Topic > The meaning of mental health and ill health - 2181

Mental health as a pilgrim (2005) is used positively to indicate a state of psychological well-being and negatively to indicate the opposite, or euphemistically to indicate structures used by, or imposed , people with mental problems (p. 3) although Richards (2002) argued that the concepts of sanity and madness are relative and can vary depending on individual and social perspectives, and illustrated that acceptable behavior at an arts festival could not be perceived as similar in a private home and that there are times when any of us could be considered to be in an abnormal state of mind (p. 13-15) and in this regard dispense with the term 'madness' which could have an emotional meaning , is neither a medical term nor a diagnosis and could imply a lack of completeness, control and hope and imply a perception of fear (p. 16) while Stevens and Price (2006) evoked the idea that psychiatric symptoms were probably manifestations of ancient adaptive strategies that are inappropriate in the current era but could be understood and treated in an evolutionary and developmental context. Thomas Szasz (2006) however questioned the entire notion of mental illness and coined the term “mental illness myth” (Szasz, 1961), arguing that the distinction between physiological and psychological illness was based on the misuse of terms illness or disease that were observable anatomical and physiological phenomena. His focus was on the fact that mental disorders have a clear biological component and that they should be treated like any other illness. He advised the use of terms such as "severe brain disorders" in describing these diseases and stated that psychiatry could indeed be replaced by neurology (2006) and considered the physical diseases of... half of the document... of the Organization World HealthWARR, P. and PARRY, G. (1982) Depressed Mood in Working-Class Mothers With and Without Paid Employment. Soc Psychiatry 17 pp. 161-165WEINSTEIN, J. (ed.) (2010) Mental health, service user engagement and recovery London: Jessica Kingsley PublishersWORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (2002) Gender and health: Gender and mental health: a report from the World Health Organisation, Department of Gender and Women's Health in collaboration with the Department of Mental Health and Substance Dependence Geneva: World Health OrganizationWORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (2005) Promoting Mental Health: Concepts, Emerging Evidence, Practice: A Report of the World Health Organization, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in collaboration with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation and the University of Melbourne Geneva: World Health Organization