Finding Root-Causes While We Disagree On Premises

This week’s readings were the most interesting and compelling so far because of how they conflict and/or relate to my views. Mental Illness and the stigmatization that comes with it can only be observed effectively by finding the underlying and root causes.

Conrad and Barker’s writing from a social constructionist point of view is important in the way we view mental illness. They rightly point out that because we value individual responsibility in our society, we as a society then decide which diseases and illnesses are stigmatized and which are not. But of course not everybody plays an equal role in how they impact society’s view. As we’ve seen, popular figures such as celebrities and athletes have a large impact on people’s thoughts and values. Moreover, those with more money almost always have more influence, and so often times society’s overarching suggestions to us do represent our own thoughts and values.

It was very interesting to read Conrad and Barker say, “....there is nothing inherent about a condition that makes it stigmatizing; rather, it is the social response to the condition and some of it’s manifestations.”(S69) This is described well in the Journal of Rehabilitation’s piece on Chinese Lay Theory. The Chinese religious values condemn anyone with mental illness; further, they fear that anyone in their family with mental illness will affect the face of the family. I connected that to America’s culture, where if somebody in our family does/has something that is looked down upon (AIDS/HIV, gets pregnant before marriage etc), we are all extremely disappointed because we believe it is a representation of ourselves. The piece also talks about self-stigma. When an individual accepts the stigma as justified, they are much more likely to experience even more negative symptoms. Schulz’s article on depression in Japan showed how the fear and uncertainty surrounding the condition affected the country's overall health outcomes. When the pharmaceutical sector began to offer solutions to depression, the overall definition and meaning of the disease changed, and suddenly there were many more people diagnosed with depression. Even though most would have been considered “mild depression” in other countries, Japanese individuals still had very poor outcomes due to the stigma surrounding depression in their country.

How we perceive illness and disease was clarified even further by Luhrmann et al.’s piece on the differences in voice hearing experiences of people with psychosis. As pointed out by the authors, relationships with others are far more salient to the ways non-Westerners interpret their experience compared to Western nations. As I read through each piece, it became clearer and clearer that we as humans have such stark disagreements on premises. Whether it is political affiliation or social values(and they often intersect), we are too often looking for solutions that only seek to fill holes or gaps. We very rarely find solutions to the underlying and root causes of things; and clearly that is the case in terms of healthcare and mental illness.

I believe the reason we fail to do so is that we have inherent disagreements on the premise of the issues. Personally, freedom of speech and expression is one of my favorite things about this country. But freedom of expression inherently enables us to disagree, and even if either side has factual information, we very rarely find a way to come together. We hold our own beliefs and values so tight that we usually fail to find core causes of health disparities. So when we try to find solutions to mental health, we stigmatize them. The alternative solution is to have government or some other central institution decide what illness’ should be classified as “mental” or “contested”.

While I am certainly not in favor of that, I can at least see how this would allow us to begin finding structural foundations of stigmatization.

We could put aside our political and religious beliefs to help us better treat, define and talk about mental illness. However, we would have to give up many of our freedoms to do so. Nations across the world have failed historically to come together because they disagree on the premises.

Or, we could continue to pursue partial solutions to help us meet quotas. But if continue to do so, we will never fully understand the foundational causes of mental illness and disease.