Mental Health: Expecting Different Results

"Fairy tales are nice." ~ Syd Barrett (6 January 1946 � 7 July 2006)

Most of us will have had some interface or experience with the inhuman practices that go on in the name of mental health treatment. We have heard of patients shackled to their beds being burnt to death, we have heard of rape and abuse, and we have heard about the horrors of addiction treatment methods. Most of us would have also experienced the stigma and the shame attached to mental health issues in a social setting. The combination of these two � a poor understanding of mental health and an ill-equipped, verging on abusive treatment environment - make a perfect recipe for tragedy. And this tragedy plays out in a million lives � both in the afflicted, and in the affected � every single day in our country.

One of the compulsions that made me step away from my life in the helping profession was my inability to understand or agree with traditional models of mental illness and its treatment. In many discussions, I have been branded an escapist, preferring to stay away rather than commit myself. Everybody is entitled to an opinion. In this post, which was originally started on the birthday of Thelonious Monk (which coincidentally is also World Mental Health Day- Google it) and completed on International Women�s Day (coincidence, purely, trust me), I share my thoughts on this topic by looking at three examples that will be familiar to most readers. This is a post that got written very, very slowly, and to allow our understanding to develop, I would invite you to read it slowly too.

We are all searching for our center; it is just that some people need to travel far and wide before they get there.

I must acknowledge my indebtedness to Aarathi Selvan and NVL Satish for helping me to clarify my thinking, for reading and suggesting edits to this post, and for sharing their expert understanding of the subject at hand. I am also inspired by the writing of Indu Chibber and Surabhi Surendra who tirelessly promote a better understanding of mental health through their blogs.

Are You Mentally Healthy?

The etymological root of the word �health� is shared by the words �whole� and �holy.� The World Health Organization defines it as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.� In the case of �mental� health, the WHO defines it as "a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community."

Leaving aside physiological and organic disorders of the mind, which easily and universally fit into this definition, one then wonders why the understanding of mental health differs from culture to culture and across periods of time. The answer lies in the fact that the general understanding of mental health closely overlaps the �clinical definition� but adds the concept of normative behavior to it.
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