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Mental health stigmas in our society
Mental health stigmas in our society
Social stigma of mental illnesses essay
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Mental disorders can be accompanied by dangerous and harmful side effects. In Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island, there are many effects of a mental illness that are damaging to an individual. However, there are three effects that seem more harmful and long-term. First, many people who are sleep deprived tend to develop difficulties with their mental state. Furthermore, a mental illness can often cause an individual to respond to an emotional situation in a violent fashion. Most importantly, when one’s mental state is damaged, flashbacks and distorted memories are common.
Many people who suffer from psychological problems are often troubles with insomnia as a side effect because sleep requires an untroubled mind. Former United States Marshal, Teddy Daniels, believes he was assigned to find a missing person from a mysterious mental institution, Aschecliffe. Unfortunately, he suffers from a delusional disorder and is really a patient of the institution, known as Andrew Laeddis. He is considered a violent but intelligent patient who re-enacts a fake life that he has created for himself in which he believes that he is a detective trying to locate Andrew Laeddis, who supposedly murdered his wife. One night, as Teddy lies in the room with the other men he believes to be working with, he thinks to himself that “he couldn’t sleep. He listened to the men snore and huff and inhale and exhale, some with faint whistles and heard some talk in their sleep…Dolores. Everything he’d ever needed, and now it had a name” (Lehane 199&204). Although Teddy is not diagnosed with insomnia, he has some symptoms to suggest he struggles with a sleeping problem. The difficulty with insomnia is it cannot be cured with medication and requires effort from the patie...
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...re a major side effect of a mental illness that severely affects individuals.
Obviously, Lehane highlights three effects of a mental disorder that are the most harmful and long-term to an individual. Initially, difficulties with one’s mental state are related to sleep deprivation, for sleep requires an untroubled mind. In addition, responding to a situation violently is common in individuals with a mental illness. Above all, individuals with a mental disorder can experience flashbacks and distorted memories. People with a mental illness often go untreated, are misdiagnosed or feel self-conscious around their peers. However, the stigma today is less severe and individuals have greater access to social and medical programs that allow them to receive correct and necessary treatment.
Works Cited
Lehane, Dennis. Shutter Island. New York: Harper Collins, 2003. Print.
Madness: A History, a film by the Films Media Group, is the final installment of a five part series, Kill or Cure: A History of Medical Treatment. It presents a history of the medical science community and it’s relationship with those who suffer from mental illness. The program uses original manuscripts, photos, testimonials, and video footage from medical archives, detailing the historical progression of doctors and scientists’ understanding and treatment of mental illness. The film compares and contrasts the techniques utilized today, with the methods of the past. The film offers an often grim and disturbing recounting of the road we’ve taken from madness to illness.
To me, Schizophrenia is by far the most frightening disorders in the DSM. Snyder’s account of how he truly believed his delusions, specifically those surrounding the debilitating fear for his life, are hard to image. This presents a challenge for me as a counselor in empathizing with clients who are experiencing this. In reflecting on this dilemma, I came to realize that while I may not be able to understand the fear of my life being in danger, I can relate to the emotion of fear; this can be the connecting point for me to the client. Expressing sympathy is also another tool I have when I am unable to empathize with a client’s thoughts and emotions. Furthermore, Snyder’s narrative reinforced my notion of how insidious Schizophrenia can be. That is to say, that while in many cases this disorder may live traces of itself in childhood and adolescents, in some cases it occurs unexpectedly. Snyder details his normal childhood, including supportive parents, with little to no evidence of any sort of trauma or odd behavior; and yet he was still blindsided with the disease. I began to reflect particularly on how difficult this would be for clients experiencing these same circumstances. It will be essential for me as a counselor to recognize that
However, local and national news also produces negativity towards mental illness by “portraying people with mental illness as threats to themselves and to others” (Anaya 4). In the past two years, the news features stories such as a man who has schizophrenia, running on a shooting spree then killing himself; or a mother with depression who murders her children, then kills herself (Anaya 4). Anaya explains that television programs use mental illness as a headline to grab the attention of views and ultimately implies to respond with fear (5). Highlighting that mental illnesses are the reason for the evil in society, hurting those who suffer with mental illnesses. Therefore, the population begin to believe mental illness is bad, so do the people who suffer with mental
“Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is… Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified.” Determining sanity wasn't always prominent; the studies of mental health and psychology have improved greatly since the late 1960’s, but some could argue that there are still many disorders we do not understand. This movie envelopes the problems and treatment of patients during this era. Not only in a time of economic and racial disturbance, but the stereotypes and inequality for women are exemplified during this motion picture.
In the beginning of Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane, Teddy Daniels believes he is a U.S. Marshal sent to Shutter Island with his partner, Chuck, to investigate the case of an escaped patient, Rachel Solando. Rachel Solando is said to be a very dangerous patient who murdered her three children. She had somehow escaped her cell in the mental ward and is somewhere on the island. As soon as Teddy and Chuck hop of the ferry and onto the desolate island, they’re greeted with aloofness and suspicion. None of the employees seem to give them any real evidence of the missing patient and their answers seem scripted. The guards, warden and doctors always seem to be keeping an eye out for them. When they meet with the head psychologist, Dr. Cawley, seems congenial but holds back most information he knows about Rachel Solando. Teddy believes that the information Dr. Cawley is holding back is crucial to the investigation. He speaks in psychobabble and allusively. All the patients they interview, seem to treat the marshals quite hostile and play around with them. One patient scribbles on Teddy’s notebook to run away from this mental hospital. While searching Rachel’s room they find a clue she left behind, the Law of Four. Teddy later learns that all the numbers in the Law of Four suggest that there are sixty-seven patients on Shutter Island, rather than the sixty-six everyone presumed there were. A quick camaraderie develops between Teddy and Chuck as they search around the island. Despite the monster hurricane bearing down on the island, Teddy remains determined and strong. His character is brave and he is quite clever. He is able to depict meanings of clues quickly. . Teddy finds cryptic clues in odd locations along the island. Teddy begins ...
A mental illness is a medical condition that affects a person’s mood, thinking, feeling, and decision making that is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. There are many different types of mental illnesses, but the two that are correlated with violence the most are Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder. Schizophrenia is a mental illness that causes a person to not think clearly, to hear voices, not to relay emotions to certain events, and they cannot decipher whether they are in reality or not. Bipolar Disorder is a mental illness that causes a person to have severe mood swings from extremely depressed to a s...
Narrator, who was urban professional, and had problem with sleeping, worked for a major car manufacturer. Although he did not have any of the associated disease, he stumbled across support groups to let out whatever emotions he was feeling indoor to allow him to sleep, but the use of these support groups was ruined when he saw a young woman named Marla Singer, who was going to all these support group meetings. Because he knows she too was not afflicted with any of the maladies for which the groups exist, her presence had lessened the impact of the stories he hears. His life changed when he met a soap manufacturer named Tyler Durden, who in many ways is the antithesis of the insomniac. Due to unusual circumstances with his owned condo, the insomniac
Schizophrenics experience two different kinds of torture… positive, and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are not “positive” in the least bit. They include delusions, hallucinations, disorganised thoughts and disorganised speech. These symptoms make it very hard for schizophrenics to work or to live in their own house. Positive symptoms are especially dangerous because in some cases, the hallucinations will tell the victim to kill either themselves or another person. H...
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2013), mental illness refers collectively to all diagnosable mental disorders. A study has shown that about one in four adults, which is 61.5 million Americans, experience mental illness each year. In addition, one in seventeen Americans lives with serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, major depression, or bipolar disorder, (National Alliance of Mental Illness, 2013). The causes of mental disorders can stem from genetics and family history, life experience...
Cartwright, R.D. (1978) A primer on Sleep and Dreaming. Massachusetts : Addison - Wesley, Publishing, Company
In our world today, we have a generally poor understanding of mental illness in two distinct ways: we don´t understand the dangers that mental illness can present to people as they go about their everyday lives, and we don´t understand how to properly care for people that suffer from mental illness. However, if we better understand when, why, and how mentally ill people can become violent, and if we can better understand how to identify and treat the illnesses these people suffer from, we can drastically improve the lives of many people.
Instead, the film cherry-picks frightening or exaggerated elements of a spectrum of disorders, including schizophrenia, delusional disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. This makes Laeddis an embodiment of a combination of the most frightening psychological disorders. While there are certain aspects of Laeddis’ psychosis that are accurate in terms of an individual disorder, these elements do not add up to a realistic portrayal of mental illness. This combination of fact and fiction also extends to the film’s treatment of institutionalization, psychological therapy, and the connection between violence and mental illness. The exaggerations and distortions of Shutter Island serve one purpose, they entertain the audience. However, this type of entertainment often comes at the cost of perpetuating the negative stigma and misinformation that surrounds mental illness in modern society. While the film may entertain audiences with its dramatic twists and turns, Shutter Island is a part of a trend of inaccuracies and exaggeration of mental illness in modern
Sleep and dreams have defined eras, cultures, and individuals. Sigmund Freud’s interpretation of dreams revolutionized twentieth-century thought. Historical archives record famous short sleepers and notable insomniacs—some accounts reliable, some not. When Benjamin Franklin counseled, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,” he was using sleep habits to symbolize his pragmatism.
Mental illness, today we are surround by a broad array of types of mental illnesses and new discoveries in this field every day. Up till the mid 1800’s there was no speak of personality disorder, in fact there was only two type of mental illness recognized. Those two illnesses as defined by Dr. Sam Vaknin (2010), “”delirium” or “manial”- were depression (melancholy), psychoses, and delusions.” It was later in 1835 when J. C. Pritchard the British Physician working at Bristol Infirmary Hospital published his work titled “Treatise on Insanity and Other Disorder of the Mind” this opened the door to the world of personality disorder. There were many story and changes to his theories and mental illness and it was then when Henry Maudsley in 1885 put theses theories to work and applied to a patient. This form of mental illness has since grown into the many different types of personality disorder that we know today. Like the evolution of the illness itself there has been a significant change in the way this illness is diagnosed and treated.
Having an illness can have an affect on an individual either physically or mentally. Anyone can be a victim of a mental illness such as, children 's, adults and senior citizens, it is not rare. There are hundreds of different types of mental illnesses and with more to be discovered in the near future. Struggling to accomplish a certain assignment or not being able to speak properly, can all be signs of someone who is suffering from a mental illness. Major depression, autism, anxiety and Schizophrenia, are just some disorders that can affect an individual’s state of mind, and over time if not not cured, it could become highly dangerous, but medications and therapy play a key role in controlling it. For some individuals enjoying life becomes