The Misrepresented Mutation Of Mental Illness By Dashiell N. Wakeman

Causes of Mental Illness According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a mental disorder is “a condition that impacts a person’s thinking, feeling or mood and may affect his or her ability to relate to others and function on a daily basis.” Genetics play a heavy role in that an individual’s biological and unchangeable makeup determines certain conditions that may develop throughout a lifespan, and are considered practically unavoidable. A person’s outlook and lifestyle, particularly in formative years during adolescence, can turn emotional habits into chemical imbalances, as one grows older, resulting in common conditions like chronic depression. The environment in which an individual is raised can also be a determining factor in regards to the development of a mental disorder, such as distress and emotional trauma caused by external factors.

History of Mental Health A lack of understanding led to a fearful response, and because of this, those afflicted with disease were murdered, exorcised, exploited for entertainment, or taken by force into prison-like housing. Due to the efforts of Dorothea Dix, more than 30 psychiatric hospitals were funded for construction by the U.S. government. This change did not occur until the 1840s, and while it was a giant step for treatment in this field, they were still nowhere near the advances we have today. The scared reactions of those who enacted events like the Salem Witch Trials still fuel the millennial generation with an unnecessary fear of those who are different in any way, and a lack of understanding of the mentally ill and their struggles hinders even modern improvement.

Medical Diagnosis of Mental Illness The DSM documents approximately 300 mental illnesses, and is filled with various checklists that could determine from interviews and therapy sessions whether a person suffers from one of the listed diseases. The positive side to the existence of such a manual is that the known and proven disorders are listed in a convenient location, and are printed along side simple instructions to follow in order to spot an illness in any given therapy session. Journalist Jon Ronson cited thumbing through the manual over the course of an afternoon, resulting in a self-diagnosis of twelve separate and unrelated mental disorders. By the same token, the DSM has been utilized in order to diagnose children younger than four years of age with disorders like bi-polarity, obsessive- compulsion, and attention-deficit.

Legal Policy and Criminal Insanity When a person in trial pleads insanity, the procedures for the trial itself and the resulting sentence may significantly vary. In these situations, a defendant in a criminal case may plead “not guilty by reason of insanity,” or “guilty but mentally ill,” and it would result in a lighter or alternatively defined sentence. The positive aspect of this is that awareness of mental health issues has improved to the point where even the legal system has made accommodations for those afflicted. On the other hand, the liminal area of what constitutes a mental disorder or what can be officially classified as “insanity” makes the procedure more complicated. While steps like these have been taken to the point of altering the treatment and documentation of the institutionalized, but as long a system like this can be exploited, there are still problems to be patched.

Conclusion The first step in creating that awareness is the ability to accurately define and pinpoint mental disorders and their causes, and to understand the historical context of persecution against the ill. When taking into account the medical procedures of diagnosis and the legal methods of documentation, there is still much advancement to be made before there is accurate representation and proper treatment of the mentally ill.

Sources Conditions way/201411/we-shouldn-t-treat-mental-illness-physical- illness