When talking about mental health, it is often seen that people simply tend to categorise themselves as either having a problem or not having a problem. However, the concept of mental health is a lot more refined than that and when we are referring to someone as being mentally healthy, we mean that not only are they without any mental illness, they are also able to achieve their maximum potential, handle themselves properly in their daily life and also are capable of being socially apt. Typically mental health is referred to as either ‘emotional health’ or the general ‘wellbeing’ of a person. One thing that we all can agree on is the simple fact that each and every one of us has a way of relating to mental health issues given the wide range that it covers. Even the smallest feelings like stress or sadness are related to mental health and sometimes it can be very serious issues too. With such a wide scope of concern, it is important that we are able to understand the different types of problems related to mental health. To help you with that, we have created this concise and comprehensive guide so that you can familiarise yourself with it.
Types of mental health
The range of mental health problems is quite wide and while it covers problems that can be serious long term illnesses, it also covers the simplest worries that we feel in our daily lives. The categorisation is dependent on how easily one can cope with the problem and overcome it. This categorisation is also necessary to make sure that the health professionals know what kind of treatment each person requires. In general, the mental health problems are categorised into two different types and they have been explained here:
- Neurotic: The symptoms that are referred to as ‘neurotic’ by mental health professionals are basically issues that are normal experiences of emotions being expressed in a severe form. This particular type covers problems like depression, panic and anxiety. The formal name for these problems was ‘neuroses’ but now they are simply referred to as ‘common mental health problems’.
- Psychotic: These are the less common of the two and are much more severe and long term. A problem may be referred to as psychotic if it has the ability to distort or interfere with the way a person perceives reality and can involve abnormal behaviour of the senses like hearing, smelling or seeing things that a normal person wouldn’t. A very commonly occurring example of this is hallucinations and these are particularly common in people suffering from schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder.
Mental Health Legislation and Acts
The problems related to mental health can either be commonly occurring and easy to handle or rare and very strong. Since it can happen to anyone and mental health problems affect the society as a whole, it is extremely important to have laws that protect the rights of those who are mentally ill. Countries all over the world have special laws that provide special treatment to people who are suffering from mental illnesses and the UK is no exception. The Mental Health Act of 1959 is the prime example of how important it is to take care of mentally ill people. The act itself covers each and every aspect of the lives of those who are mentally ill and provides detailed instructions on how a mentally ill person is to be treated in the society. Furthermore, there are additional points relevant to children and teenagers and adolescence is also kept in consideration, thus ensuring maximum support. All of these laws cover every aspect of the lives of mentally ill people including things like the protection, the health care services, the special allowances and a lot more. If you want to know more about what the Mental Health Act of the UK and what are the areas it covers and why, you can visit this link.
Medications
The range of medicine that is being produced to treat people with different illnesses is quite vast and while we may be familiar with medicine like Fluoxetine, Sertraline and Citalopram due to their use with schizophrenia, there are a hundreds of other medicines that are created to treat the whole range of mental illnesses. The factors that are involved in deciding what kind of medicine is needed to treat a particular mental illness include; age, sex, genetics, habits, diet and a lot more. Whether or not these medicines are any good is also subjective to the patient being treated since everyone reacts differently to these medicines and there isn’t any standard cure.
