Do I write About Mental Health Issues or Mental Illness Issues?
Here are two phrases that we hear frequently: “mental health” and “mental illness.”
I write about mental illness issues. Why? Why do I say that I write about mental illness issues rather than saying that I write about mental health issues?
The phrase, “mental health,” has come to mean a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being. This is not what I write about. I do not write about a person’s condition the way a personal trainer might write about a client’s physical condition. A personal trainer might write about someone’s general muscle tone and their level of activity in their daily life. That would be similar to writing about mental health. But if the personal trainer wanted to communicate about specific issues involved with caring for someone who has injured their back, they would have to go beyond muscle tone and level of activity.
I write about people whose mental health is extremely poor. I write about people who are mentally ill. I write about the mental illnesses people can have and do have when their lives are disrupted and they are not living anything like the lives of normal people (whatever normal means). This is a different topic than mental health, mental health which maybe covers the importance of having a few minutes each day to yourself to relax. People who are severely and persistently mentally ill are not going to be helped by having a few minutes each day to relax. There needs go far beyond needing a few minutes each day to relax. They need psychiatrists, emergency psychiatric workers, medications, residential programs, hospitals, ambulances, therapists, crisis line telephone answering people and a host of other services. This is the face of mental illness.
Of course, even with the above-mentioned services, I am looking at only some kinds of mental illness. There are so many different kinds of mental illness! There are so many kinds of different needs!
No, I don’t write about mental health. I write about mental illness. It is really not the same thing.
