The other day, I had my first summer class in Human Behavior III. This is a class for social workers in training in which mental illnesses and how to make a diagnosis are discussed.
My professor first asked us to split up into small groups and come up with our own definitions of mental health and mental illness. Initially, this did not seem a difficult task but once we started to try to define each term, we saw that this was much harder to do than we had expected.
For example, one group proposed the following as their definition of “mental health,”: the ability to lead a full and productive life, and function appropriately within social context. The flaw with the “full and productive life” part of the definition is that this is highly subjective. Who is to define what is a full and productive life?
A full and productive life for one person may be viewed as a totally wasted life in the eyes of someone else. Similarly, the issue with “function appropriately” is that this too is highly subjective. Lastly, with respect to the social context component, this is only one aspect of our environment and is leaving out/disregarding other elements.
With respect to “mental illness,” one group suggested: chronic impairment and interruption of daily normal functioning. With respect to “chronic,” mental illness may be chronic or acute. Daily normal functioning has a subjectivity concern. Who is to define what is normal daily functioning? What is normal for one person may be abnormal for another…
By the end of class, my professor proposed a definition of mental health in terms of love and work according to Sigmund Freud in a broad sense. Love in terms of object relations, the ability to connect with people and form relationships, and work with respect to the ability to function in society.
We will be learning how to make diagnoses. To do so, we will be trained on how to use the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR put together by the American Psychiatric Association.
I can’t wait! I feel this class is such an important next step in my training as a social worker.
How would you define mental health? Or mental illness, for that matter? Please feel free to share any of your thoughts or comments.
Thank you, mckay savage for sharing your fabulous photos on flickr!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/2486002348
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/3005006689
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