Mental illness is your level of psychological well-being which affects how you think, feel and act that range from not too serious to very serious. Examples of mental illnesses is depression, a mood disorder causing you to feel extremely sad or lose interest in everyday and schizophrenia, causing the person to have a decreased ability to understand reality.
They are caused by a combination of genetic, environmental and psychological factors such as child abuse, feelings of low self-esteem or a mutated gene. Mental illnesses prevail as there is no complete cure for them, however treatment plans can be made which can help mental illness sufferers live life as normally as they could.
Save your time!
We can take care of your essay
- Proper editing and formatting
- Free revision, title page, and bibliography
- Flexible prices and money-back guarantee
Mental illnesses are often looked over which is why they do not get paid attention to or sufferers are told to “get over themselves”. Mental illnesses have a certain stigma attached to them that say they are dangerous (schizophrenia) or people believe that mental illness sufferers have self-inflicted it onto themselves (anorexia). Therefore, people ostracize mental illness sufferers, making them feel worse about themselves and often bring up symptoms and make their recovery and acceptance of their mental illness difficult.
A solution to mental illness sufferers is group or individual therapy. These therapy sessions explore thoughts, feelings and behaviors and can teach mental illness sufferers coping mechanisms and strategies to ensure that they are able to live life fully and with few relapses.
Many sufferers are school aged or their symptoms are worsened by the pressures of school, like presentations, being forced into social situations and the pressure of receiving good marks. Due to this, I think that schools should get involved in hosting student support groups where students can meet after school and discuss their problems and coping mechanisms. Another option for students is booking an appointment with the school psychologist or talking to a trusted teacher. Schools should be wary of their student body’s mental health and should offer one day a term where students can take the day off to have a mental health day where students may be excused from lessons to talk to the school therapist. As this is generally interruptive, the lessons for that day can be on self-care and learning to love yourself.
In regards to the government, they should offer cheaper counselling rates as prices for therapists are often higher than people can afford, which is the main reason as to why many people do not go to counselling. Even though most therapy practices are private, the government could hire therapists and have them work in government therapy practices whose rates are cheaper for sufferers than other practices. In order to promote these practices, the government can advertise the cheaper counselling online, through social media and TV to target younger sufferers and make them aware that therapy is there to help you and to ensure that people understand that mental illness is not something to be scared or worried about.
These changes will be successful as it will improve general well-being of sufferers as the therapy teaches them coping mechanisms which helps them deal with their mental illnesses. With the government advertising that mental illness is not a reason to exclude people, this can make individuals who have mental illnesses feel more included in society which ultimately helps those live better lives.
Personally, I feel that my role in helping mental illness sufferers is to talk to them and make them feel special and loved. I can start doing this now and in actual fact, one of my really good friends from the UK, Becky, who I talk through social media, has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and Pathological Demand Avoidance (which are both on the autism spectrum). Along with normally talking to her, I also ensure that she feels loved, supported and I always lend a helping hand in any way that I can when she tells me about her struggles. I could also try go to a group therapy session one day, just to listen to people talking about their mental health and how it affects them. I feel that this is a great idea to get a further idea of what mental illness sufferers go through. In regards to talking to them, I can talk to sufferers online through mental health websites and forums to help them through their good and bad times.
In my future, I can also take a psychology course in order to understand how these mental illness sufferers think at a university after I matriculate. This would help me as having a sound understanding of mental illnesses can ultimately help me in assisting others and enable me to become a psychologist or therapist if I wanted to.
Stuck on your essay?
