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¶ … Health and Well-Being of a Chosen Group:
Diagnosed mental disorders A recent APA study found that "more than 57% of patients now receive medication without psychotherapy, up from 44%. The percentage who receive psychotherapy only has dropped from almost 16% to 10.5%, while the percentage who receive a combination has dropped from 40% to 32%" (Clay 2004). Even patients under the care of providers are often seeing only a primary care physician. "Insurers will often pay for drugs but not for psychological interventions…prescribing medication is more convenient for physicians, nurses and others than providing psychotherapy" (Clay 2004).
Barriers
Barriers to assistance for diagnosed mental disorders exist on the individual, community, and social level. On an individual level, people are often reluctant to admit to themselves that they are mentally ill, or a refusal to recognize that they are ill is actually part of the pathology of their illness. On a social level, discomfort in dealing with people who are mentally ill, a lack of financial resources for treatment (particularly for the poor but even for members of the middle class that lack enough insurance for extensive mental health coverage) can also create barriers to care. A lack of financial resources in general can prevent a full, expansive treatment option being offered combining necessary psychopharmacology and therapy even for patients who are able to afford some types of care.
Regulatory, legal, ethical, and accreditation requirements/issues
On a personal level, many mental illnesses contain a certain amount of denial: depressives do not think they are worthy of seeking care; eating disordered patients are afraid of abandoning their coping mechanisms; bipolar patients in the grips of mania have a sense of immortality or special insight into the human condition. But other barriers exist. Patients with mental disorders are less likely to be employed and to have insurance and even those who do (and the numbers will be expanding, hopefully, given the recent passage of the Affordable...
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Solutions
Although mental health patients cannot always be relied upon to seek out appropriate care for themselves, there is a role for mental health advocacy organizations to actively disseminate knowledge about the symptoms of mental illnesses, versus…
References
Clay, R. (2011). Advocating for psychotherapy. APA. 42 (8): 48. Retrieved from:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/09/psychotherapy.aspx
McLaughlin, C. (2004). Delays in treatment for mental disorders and health insurance coverage.
Health Services Res 39 (2): 221-224. Retrieved from:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361004/
African American Youth with Mental IllnessPart 1: BackgroundObservationThe African American Youth experience unique structural and contextual hurdles as they transition from childhood into early adulthood. While their experiences vary, similar cultural phenomena are prevalent and make this population more prone to mental health challenges than white peers. According to Snowden (2020), one in every five African American youth (9 million) has a severe mental illness, and less than half of
Mental Illness and Child Abuse The physical abuse of children was 'rediscovered' by physicians over fifty years ago. Since then, some observers have expressed concern at the continuing 'medicalisation' of what they consider to be essentially a social problem (Parton, 1985). A widely-held view emerged from the ensuing debate that child physical abuse and neglect occurred through an interaction between parents, children and their social environment. The model described parents with
When one throws the element of ethnicity into the mix, the process of diagnosis becomes even more difficult. Let us take, for instance the effect of religion on the diagnosis of a mental illness. In some religions it is considered to be "normal" to experience visions, see ghosts, and talk to the dead. However, from a strict clinical standpoint, these things do not exist and therefore indicate a break from
Mental Illness The foremost question relating to mental illness concerns about its very existence - whether mental illness actually exists or not? According to Thomas Szasz, mental illness is a mere myth (Szasz, 1960) and does not exist, as illness can be defined only in terms of physical pathology and most mental disorders have no such demonstrable pathology. In a similar viewpoint, it was argued that biology was not relevant to
Edwards challenges the extreme on the other end as well, i.e. that total wellness sis the only possible state of being labeled healthy. The scholar sites the World Health Organization's definition of wellness as complete mental and physical wellness as far too broad and encompassing and illegitimates the reality of human existence. (16. Edwards, CC2010, pp. 0090) Edwards ultimately argues that the challenges faced by both those who believe
Null Hypothesis 2: The mentally ill are not particularly at risk of substance abuse or criminal activity. 4) Independent and Dependent Variables Independent variables that might influence the study focused on the mentally ill include other influencing factors such as support from family, friends, age, and the use of psychotropic drugs. Independent variables that can influence the study includes attitudes and stigmatization by professionals at institutions that house mentally ill inmates. This can