The Importance of Mental Health
In the recent years, the importance that was never given to the existence of mental health and the factors that affect an individual’s mental well-being has seen a considerable amount of increase. In the past, the concept of mental-illness was almost considered to be taboo of sorts. The present paper aims to discuss the extent to which critical approaches towards the prevalent issue of mental distress have remodeled the understandings of psychological well-being. It aims to explore the diverse approaches that have been restructured as per the recent criteria regarding the treatment of mental distress and trace an arc of the development and modelling of these approaches (Elraz, 2018).
It has been noticed by researchers that in the past few years the models that encompass the treatment of psychological behaviors and patters that follow these behaviors have significantly been adjusted to fit the modern concept of psychological well-being. World Health Organization states that mental health is an imperatively essential part of individual health. The constitution of WHO states that health is a state that comprises physical, social as well as mental well-being, it is not just a state wherein there is a considerable absence of diseases. Thus, it is vital that a human body should acquire a state of physical as well as mental well-being (WHO, 2018).
Psychological well-being essentially means a way of life wherein there are no considerable health threats to an individual due to mental distress. The frameworks of psychological have kept remodeling as per the need of the time throughout history. As humankind moves towards a modern world, the approaches to psychological well-being keep shifting as well as changing as per the environmental, social and cultural needs of the time. The concept of functioning effectively, which is one of the major features of psychological well-being does not simply mean an individual’s ability to function without any specific or humongous distress haunting them, it signifies a way of living that follows a healthy mental framework which encompasses an individual’s mental ability to understand their own potential regarding their interests in life, a sense of purpose, an ability to achieve fulfillment mentally (Matud, López-Curbelo, & Fortes, 2019).
Some of the major critical approaches that have been developed in the field of psychology through the course of history are, theory of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and social psychiatry. The discourse of critical approach towards psychology that pertains to the psychological well-being has been prevalent specifically since the 1900s. Theorists such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson and Lev Vygotsky have contributed immensely towards the development of a structured framework that can be followed in order to understand the prevailing notions that concern mental distress (Kovach, 2018).
The concept of psychoanalysis as propounded by the famous theorist Sigmund Freud, made the brave and bold attempt to understand the unconscious desires, fantasies and thoughts of individuals that lead to the formation of diverse mental distress due to the ethical restrictions that are imposed individuals, which leads to the creation of pent-up anxieties as well as unkempt desire that can influence the activities of individuals. Freud aimed to develop this theory of his by interpreting the dreams of his patients, claiming that dreams revealed the hidden thoughts and desires of human beings that help psychologists to analyze the reality of the causes that are affecting the mental well-being of their patients (Sandler & Sandler, 2018).
The Remodeling of Approaches to Psychological Well-being
While a disciple of Freud, Erik Erikson developed the theories of psychological development by creating a structured framework of stages of psychological development that focused on understanding the psychological development of individuals from infancy to old age. This framework also analyzed the virtues as well as the maldevelopment that followed the psychological development of individuals, this particular approach towards mental mapping helped numerous researchers as well as psychologists to understand the structure on human psychology and how it shifts with time and the way the emotions as well as the huma virtues fluctuate with every passing stage of this development (Maree, 2021).
Vygotsky on the other hand, outlined a framework of socio-cultural impact on cognitive development, wherein, he described how the social as well as cultural and environmental factors affect the psychological development of every individual. He exclaimed that human identity is essentially shaped by the experiences that encompass the lives of individuals and the social interactions that take place throughout the lives of individuals. Vygotsky’s concept, in a way, revolutionarised the way psychologists treated patients of mental distress, his approach remodeled the organic understandings of psychological well-beings as it led to the generation of the mass belief that social factors do affect the psychology of human beings that to, massively, in fat in such a way that they shape their entire identities (Taber, 2020).
It is imperative to understand that the now essentially biological approach towards mental illness was, at a time, consumed entirely with a discourse that focused on either acquiring an understanding of the factors tat are distressing the individual verbally or through a series of communication. The period of post-war witnessed a need for significant development in the field of psychological advancement of humankind as the post-war period witnessed masses of people who were unfortunately suffering from extreme forms of trauma, both physical as well as psychological (Hoppen & Morina, 2019). In the more recent years, a discourse has been witnessed that basically follows both therapeutic as well as biological approaches towards the issue of mental distress that consider the various socio-political, environmental, cultural, and geo-political factors that can, in any distinct manner, effect the mental health of the individual (Middleton & Moncrieff, 2019). Thus, the concept of psychological well-being, which, at first was considered a state of mind that was not negatively influenced is any manner, because of the various advancements in the critical approaches towards mental distress the concept has now broadened on an empirical level and now comprises of various social, cultural, environmental as well as political factors.
According to Eugenie Georgaca, the discourse of analytic approaches towards mental distress have developed considerably in the last two decades. This has majorly taken place due to the social reconstructing of societal norms regarding the concept of the term psychology and everything that comes under its umbrella term (Georgaca, 2013). The recent years have seen a tremendous growth of an approach of recovery in the discourse of critical approaches towards mental distress. The genre of ‘recovery narrative’ in individual experiences of mental distress play a humongous role in maintaining an understanding the diverse ways in which mental distress can affect individual in varying ways. The paradigm of practices regarding mental health as well propounding of policies regarding this discourse has been influenced massively by the narratives of recovery from mental illness that have been coming upfront in the recent years (Rennick-Egglestone, et al., 2019). The distinct nature of the genre of recovery narratives it that it allows individuals to be multi-dimensional and gives them the freedom to accept their diversity. This process has been defined by critics as extremely personal, unique, satisfying and uplifting as it allows individuals to shed their societal identities and accept as well as embrace their true selves with vulnerability as well as a sense of grace. The narrative of trauma has been shared from individual to individual for ages now, it is a practice of attaining acceptance of the self as well as reducing the overpowering sense of their traumas. Therapists have also tried another, more structural approach to the form of recovery narrative by analyzing the way a certain individual narrates their experiences and traumas in order to evaluate the aggressiveness of the trauma that occupies them (Woods, Hart, & Spandler, 2019).
Major Critical Approaches in Psychology
The recent years have also seen the incorporation of the gender factor while dealing with the concept of mental distress, which has resulted in the development of an entirely refreshing critical approach towards mental illness that focuses on the trauma that is generated due to the injustice an unfair treatment of the society of individuals pertaining to their gender as well as their sexual orientation (Valentine & Shipherd, 2018). Researchers have revealed that gender plays a concrete factor in the development of mental distress as it is widely known that the society’s treatment of all the genders is not exclusively the same. Some genders are being discriminated upon even now, this discrimination and the discourse of creation of a humongous and tiresome gap of inequality that it creates leads to major psychological distress in some genders (Davy & Toze, 2018).
Taking in consideration the modern approaches towards mental distress, it also becomes vital to discuss the effect of large-scale atrocities that engulf the world, such as the covid-19 pandemic, and how they have drastic effects on the mental health of masses all over the globe. It is extremely important to consider this factor as the covid-19 pandemic established how numerous factors can mentally drain the masses of the world, factors such as poverty, race, caste, religion, ethnic background as well as financial status of an individual. During the pandemic, the healthcare system of the entire world faced extreme adversity as there was an inane lack of resources that was straight-forwardly leading to loss of thousands of human lives (Liu, Lithopoulos, Zhang, Garcia-Barrera, & Rhodes, 2021). But, in this scenario, it becomes important to understand the mental distress that situations such as these had over the people of the world. Researches have claimed that events such as the pandemic create a form of mass hysteria that leads to an insane increase in the level of mental distress among people, specifically people who already have some history of mental disorders or illnesses. The unbearable amount of trauma that followed the league of the pandemic due to the unbelievable amount of death of individuals that took place because of the pandemic created a form of mass mental distress that severely effected the mental health if the entire world (Simpson & Robinson, 2020).
In conclusion, it can be stated that the field of psychology has seen tremendous development in the manner of researches and theories throughout the course of history. The present paper described the various factors that encompass the umbrella term of mental distress. It also performed a brief and thoroughly researched discussion on the ways that the constant development in critical approach towards the treatment of mental distress have remodeled the human understandings of psychological well-being of individuals. The paper enlisted psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson and Lev Vygotsky and described how the theories propounded by them as well as the structured frameworks given by them have massively helped the human understanding of the varying mechanisms that encompass the workings of the human mind. The paper also analyzed how the world, with time has understood how vital it is that the issue of mental distress be treated with a biological as well as therapeutic and psychological approach in order to be treated in the best possible way. The paper then enlisted a few new critical approaches towards mental distress that have helped in the remodeling of psychological, approaches such as recovery narrative as well as a gendered perspective towards the issue of mental distress.
References
Davy, Z., & Toze, M. (2018, November 9). What Is Gender Dysphoria? A Critical Systematic Narrative Review. Transgender Health, 3(1), 159-169. doi:https://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2018.0014
Elraz, H. (2018, May). “Identity, mental health and work: How employees with mental health conditions recount stigma and the pejorative discourse of mental illness. Human Relations, 71(5), 722-741.
Georgaca, E. (2013, January 16). Discourse analytic research on mental distress: A critical overview. Journal of Mental Health, 23(4), 55-61. doi:https://doi.org/10.3109/09638237.2012.734648
Hoppen, T. H., & Morina, N. (2019). The prevalence of PTSD and major depression in the global population of adult war survivors: a meta-analytically informed estimate in absolute numbers. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 10(1), 1578637.
Kovach, M. (2018, December 6). A review of classical motivation theories: A study understanding the value of locus of control in Higher Education. Journal of interdisciplinary studies in education, 7(1), 34-53.
Liu, S., Lithopoulos, A., Zhang, C.-Q., Garcia-Barrera, M. A., & Rhodes, R. E. (2021). Personality and perceived stress during COVID-19 pandemic: Testing the mediating role of perceived threat and efficacy. Personality and Individual differences, 168, 110351.
Maree, J. G. (2021). The psychosocial development theory of Erik Erikson: critical overview. Early Child Development and Care, 191(7-8), 1107-1121.
Matud, P. M., López-Curbelo, M., & Fortes, D. (2019). Gender and psychological well-being. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(19), 3531.
Middleton, H., & Moncrieff, J. (2019, January). Critical psychiatry: a brief overview. BJPsych Advances, 25(1), 47 – 54. doi:https://doi.org/10.1192/bja.2018.38
Rennick-Egglestone, S., Morgan, K., Llewellyn-Beardsley, J., Ramsay, A., McGranahan, R., Gillard, S., & Hui, A. (2019). “Mental health recovery narratives and their impact on recipients: systematic review and narrative synthesis. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 10, 669-679.
Sandler, J., & Sandler, A.-M. (2018). A psychoanalytic theory of repression and the unconscious. In Recovered memories of abuse (pp. 163-181). Routledge.
Simpson, R., & Robinson, L. (2020). Rehabilitation After Critical Illness in People With COVID-19 Infection. American journal of physical medicine & rehabilitation, 99(6), 470.
Taber, K. S. (2020). Mediated Learning Leading Development—The Social Development Theory of Lev Vygotsky. In Science education in theory and practice (pp. 277-291). Springer Cham.
Valentine, S. E., & Shipherd, J. C. (2018). A systematic review of social stress and mental health among transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States. Clinical Psychology Review, 66, 24-38.
WHO. (2018, March 30). Mental health: strengthening our response. Retrieved from who.int: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-strengthening-our-response
Woods, A., Hart, A., & Spandler, H. (2019, March 21). The Recovery Narrative: Politics and Possibilities of a Genre. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 1-27. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11013-019-09623-y
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
