Introduction
There are many different reactions to mental illness. These approaches culminate in various responses and perceptions about people with mental disorders. There are various labels people create when dealing with persons with mental illnesses. Social stigma involve discriminatory behaviour directed at singling out people with mental challenges and treating them with fear and panic. However, this phobia of people with mental illness seem to create other dysfunctional behaviours when it becomes excessive. The purpose of this essay is to identify the patterns of functional issues relating to the stigmatizing beliefs and behaviours towards people with mental illnesses. This will be done by examining theories and concepts that relate to these patterns of behaviour and their features.
Society has a general attitude towards mentally ill persons. This is because mentally ill persons are considered to be “abnormal”. And somewhat different from everyone else in society. Therefore, various levels of emotions and reaction are invoked when people encounter such persons. Researchers identify that “the mentally ill encounter feelings of sympathy and compassion, along with feelings of distaste and aversion”.
This feeling implies that there are various levels of reaction and this is mainly due to how people are conditioned to think. Basically, we have shared beliefs of how people must behave at certain times and at certain points. In cases where people fail to behave within those parameters, most people are quick to stigmatise them and separate them from the rest of people in society. This is based on a series of social constructions that are viewed to be ideal and desirable.
The process of singling out and treating people with mental illnesses differently is viewed as stigmatisation. Stigmatising is viewed as “an attribute that is deeply discrediting”. This means that affected persons are treated differently in ways that is somewhat exclusionary and often meant to show that they are different in ways that are not pleasant. This create a pattern that causes a reproductive system that is played again and again with no real and appropriate method of dealing with the realities and relevant facts of the situation.
In a survey in the United Kingdom, over 80% of people agreed to the statement that most people are embarrassed by people with mental illness. This means that there is some kind of shame that these persons felt about mentally ill persons. This is mainly based on a perception that mentally ill persons are not alright. This procedure lays the foundation for distinguishing between “normal” and “stigmatised” persons.
Persons with mental illnesses are considered dangerous, lazy and incompetent in their workplaces. This is mainly because they are judged by what they do or do not do in certain situations and contexts. This might be somewhat based on ignorance or in some cases, due to a bad habit that most people have not even spent time to study or become sensitive to. And this is often because it is normally done and no one raises objections about them. Thus, it becomes widely acceptable and applicable to many situations and matters.
There is an objective requirement to judge persons with mental illnesses for various reasons. This leads to a variety of methods in judging and categorising persons with mental illnesses. John Casti makes a distinction between prejudice and misconception. He identifies both prejudice and misconception to be prejudgment (judgement without a professional and conclusive evaluation). However, “prejudice is an emotional antipathy toward something or someone that is rooted in a false and inflexible generalization that is highly resistant to change”
Prejudice comes about because people have a view that mentally ill persons are abnormal and as such, they have to be treated differently. Usually, this is based on false, unverifiable information that people have accepted to be accurate. This is usually based on what they believe to be true, in their own subjective context. This is opposed to seeking the truth and reality in relation to science and accurate meanings. Rather, they define what they believe to be wrong with persons who have mental illnesses. Based on that, they find ways of stating that such persons are mentally ill and they deal with them according to those standards and views.
Misconception is based on flaws in current science which leads to an inaccurate diagnosis of a given mental case. This is because knowledge about mental illness, its causes and solutions is often misunderstood. As compared to other things like diseases and other bodily functions, mental illness is scantily understood. Therefore, it is very likely that mental health could be wrongly diagnosed and treated. This leads to many wrongful stigmatisation patterns that lead to problematic situations and results.
The rigidity of prejudice leads to serious hostility towards persons with mental illnesses. The stigma of people with mental illnesses is viewed in many ways including a mark of disgrace or reduction in worth . Some people think mentally ill reduce their level of hygiene and they fail to get a normal life. All this come together to create the parameters within which persons with mental illnesses are viewed and treated in contemporary society. This is extreme and comes with it a lot of problematic situations that affects the mental health of people with mental illnesses. Most of them are in a very fragile situation and the stigmatisation of such persons lead to major problems that complicate their situations.
The process of stigmatising include self-esteem and self-identity changes which leads to the justification of a new social structure. This is because the self-esteem of a person provides the basis on which a person’s worth and circumstances can be identified and handled. Where there are issues with mental health and mental illnesses, this element of self-esteem changes. This means society is tempted or put in a position where they think they have to define the self-identity of people and their activities. This is based on changes and modification that occurs in the society.
The problem in classifying stigma of the mentally ill by professionals and scientists is that it comes with two issues. First of all, most of these experts tend to non-mentally ill so they construe the situation and consequences based on their own perspective, and not the perspective of the mentally ill. Secondly, most of the attempts to define groups and aspects of stigmatisation is based on individual evaluation of cases and this creates isolated results in drawing any meaningful conclusions.
These approaches provide some kind of explanation and perspectives within which people exclude or include mentally ill persons. Impairment is a view that a person with a mental health crisis has a less efficient way of reasoning or doing things. This is a fall in the ability to do things that “normal” people do. Another view is that a person with mental illness is seen as a victim. Such a person is construed as a poor person who has to be treated delicately. Sometimes, this leads to a condescending attitude which causes people to be treated in ways that is less than their real worth. Others see it as a kind of situation that requires care and support to help people to overcome issues and problems.
Other approaches focus on ways of distinguishing and broadly classifying people with mental health disorders. Link and Phelan identify four main approaches in achieving this goal. The first is about presenting people with mental health problems as persons with negative attributes and connections. Such persons are seen to have very bad situations and other degraded circumstances that make them who they are.
A second perception is that it is viewed in the context of separating normal people from abnormal people. Hence, people with mental illnesses are considered abnormal. Whilst those without such mental health challenges are considered normal. A third approach is that people with mental health problems are considered to be people who were “normal” but lost their status and were degraded.
The fourth approach is to view them in the context of active and passive persons. As active persons, people without mental health problems are considered to be those who can have a normal life. However, those with mental health problems are viewed as passive persons who are more of a liability rather than productive or creative persons.
Casti on the other hand states that literacy on mental health matters and problems is very much limited. Due to this, there are many negative approaches and perceptions towards mental health and its affairs. Thus, there are four main methods that come out as the approaches
Mental health literacy is limited. And there are many negative approaches of viewing persons with mental health issues with methods like:
Pathologizing – judging behaviour to standard of society;
Moralizing – judging the individual to be accountable for their abnormality
Medicalizing – attributing it to some genetic problems;
Psychologizing – attributing it to emotional destabilizing
Pathological analysis include identifying a pattern in the conduct of persons with mental illnesses and evaluating it in relation to the society. In situations where a pattern can be identified as the main cause of issues and problems, that individual’s mental case can be viewed and in practical cases, would be excluded from aspects where the mental challenge is likely to occur or have major impacts.
In terms of moralizing, a person involved in mental health crisis is viewed as a person who might not measure up to certain moral standard. Hence, such persons are those who do not do certain things that are relevant and must be applied and utilised to achieve goals expected by the society. Hence, that individual is viewed as crazy.
In the medical sense, a person is considered to be of a major shortfall in the way s/he thinks and does things. This could be seen as a person who has cracks in his skull or a thick skull or some other genetic shortfalls which leads to the mental health crisis and situations at the time in question.
Psychologically, emotional instability and other similar problems provide the framework and parameters in which mental illness is considered to be problematic. Psychological problems and other disturbances form the basis for exclusion and stigmatisation.
Conclusion
Stigmatisation beliefs are considered to be essential in dealing with people with mental illnesses. These are persons who might be considered to have a set of actions that fall short of the normal standards that are expected by the society. Therefore, it leads to many classifications, most of which are based on prejudice which is due to generalisation and application of rigid techniques which are often subjective. On the other hand, misconception is based on wrongful diagnosis and the use of scientific theories that are not accurate to classify persons with mental illnesses. Several approaches and methods are used to classify persons with mental illnesses in the social context and this includes biological approaches, victimisation, and special-needs requirements. Other methods include pathologizing, moralizing, medicalizing and psychologizing.
References
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