Raising Awareness About Mental Health Is Not The Same As Pathologizing
The debate about mental health is, fortunately, increasingly common. We live in a time in which, little by little, mental disorders are being destigmatized and there is gradual mental health literacy in the general public.. The result is greater knowledge and understanding of mental illnesses.
However, and as the recent study Public awareness of mental illness: Mental health literacy or concept creep? points out, this mental health literacy can be a double-edged sword, since it has been observed that, in recent years, erroneous self-diagnoses have increased considerably, among other associated risks.
In the following article we talk about what has come to be called Mental Health Learning (in Spanish, mental health literacy) and the dangers that this entails.
The concept of Mental Health Learning (MHL) was coined by a team of Australian researchers in 1997 and has become increasingly important since then. The term refers to the knowledge that the general public has regarding mental health that, until a few years ago, was really scarce.. We are raising awareness among the population, but is it possible that we are also excessively pathologizing it?
Mental Health Learning or mental health literacy
Indeed; About forty years ago (or maybe less), most people were unaware of the basic concepts when it came to mental health. The terms depression or anxiety were not part of everyday language and, if they were, it was in a succinct and confusing way. The result was that many people who suffered from mental pathologies felt misunderstood and absolutely isolated by society.
Since the 1990s and, specifically, with the arrival of the new millennium, mental health literacy has been growing significantly, thanks to the efforts of health professionals and, to a lesser extent, governments and educational institutions. . Currently, there is widespread awareness in society about the need to know in depth the topic of mental health and mental disorders, which, a priori, may seem absolutely positive.
Actually, it is. Thanks to mental health literacy, a series of stigmas related to mental illnesses have been eliminated (or almost eliminated) and, with this, affected people have felt able to ask for help. All of this results, as you can imagine, in an improvement in the mental health of society in general. But are there risks related to this increase in social awareness regarding mental health?
The risks associated with MHL
Yes, there are. In the aforementioned study, three are roughly mentioned: a) an erroneous self-diagnosis; b) inadequate treatment and c) a pathologization of, let’s say, ordinary anxiety. Let’s look at it in parts.
1. Wrong self-diagnosis
The widespread dissemination of knowledge about mental health in the lay world can cause (and, in fact, causes) many self-diagnoses each year that may ultimately turn out to be wrong. This, according to the aforementioned study, can occur in two ways: a) through a “false alarm” that indicates a symptom that, in reality, is not linked to any disorder, and b) through the “error”, which is, in essence, the complete opposite; not seeing clear symptoms of a disease when there are.
2. Improper treatment
As a consequence of the above, many people go to a specialist without needing it and, therefore, may receive inadequate or simply unnecessary treatment.
Excess knowledge in mental health on the part of lay people can also lead to a pathologization of ordinary anxiety, that is, considering processes that are natural and inherent to an event as disorders.
For example, according to a study carried out in the United States, The majority of adults surveyed considered 11 conditions as mental pathologies that are not included in the reference manual for the diagnosis of mental disorders, the DSM-5.. Among these natural conditions were persistent grief and low self-esteem which, although treatable, do not constitute a pathology in themselves.
Conclusions
Thus, in light of these data, we can conclude that MHL or Mental Health Learning is a powerful tool to raise public awareness about mental health and, therefore, to eradicate prejudices and stigmas. related to ignorance.
However, MHL constitutes a double-edged sword that, if not used properly, can entail significant risks, such as erroneous self-diagnosis (with corresponding inadequate or unnecessary treatment) and/or pathologization of natural processes that are not, in general, in no case, a mental disorder.
An example of pathologization (and also self-diagnosis) would be considering that we are depressed simply because we feel sad for a time due to an event that has affected us. In this case, it would be the natural emotion of sadness, a normal reaction of our psyche to an adverse event. Related to this, we observe a worrying growth in the use of expressions related to mental pathologies, especially among young people; Expressions such as “being depressed” or “being a little tacky” have passed into common language and have lost all their original meaning.. As a result, new prejudices may arise: for example, the idea that people (correctly) diagnosed with OCD “exaggerate” because “we are all a little OCD.”
In summary, mental health literacy is something positive that has destroyed old stigmas about mental disorders, which has resulted in an improvement in the emotional and health conditions of these people. However, this growing collective awareness can bring new dangers that can become, in the long run, new stigmas. It is the responsibility of mental health professionals to correctly promote concepts related to mental health, as well as to strongly oppose excessively expansive concepts. In short: raising awareness is not the same as pathologizing.
