Mental illness is a serious and growing concern in society today. It is often undertreated and can be misdiagnosed. According to the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI), approximately one in five adults in the United States experiences mental illness in a given year. Given this statistic, I believe one of the most important issues related to mental illness is regarding how it is approached, which is many times like an attitude issue as opposed to a medical issue, and how it is treated. We have developed this stigma in this country, which forces many people to live in humiliation and shame instead of seeking help or support. The opposite is also true; for those people who want help, they many times cannot find it. Like Elyn Saks
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One way is to become educated and speak up about it. We can use social networks and media to provide opportunities to talk about mental illness and make others aware as well. When an event or tragedy happens in the news and people want to blame or focus on things like politics or guns, talk about the topic of mental health instead. Teach others what you learn. If you go to a therapist, tell people! Do not try to hide it. We should talk about it as a positive thing. The more we talk about therapy as something which is healthy, the more people will believe that it is a good thing. Another way to increase access to mental health care is to increase government funding. Sometimes we need to think “out of the box” and use funding to develop interventions for people that may not necessarily need to be delivered by mental health professionals. Another way to improve access is to incorporate mental health care into a person’s routine care. This would not only help in earlier detection and treatment, but it would ease the access to care, and probably decrease the stigma developed by seeking care from a psychiatrist. In addition, most people develop a trust and relationship with their primary care provider as well. Of course, there would need to be resources and funding to educate and train those primary care providers in mental
One way is to become educated and speak up about it. We can use social networks and media to provide opportunities to talk about mental illness and make others aware as well. When an event or tragedy happens in the news and people want to blame or focus on things like politics or guns, talk about the topic of mental health instead. Teach others what you learn. If you go to a therapist, tell people! Do not try to hide it. We should talk about it as a positive thing. The more we talk about therapy as something which is healthy, the more people will believe that it is a good thing. Another way to increase access to mental health care is to increase government funding. Sometimes we need to think “out of the box” and use funding to develop interventions for people that may not necessarily need to be delivered by mental health professionals. Another way to improve access is to incorporate mental health care into a person’s routine care. This would not only help in earlier detection and treatment, but it would ease the access to care, and probably decrease the stigma developed by seeking care from a psychiatrist. In addition, most people develop a trust and relationship with their primary care provider as well. Of course, there would need to be resources and funding to educate and train those primary care providers in mental