I might be misinterpreting your stance, but it sounds like you're saying that mental illness is something that can be controlled and even prevented by individuals, which is literally the kind of stigma I propose we must fight against. Based on my understanding, mental illness is physiologic, and there is concrete evidence showing that individuals with mental illness manifests biologically, such as brain scans. We also know that some mental illnesses, including depression, are hereditary, the same way other diseases are hereditary. So no, mental illness is not just "in your head," and that kind of thinking only contributes to the problem.
To address your points:
1) We need to medicalize mental health because mental illness are diseases and need to be treated as such. A great deal of the medical approach to mental illness includes seeing a therapist, psychiatrist and GP, and going on medications as necessary. Many therapists will emphasize non-medical aspects of mental health, such as creating strong social bonds and support network, and self-care. But schizophrenia cannot be managed with self-care alone, and to avoid getting help from trained professionals in dealing with it will only make things worse.
2) If you suffer from any ailment, seeing a professional who specializes in said ailment is literally the best way to help yourself. if you break your leg, then getting it treated must be your top priority - after all, once it's healed you will have far more agency than you did before. Your mental illness won't get worse by seeing a licensed professional. I do not see what this has to do with "agency."
This is factually incorrect. Some people have phases of depression, that is true, this must be differentiated from people who struggle with depression daily for their entire lives. No amount of "positive thinking" can cure that. Depression comes in many forms, and it sounds like you believe that all depression is the former. Depression can be a lifelong illness just like schizophrenia.
This entire post pretty much proves the point I set out to make. There are so many misconceptions about mental illness, what causes it and how to "fix" it. We need to treat mental illness the same way we would treat any other illness, and understand just how complex it can be.
~Psychic
1) I don't disagree with you.
A great deal of the medical approach to mental illness includes seeing a therapist, psychiatrist and GP, and going on medications as necessary. Many therapists will emphasize non-medical aspects of mental health, such as creating strong social bonds and support network, and self-care.
... is what I said.
But schizophrenia cannot be managed with self-care alone, and to avoid getting help from trained professionals in dealing with it will only make things worse.
... responds to something I neither said nor meant.
We need to medicalize mental health because mental illness are diseases and need to be treated as such.
... is missing the point, if you meant this as a rebuttal of my position. The process of medicalization comes with drawbacks. Personally, I aspire to a career in medicine. But I can recognize the weaknesses and failings of such a system. There is great emphasis in medicine on the science, the mechanisms, on treating the body as an object. But peoples' minds should not simply be treated as objects. I think it's a dangerous path to think about mental illness as any other diseases, because they are so deeply entangled with our identities and sense of self. There are features of the modern medical system that can make it alienating and dehumanizing. Physicians and patients are aware of this in general. The increased reliance on high science and high technology can present a barrier to empathy which is important in healthcare in general but doubly so for mental health. Mental illnesses are going to be medicalized whether we like it or not, and there are good reasons for doing so. But to boldly medicalize mental illnesses without being cautious and mindful of the uniqueness of mental health is to risk projecting onto it values and expectations that ultimately undermine the well-being of those who suffer.
2) Again, missing the point. I don't disagree that seeing a professional is one of the best things you can do concerning a mental illness. But there's so much more than just seeing a professional. Although I do not have personal experience, it is my understanding that psychotherapy involves personal work. There is a deeper level of engagement that goes past simply following a doctor's order to take certain drugs or avoiding certain activities to recover from an injury. That's why I want to emphasize how important one's sense of agency is with respect to mental health. I don't want people to think that, just because there's a physiological basis for mental health, their ability engage in and improve their own treatment is diminished. I don't want, in the effort to increase public understanding of mental health, to draw inappropriate parallels between mental disorder and more physiological disorders, and leading people to approach mental health with the same relative passiveness that you approach many other illnesses.
At this point I am really unsure whether you actually read my post or only read what you wanted to read. What I said was:
If you overcome a mental disorder, then, yes, you have in some way pulled yourself out of it. If you overcome a mental disorder, then, yes, you will look back and realize that it was just a phase.
You responded by saying:
This is factually incorrect. Some people have phases of depression, that is true, this must be differentiated from people who struggle with depression daily for their entire lives. No amount of "positive thinking" can cure that. Depression comes in many forms, and it sounds like you believe that all depression is the former. Depression can be a lifelong illness just like schizophrenia.
But why? I'm sure we both know that treatments for many mental disorders involve psychotherapy which involve personal work and effort. If you participate in that therapy and it works out for you, then haven't you pulled yourself out of it? Haven't you, by your own will and effort, contributed to your own recovery? That's why I keep saying that one's sense of agency vis a vis mental health is so important - because you can affect your mind more deeply than you can affect your body and because that's what many therapies call for!
If you overcome a mental disorder, then won't you realize that mental disorders don't have to be enduring? That if your therapies are successful, there is the chance of taking back a normal life? That it would ultimately be a phase of your life and not a permanent mark on your identity? Again, we can see why agency is so important in all this. One's will and faith in the improvement of their mental condition is crucial to improving their quality of life, whether they fully recover from their illness or not. Positive thinking may not cure every case, but any amount of positive thinking is conducive to one's treatment and recovery. It's one of things that cognitive behavioural therapy asks for.
My original post was not a rebuttal to your first post, but rather to express caution at the prospect that we might oversimplify some of the complexity and neglect the humanity that is at the core of mental health in our zeal to bring further awareness to it. This post is a rebuttal to your second post because it did not seem to recognize the core idea of my previous post: that the patient's sense of agency, their perception of whether their thoughts and actions matter, should be one of the most important things to consider in mental health, and that we should be mindful that our solutions don't create any further unnecessary harm, not just to the sense of agency but in general. Instead you looked for misconceptions and debunked them, even though I daresay that there were no misconceptions to begin with. You don't know what I think about depression. What you do know is that I believe that if a person overcomes their illness, they will recognize that it was transient - impermanent - and hence not a worthy description of their identity.
You say that "we need to treat mental illness the same way we would treat any other illness, and understand just how complex it can be". I respond that in order to fully appreciate just how complex it can be, we cannot treat mental illness the same way we would treat any other illness.
