their keepers were. Meanwhile, the 1960 classic American psychological horror film that still

terrifies many to this day, Psycho brought widespread attention to schizophrenia.

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An on-going dispute that still remains is how managed care approach to health care

blocks access to mental health treatment. Consequently many private insurance companies

benefit only from their defined version of a patients necessity to receive treatment or not. Gayle

Brooks, vice president of The Renfrew Center, the nations largest network of mental health

facilities asserts that, The greatest fight in the treatment of mental illness isnt only improving

the physical and emotional health of patients; it is also the constant effort to move patients own

insurance companies toward a better understanding of their illness, so they will remove the

barriers to effective care. Hence why most insurance companies need to further take into

consideration The American Psychiatric Associations guidelines to determine the appropriate

level of care with its certain criteria. Most which are professionals involved in patients care to

make decisions about the course of treatment and not the insurance companies who have little to

no experience with individual mental health illnesses. Many more treatment facilities and

hospitals will be facing conflict surrounding whether or not to choose to help a person whose

coverage has been denied and risk loosing insurance contracts that help keep them in operation.

Or they can choose whats morally right in helping out those seeking out aid, regardless of their

socioeconomic background.

The more we talk about this taboo illness, the better understanding we will have

towards each other. Some will never seek or be able to receive help and hit rock bottom,

destroying themselves along the process. Everyone will suffer at some point in the their lives

from a mental health disorder whether it be themselves or someone close to them and will need

to know the correct steps and study treatments options. In the end, we can all do more to look
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past the pervasive beliefs and begin treating it just as serious as any other physical heath

problem.
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Works Cited

Angell, Marcia. The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why? The New York Review of Books, 23

June 2011. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/06/23/epidemic-mental-illness-why/

Berlatsky, Noah. Introduction to Mental Illness: Opposing Viewpoints. Berlatsky, Greenhaven

Press, 2016, login.ezp.pasadena.edu/login?url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/

EJ3010154179/OVIC?u=pasa19871&xid=731f73c9.

Higgins, Edmund S. Is Mental Health Declining in the U.S.?. Scientific American, January 1,

2017, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-mental-health-declining-in-the-u-s/

Holmes, Lindsay. Mental Illness Is On The Rise But Access To Care Keeps Dwindling

(Its time to wake up and address this problem), Huffington Post, 17 April 2017, https://

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mental-illness-is-on-the-rise-but-access-to-care-keeps-

dwindling_us_58ee9a13e4b0da2ff85de60a.

Kemp, Donna R. "History of Mental Health Care." Mental Health Care Issues in America: An

Encyclopedia, vol. 1, ABC-CLIO, 2013, pp. 315-322.

go.galegroup.compsi.dop=GVRL&sw=w&u=pasa19871&v=2.1&id=GALE

%7CCX2728300049&it=r&asid=21eed66c35b62778c7d995c505209a03

Postman, Neil. The End of Education: The World Weavers/The World Makers. Vintage Books,

26 September 1995.

Pruchno, Rachel. "Psychotherapy May Be an Effective Treatment for Severe Mental Illness."

Mental Illness: Opposing Viewpoints. 2 Apr. 2014, http://link.galegroup.com/ apps/doc/

EJ3010154290/OVIC?u=pasa19871&xid=9e7a62ef.
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Jamison, Kay Redfield. "The Stigma of Mental Illness Must Be Overcome." Mental Health,

Current Controversies: Opposing Viewpoints in Context, edited by Ann Quigley,

Greenhaven Press, 2007.