Talk:Mental health/Archive 1

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What is "mental hygiene"?

I am curious as to what mental hygiene is. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Badmotherfucker (talk • contribs) 18:53, 22 April 2005 (UTC).

I have always considered mental hygiene to be closely related to mental health and the activities, thoughts and actions one can take to maintain a state of mental health and an absence of mental illness. Somewhat akin to dental hygiene: brushing ones teeth, flossing, have flouride in drinking water, or tablets by mouth, etc. In Choice Theory terms as espoused by Dr. Wm Glasser, Mental hygiene would consist of CHOOSING TO DO, to ACT and THINK in positive, productive terms in order to positively affect ones FEELINGS and one's PHYSIOLOGY, neither of which are much amenable to direct personal control. But we can and do control our thoughts and our actions. And good"mental hygiene" requires positive images in our mental "Quality World" and our CHOICES in thinking and [doing. See the article] on CHOICE THEORY in the Wikipedia. Also read William Glasser's book entitled CHOICE THEORY, available in paperback from Amazon. It's a good read. frankatca — Preceding undated comment added 00:51, 25 April 2005

Surely there is more to say on this topic?

Ugh, naughty browser, it sent stuff before I had finished. Sorry.

Just looking at

Mental Health as a concept completely separate from mental illness plays no part in what most mental health professionals actually do, relying almost completely on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) using the medical model to diagnose and treat what they call mental illnesses and disorders.

..and I think it is a bit harsh. Is this someone's view? The Glasser to whom more than half of the article refers, perhaps? Is it talking about a particular country? From the mention of DSM-IV I would guess it's America. I don't think it's applicable everywhere.

I know that it is a stub, but to have something like five out of eight paragraphs discussing Glasser's ideas looks utterly unbalanced to me. It looks more like a book promotion. He has his own page and another for [choice theory] anyway. Telsa 08:13, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

A significant problem, worldwide, I believe, is that there is little or no money in mental health -- the money is all in mental illness: diagnosis and treatment. So that's where the energy (and the professionals go). Thus the "medical model" for mental illness dominates the culture and the economy, and increasingly that has come to mean diagnosing and prescribing "brain drugs" to "cure" any and all diagnosable mental conditions. Nonetheless, there are recognized authorities, worldwide, who challenge that paradigm, some more vocally than others. An alternative approach is the "Public Health" model to address mental health as a social issue and social cause. Frankatca 9:06: 7 January 2006

Inaccuracy

"enhancement of mental health plays no part in what most mental health professionals actually do" Really? I both use mental health services and work for one of the biggest providers of mh services in the UK and this is simply not my reality! We - and I specifically include my medical and nursing colleagues in this - work very hard to work with the whole person, including taking social, ethnic, sexual and other factors into account in looking to address individual distress. There may or may not be overt biological factors involved in this - or we may or may not yet be able to identify these - but to deny the reality of mental illness is just plain stupid. The experience of clinical depression is not feeling a bit sad/down, nor is acute paranoid psychosis (eg) feeling a bit worried/put upon. And individuals of vastly different background/life experience display very similar behaviours when acutely unwell.

I am also really worried about the use of "mental hygiene" as a concept - like DSM IV this may just be an american thing that the rest of us can feel smug about, but it smacks rather of the Nazis' use of the mentally ill/learning disabled to practice the Holocaust on. Oh, and I've never read any of the Sainted Dr Glasserr (but I will) but Szasz is surely not taken seriously any more?

I came across this article because I was trying to enthuse a colleague to the wiki idea. Frankly, it does not deserve to be on this site. GraemeE17 20:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Most articles on Wikipedia are improvable; in fact, that is the whole point of Wikipedia, enabling everybody to do so. So maybe you could just fix what you consider to be wrong? If a particular practice is, for example, commonplace only in certain parts of the world, then add that information to the article. "In the US they do ... . In other parts of the world this practice / it's name is criticised for ..." or something like that. We appreciate every bit of information (factually accurate and NPOV, of course) that anybody can provide. Just click the "edit this page" link on the top of the page and start typing. -- AlexR 07:22, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Graeme, though, that the line he mentioned -- the claim that mainstream mental health providers don't do anything about "mental health" except try to fix mental illnesses, and don't do anything to help the patient "enjoy life, resilience, balance, flexibility and self-actualization" -- is pretty atrociously POV. In fact, I'm surprised such a poor edit lasted so long, except that it came in in the same both-barrels edit that also made the article about William Glasser's view of "mental health" and not about the general concept. -- Antaeus Feldspar 15:36, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

What do "social, ethnic, sexual" factors have to do with mental health? --The burning bush 01:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite of lead section

I agree with most of the comments above, especially about the promotion of William Glasser. I rewrote the article opening, and pasted in the WHO definition of mental health that I found. Obviously, this article needs a lot more work, but at least this is a start. If anyone has any thoughts on what I did so far, let me know. -- Kathykat1950 8:27, October 21, 2005

Child and adolescent mental health

When someone writes an article about this, they might want to consider linking it from the acronym CAMHS which is an international abbreviation for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. Ben Arnold 02:46, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Added ref to ICD-10

ICD-10 is used in UK, DSM-IV is more of an American thing. I don't know what is used elsewhere. Publunch 01:31, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Publunch-Thank you for that diverce addition/ I didn't know that! R P ablecore 12:52, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

External links cleanup

I've removed several external links that don't think anyone will complain about. There is more to be done but I am going to leave it up to others at this point.. -- Barrylb 12:15, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Removed text

I've removed thw whole CAMHS section as it was a cut and paste from [1], and I've put CAMHS in the see also section. --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 11:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Best country for treatment

any word on which country has the best mental health treatment, or any kind of comparison between countries in relation to mental health services. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.70.71.170 (talk) 17:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Article is heavily biased toward anti/critical psychiatry views. Neutrality questionable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Salmonberry (talk • contribs) 02:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC).

Balance

Edited to remove inflammatory and unsubstantiated material, and to add balance to antipsychiatry viewpoints, including citations to research that directly contradicts the claim mental illness is not physically brain-based. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Salmonberry (talk • contribs) 04:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC).

"socially defined"?

"Mental health is socially constructed and socially defined; that is different professions, communities, societies and cultures have very different ways of conceptualizing its nature and causes, determining what is mentally healthy, and deciding what interventions are appropriate."

Could it not be said that mental health is individually constructed and individually defined? It seems like a lot of people I know (in the same culture) have very different views of mental health! --The burning bush 01:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point, but I think that is what the statement means. Remember communities, societies and cultures as well as their combinations all affect this view - meaning one community could be made up of different professionals and include people from different cultures. This could lead to even individuals in a community of only 20 (community not necessarily meaning "town" or "city" in this case) to all feel differently about the idea of mental health. If you think you could better incorporate that idea into the article (using references), it would be appreciated. Chupper 17:47, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

In addition I've changed the text to "Mental health can be socially constructed and socially defined..." Chupper 19:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite

I've added a rewrite tag to the top of this page. I've been trying to spend over at mental illness and I'll try to do the same here. This article is in need of a lot of work. I'm thinking this article probably won't be as beastly as "mental illness" because mental illness is more definitive. Mental health is more of an all encompassing abstract idea. Either way, I'm going to try to do the following. If you have any ideas to contribute, feel free to do as well:

Incorporate mental illness into the article
Incorporate ideas of the mental health profession and different professionals
Scale down and add info more directly tied to criticism of the idea of mental health, not biological psychiatry, etc.
Add references
Restructure article

I look forward to editing! Chupper 18:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Until I get a decent amount of content written, I'll be making edits over at User:Chupper/Sandbox01. Feel free to make edits there until that information is copied here. I'll put a strikethrough on this text as soon as that occurs. Chupper 19:13, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

History section still needs a lot more work. I'll contribute as much as I can over the next couple of days. Chupper 19:51, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems like this article is written from a biological perspective. The term "brain health" is indicative of this. Mental health is not based on biology alone. Please include psychological characteristics. ~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Writerz (talk • contribs) 07:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Drugs

For many decades drugs have been used to treat so called people who suffer mental health issues & it has long been proved that these drugs cause harm to the human body. After decades of gathering research into mental illness it has been found that with mankinds over reliance on machines people can often feel vulnerable in their machine like surroundings & this has often been caused by subjecting people to artifical habitats made up of many machines as opposed to the accustomed indigenous & native & more natural environment people have long been accustomed to before the rise of the industrial revolution which began 200 years ago, so in this respect we can not drug people with mental health issues when it is really the machines in this world which need to be pacified, not the people, in other words machines need to be controlled, not people. A machine must never harm a human & if machine does harm a human it is never the humans fault for it is always the machines fault for this is what we regard as machine law often called the Three Laws of Robotics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.184.255.157 (talk) 11:44, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Pls do not autoredirect the topic of mental hygiene to this topic

The definition of mental hygiene is different to mental health

Mental hygiene is a measure, a series of psychological methods, through which the various of mental health status will be reached. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.62.138.21 (talk) 06:56, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

You introduced a link for a page that already had a redirect. Mental health has a wide variety of "definitions" one of which is synonymous with "mental hygiene". I could see, in the future, two different articles for these topics. But for now, no such article exists. If you want to create an article at "mental hygiene" no one would stop you. But until that article is created, it should remain a redirect. Chupper 17:35, 27 October 2007 (UTC)