We need better terms. "Mental health" is too nonspecific for casual conversation.

[nolabear]

Seeing people castigate Simone Biles and Officer Fanone and Naomi Osaka over their self-awareness about what they need to function well in their professions makes my old clinician’s blood boil. And one outgrowth of our previous fear of talking about all this is that we have very poor language for it, so people can use the words we do have in myriad harmful and misleading ways.

If you are in a high risk job, one in which you have to be on point at all times in order to avoid injury or death, and something interferes with the ability to perform that job—something like distraction from constant media and, god forbid, social media attention, a pandemic, a near miss and the doubt that can instill about next time, worry about letting down or endangering your fellow athletes, officers, etc.—taking steps to prevent disaster is taking care of one’s mental health. But it is not mental illness.

Mental illness is real and has an enormous spectrum and inexact language of its own that makes conversations difficult. Sadly people weigh in with 280 characters or a five minute segment that leaves no room for precision or nuance. Sometimes they think they understand and don’t. Sometimes they’re virulent and others’ ignorance gives them room to spew for whatever reason they have.

We need to figure out how to talk about these things better.

[Binkie The Clown]

1. Back in the 50s we had a wide variety of specific descriptive terms. Today they are "frowned upon."

[nolabear]

4. Such as?

[RobinA]

2. I Agree

I work in mental health and in the past year I've seen what seems to me to be a watering down of these terms. I work with people who are seriously mentally ill, and Osaka and Biles are not mentally ill.

[nolabear]

5. People who pathologize normal situational behaviors cause untold problems.

You know situational depression is real and normal under certain circumstances and should be “treated” with a plethora of tools—meds maybe, support certainly, social services sometimes—needing assistance in response to human feeling isn’t illness. It is a need for health support. And that’s a good thing.

[Sunsky]

8. I am also a mental health professional

I've diagnosed and treated many. How do you know that these young ladies aren't mentally ill? There is a wide spectrum of mental illnesses. One cannot fully assess someone's mental status just by the limited information gathered by viewing the TV. Do we know if it's anxiety-related? There are numerous anxiety-related or depressive disorders according to the DSM-5. Do they not qualify as mental illnesses to be taken seriously?
In the past year, there has been an enormous uptick in clientele, due to symptoms manifesting or exacerbating during the pandemic. This is a difficult time for one's mental health. I don't believe people are watering down anything. Adults are suffering mentally. Children are suffering mentally. Let's be gentle and nonjudgmental.

What is sad IMO, is that if the story had stopped at a medical condition, most people would've empathized but since it's mental health-related it needs to be questioned and ridiculed. We need to stop this stigma. I applaud anyone who takes their mental health as seriously as their physical health. I applaud those who recognize and seek preventative measures before they develop a "serious mental illness."

[fishwax]

3. I think of it as a matter of maintaining well being

Last edited Wed Jul 28, 2021, 01:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Her attention on maintaining her well being is related to mental health in the same way that, say, making sure one moves around a bit if possible and has a diet that doesn't consist solely of nachos and beer is connected to physical health. Both are about maintaining health, and not directly about illness. (Though failure to maintain well being can lead to illness.)

[nolabear]

6. Exactly.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. I'm not seeing the issue with using "mental health" as a shorthand for all three of these examples.

[nolabear]

9. It's not wrong per se, but gets to be a catch-all.

Responding to anxiety or shaming or becoming alarmed at being disconnected from your body and do endangering yourself, and being schizophrenic, and having Narcissistic Personality Disorder all can come under the rubric of “mental health” unless they include detail and explanation that these things and what helps them are widely varied.

When dealing with physical health we are far more specific in our way of discussing issues and their treatments. I’m advocating for the same specificity.

[dclarston13]

10. I agree that we need to talk about these things

In a more constructive way, but IMHO labels don't help when it comes to mental health. The MH professionals want to have a box to put people in so that their treatment program fits in that box. In other words if I hear a kid ADHD I can look up clinical guidelines and prescribe treatment so I wont be sued if it does not work out. But everyone is different so treatment needs to be adjusted based on therapy over a period of time.

[nolabear]

11. Maybe sometimes true but all my colleagues think differently.

Yes, there’s concern that you might be sued if you don’t offer something that the patient believes will be helpful, but responsible clinicians work with, rather than on, their patients and try to collaborate on a system that helps. Insurance makes it difficult at times, and the fact that there’s often not a single approach nor easily predictable outcome makes trust between practitioner and patient important.

But really I’m talking about laypeople who have strong opinions and poor ways of either learning about the wide range of things people go through or of expressing things.