The Importance Of Mental Health Awareness In Society

Caring for the mind is just as important to our health as caring for our physical well being. Yet, it is only now that we have started to acknowledge this crucial piece of knowledge to the well being of our human race. To the other half of the world however, this realization has not yet been recognized. In order to carry the advancement of our human race towards higher achievements, we need the power of the young, healthy, capable, and imaginative minds of the youth to discover knowledge not yet learned. Through the stigmatization of mental health awareness in collectivist societies however, goals of producing healthy members of society becomes questionable with the valuing of submissiveness, placing excessive emphasis on selflessness, and

Unlike the progressive advancement towards mental health awareness within individualist societies, the prevailing stigmatization of recognizing mental health has continued within collectivist societies. With mental health awareness gaining recognition in a variety of different ways in North America and other individualistic societies through methods such as ‘Mental Health Awareness Month’, ‘Bell Let’s Talk’ trends on social media, and various other organizations promoting the importance of mental health; individuals have been more likely to recognize their difficulties and seek for help in regards to their psychological issues. On the other hand, the stigmatization of recognizing and treating people with mental illnesses has persisted within individuals of collectivist societies. Psychological problems are more commonly understood as sociomoral problems which are more appropriate to bring forth towards the elderly or spiritual leaders. They aren’t considered to the same severity in terms of illness as somatic complaints are within collectivist cultures and as a result, people from within these groups most often “seek help from indigenous providers.” (Abraido-Lanza) The full extent to which the health benefits that these indigenous providers provide spiritually are yet to be examined and may have no physical effects on the well being of the individual. Moreover, the

Compared with individualistic Western cultures however; health professionals such as psychiatrists and other medical doctors are not yet fully trained to deal with patients complaining of symptoms that are not necessarily somatic. This is due to the fact that “for decades since the late introduction of psychiatry as a subject in medical schools in Asia, all that was taught was 10 lecture-demonstrations of the severely psychotic or depressed mentally ill patients, more as oddities in medical practice than as ill persons who needed to be understood.” (Deshvara) Thus with medical professionals being unable to fully provide an unconditionally positive and supportive environment needed for the growth of mentally ill patients; placing the pressure on one’s self to heal quickly in order to decrease the chances of a negative reputation among the community and among family members increases. Moreover, in collectivist cultures, emphasis on somatic complaints may result from the belief that emotional distress is caused by physical ailments and that it will cease upon proper medical treatment for the physical problem. By emphasizing the importance of physical,