Mental illness is one of the most stigmatized illnesses in the whole world. Checking through several cultural templates and their views about mental illness, one will discover that there are several damaging cultural perspectives and sanctions attached to mental illness. One wonders about the source of the premise for these sanctions and the good they intend to serve. I want to believe that they arise from certain frustrations concerning the actual understanding of the illness and how it can be effectively treated. Mental illness manifests with a very profound social colouration which cannot be hidden hence the diagnosis and subsequently the treatment of mental illness carries with it a very strong social undertone viewed as any behavioural attitude that causes distress to the individual, the significant others, and the society. This is the basis of Parson’s concept of the sick role, which I believe feeds the stigmatization of mental illness. The society defines the criteria for identifying mental illness, also stipulates where and how interventions could be secured and ultimately determines the number of weeks healing should take place and as such any deviation from these stipulated parameters qualify the particular illness and patient to be stigmatized.
This has always been the basis of my argument for effective advocacy against the stigmatization of mental illness. It is amazing to note that even educated folks and medical workers also stigmatize the mentally ill which clearly indicts our so-called bland and basic health education which is not enough but a form of education that interrogates the society’s perception of mental illness, the preferred method of treatment and the perceived cause of illness is what should be. These factors must be examined in an effective advocacy program against the stigmatization of mental illness and effective treatment modalities that may not be culturally sanctioned.
This strategy by inference will promote the patronization of orthodox medical treatment of mental illness since the sick role empowered by the culture discredits the value of orthodox medical intervention for the mentally ill. The cultural templates of the society have thus succeeded in coming up with several discrediting notions even among the educated against the benefits inherent in the orthodox medical intervention for the mentally ill. The society owns the sick role formulations and uses it to empower her primitive sanctions and treatment approaches over and above the others even when they are not effective. The cultural templates achieve this through the use of myths, superstitions, and taboos that are never empirical.
One of the greatest inventions of the 20th century was the discovery of the antipsychotic drug- Chlorpromazine which was found to be effective in the management of mental illness. Let us get a little practical here by imagining that folks who have a type of mental illness called schizophrenia often characterized by hearing voices of unseen individuals in clear consciousness do not have an intervention that could drive away the voices and what could have become of such individuals and the society at large. We would have had a large population of persons surviving under the torment of those voices with attendant social problems!
Let us also consider those with severe mood disorders especially depressive illness where the individual is unduly sad without any cogent reason and may even feel that he/she is worthless, takes a guilty responsibility for any past deeds and looks at the future with hopelessness with attendant suicidal ideations that may culminate in suicide if effective intervention is not sought. The availability of effective antidepressants have saved many lives and improved their overall quality of life as they fulfil their basic social responsibilities.
Mental illness agreeably is not just about drug intervention alone as there are professionals in the mental health team who are trained to use psychological and social techniques to consolidate the gains of medical interventions or alone so that the patient enjoys the wholesome and full recovery. The orthodox mental health team recognizes this and builds on the recovery achieved by the medications that have driven away from the voices, eliminated negative thoughts, calmed down restlessness and hyperactivity and guarantees restorative sound sleep apart from melting inappropriate thoughts and undue suspicion.
The facilities that the mental health team brings to the table is too profoundly beneficial to be casually dismissed since no other form of intervention is as wholesome and effective as this orthodox medical model for the treatment of mental illness. There is no intervention without side effects. Some of our drugs have treatable side effects which are not life-threatening and are reversible. Depending on the constitution of the patient, some may react by developing some stiffness in posturing and shakings of the hand, some may have upward rolling of their eyeballs while there could be slurring of speech among others. All these side effects are recognizable and can be effectively handled by other drugs. When antipsychotic drugs are prescribed by those who are not properly trained, their victims may appear very dull due to poor handling of the adjustment of medications.
There is a popular claim that those drugs only suppress the symptoms and I query where the symptoms are suppressed to? There are several capable individuals in all works of life who may be seeing a mental health practitioner and taking their medications as prescribed on a regular basis and fulfilling their social roles effectively in several ways. The orthodox medical mental health intervention is effective and has a proven history and should be encouraged at all times.
Dr Adeoye Oyewole
adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com
+234 803 490 5808 (WhatsApp Only)
Image Credits : Karnacology
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