Looking after our wellbeing is important, but an illness that is severe and needs treatment should not be minimised
We talk a lot about “mental health” these days, and references to mental illness are becoming rarer. The focus is on being well, and on recovery, which is very encouraging. But it’s not so good if you don’t actually manage to recover. Cancer services, accident and emergency departments and fracture clinics are fairly blunt about what they are addressing – but if you become mentally ill, you will usually be directed to services designed to help you with your mental health.
Does this difference in nomenclature reduce the stigma around mental illness, or does it actually make it worse? There is an implication that saying mental illness out loud would be too painful, and that we cannot admit to the possibility that people might not get better. To me, it feels like denying the severity of a problem, indeed denying the existence of an illness, and I’m not sure that’s right.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3yWVwyY
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