An awful lot of people I know are either currently in some form of therapy, counseling or recovery group or else they have been in the past.I don't know if it's a matter of what sort of people I tend to flock with or if it has merely become pervasive in our culture to hire specialists to deal with our emotional angst. That's got me to thinking, What constitutes being emotionally healthy? What does it mean to be "mentally ill"? How much emotional pain should a person try to cope with on his or her own and when is it appropriate to seek help? When is a behavior or manner of perceiving just a bit quirky or uncomfortable and when does it cross the line into being a symptom of something to get treatment for?
In my Principles of Sociology textbook (Sociology, a Down-to-Earth Approach by James M. Henslin, 7th edition) the author describes a South American tribe in which the skin condition you see on the child pictured here is so common that the few individuals who AREN'T spotted are defined as having something wrong with them. What might the impact on our society be if seeing a shrink is viewed as the "normal" thing to do and dealing with one's problems on your own is considered "unhealthy"? Would we be better off if MORE people sought support for coping with life issues or would that take us down a dangerous path?
Anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications are currently the most prescribed of all pharmaceutical agents in this country. Are they helping? Are they harming?
I keep thinking of a line from that great song by Matchbox 20 - UNWELL:
When I was working in community mental health back in Michigan, I used to say only half jokingly that we needed a score card to keep track of who were the professionals with the keys and who were the clients there to receive treatment.
There were an awful lot of very strange people among the helping professionals that I met. Why do you suppose that is? Does working with mentally ill people cause the professionals who serve them to develop new quirks or does that sort of profession simply attract people with deep issues of their own? Some of both perhaps?
I really do believe it is a false division to think we can separate out who the "well" people are from those who are "emotionally unstable". Granted, someone with full blown psychosis is in a different category, but in general I think MOST people have problems and pains that trouble them, some very deeply. How we define what it is appropriate to do about that and what meaning we give to our distress is what I am really curious about.
1 comment:
This is interesting and a common observation of my own as well. Perhaps it is the most common thing to try to help someone else rather than getting ourselves put together. I was talking to a friend of mine who is in the mental health field and he said there are so many professionals with problems that he only knows of one or two people he will refer people to.
On the other hand, another friend of mine and I were talking and I was telling him about my idea of getting my Master's in counseling. He
replied, "Why do all these people need counselors? Don't they have any mates?" I think there is a dramatic lack of close relationships within our culture. Thus, we are paying people to listen and keep secrets.
The idea that is so pervasive in today's medical field of trying to deal with mental health with a molecule is alarming. What I think would be really interesting is to do a comparative study of cultures and mental health and see if there is something about how we live, communicate, eat, ect that may be contributing to mental health issues
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