Mental Health in Social Context: What Is Normal and Who Defines It?

Anja Knez

doi:10.33700/jhrs.2.2.84

Total views: 1437 |

Open Access

Authors

Anja Knez SFU Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9008-2314

https://doi.org/10.33700/jhrs.2.2.84

Keywords:

objectivity, normality, freedom, biomedical model, biopsychosocial model

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to encourage a critical attitude and shed light on the background and perception (and not the definition) of “normal” through the prism of society, which to a large extent conditions human functioning and well-being. Understanding the variability of normality and mental health as a socially defined and ever-changing concept leads to normalisation and de -stigmatisation of not only mental disorders in the narrower sense, but also of mental distress of modern man, and is a prerequisite for reducing false diagnoses. Human vulnerability and inner struggles, which are the norm, not a peculiar, isolated problem, need to be seen as such while taking into account all the factors, i.e., biological, psychological, and social, affecting the person. A better understanding and use of the biopsychosocial model could help improve healthcare and make this world a little kinder.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

Blaxter, M. (2010). Health. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bolton, D. (2022). Looking Forward to a Decade of the Biopsychosocial Model. British Journal of Psychiatry Bulletin, 46(4), 228–232. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjb.2022.34

Bolton, D., & Gillett, G. (2019). The Biopsycho-social Model of Health and Disease: New Philosophical and Scientific Developments. Cham: Palgrave Pivot Churchill, H. (2021). Critical Reflexivity: A Personal Account of My Counselling Career and Journey. Waver-ley Abbey College Journal, 1(1), 24–34. https://doi.org/10.52456/wacjo113

Conrad, P. (2007). The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Cooper, R. (2004). What is Wrong with the DSM? History of Psychiatry, 15(1), 5–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957154X04039343

Deacon, B. J. (2013). The Biomedical Model of Mental Disorder: A Critical Analysis of Its Validity, Utility, and Effects on Psychothera-py Research. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(7), 846–861. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2012.09.007

Domaradzki, J. (2021). Thomas Szasz: The Un-compromising Rebel and Critic of Psychia-try. Psychiatria Polska, 55(4), 851–867. https://doi.org/10.12740/pp/125902

Doust, J., Walker, M. J., & Rogers, W. A. (2017). Current Dilemmas in Defining the Bounda-ries of Disease. Journal of Medicine and Phi-losophy, 42(4), 350–366.

https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhx009

Goldstein, K. (1939). The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived from Patho-logical Data in Man. Salt Lake City: Ameri-can Book Publishing.

Eisma, M.C., Rosner, R., & Comtesse, H. (2020). ICD-11 Prolonged Grief Disorder Criteria: Turning Challenges into Opportunities with Multiverse Analyses. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 752. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00752

Emerson, R. W. (1940). The Complete Essays and Other Writings. New York: Random House.

Engel, G. L. (1977). The Need for a New Medical Model: A Challenge for Biomedicine. Sci-ence 196(4286), 129–136. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.847460

https://doi.org/10.1177/2045125319872344

Frances, A. (2013). The Past, Present and Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis. World Psychiatry, 12(2), 111–112. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20027

Fryer, T. (2022). A Short Guide to Ontology and Epistemology: Why Everyone Should Be a Critical Realist. Retrieved August 16, 2023, from https://tfryer.com/ontology-guide/.

Glyde, T. (2014). Wanting to Be Normal. Lancet Psychiatry, 1(3), 179–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2215-0366(14)70325-6

Hajat, C., & Stein, E. (2018). The Global Burden of Multiple Chronic Conditions: A Narrative Review. Preventive Medicine Reports, 12, 284–293.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.10.008

Jordan, A. H., & Litz, B. T. (2014). Prolonged Grief Disorder: Diagnostic, Assessment, and Treatment Considerations. Professional Psy-chology: Re-search and Practice, 45(3), 180–187. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036836

Kaczmarek, E. (2022). Promoting Diseases to Promote Drugs: The Role of the Pharmaceu-tical Industry in Fostering Good and Bad Medicalization. British Journal of Clinal Pharmacology, 88(1), 34–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/bcp.14835

Kennedy, J. F. (1961). Address by President John F. Kennedy to the UN General Assembly. Re-trieved August 17, 2023, from https://2009-2017.state.gov/p/io/potusunga/207241.htm.

Kingdon, D. (2020). Why Hasn’t Neuroscience Delivered for Psychiatry? British Journal of Psychiatry Bulletin, 44(3), 107–109. http://doi.org/10.1192/bjb.2019.87

McGarty, C., Mavor, K. I., &. Skorich, D. P. (2015). Social Categorization. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), Inter-national Encyclopedia of the So-cial & Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed., pp. 186–191). Amsterdam: Elsevier. http://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-08-097086-8.24091-9

Mazzini, M. (2011). Če ni ti kaj prav, se pa izseli! Novo mesto: Goga.

Moncrieff, J., Cooper, R. E., Stockmann, T., Amendola, S., Hengartner, M. P., & Horowitz, M. A. (2022). The Serotonin Theory of De-pression: A Systematic Umbrella Review of the Evidence. Molecular Psychiatry, 1, 1–14. http://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-022-01661-0

Moynihan, R., Heath, I., & Henry, D. (2002). Sell-ing Sickness: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Disease Mongering. British Medical Journal, 324(7342), 886–891. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.324.7342.886

Neubauer, A. C., Pribil, A., Wallner, A., & Hofer, G. (2018). The Self–Other Knowledge Asym-metry in Cognitive Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, and Creativity. Heliyon, 4(12), e01061. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2018.e01061

Papadimitriou, G. (2017). The “Biopsychosocial Model”: 40 years of Application in Psychia-try. Psychiatriki, 28(2), 107–110. https://doi.org/10.22365/jpsych.2017.282.107

Parens, E. (2013). On Good and Bad Forms of Medicalization. Bioethics, 27(1), 28–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8519.2011.01885.x

Pescosolido, B. A., Martin, J. K., Long, J. S., Me-dina, T. R., Phelan, J. C., & Link, B. G. (2010). A Disease Like Any Other? A Decade of Change in Public Reactions to Schizo-phrenia, Depression, and Alcohol Depend-ence. American Journal of Psychiatry, 167(11), 1321–1330. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2010.09121743

Pilkington, P. D., Reavley, N. J., & Jorm, A. F. (2013). The Australian Public’s Beliefs about the Causes of Depression: Associated Fac-tors and Changes over 16 Years. Journal of Affective Disorders, 150(2), 356–362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2013.04.019

Pressfield, S. (2002). The War of Art. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

Proietti, M., Pickston, A., Graffitti, F., Barrow, P., Kundys, D., Branciard, C., … Fedrizzi, A. (2019). Experimental Test of Local Observer Independence. Science Advances, 5(9), eaaw9832. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw9832

Raghupathi, W., & Raghupathi, V. (2018). An Em-pirical Study of Chronic Diseases in the United States: A Visual Analytics Approach. International Journal if Environmental Re-search and Public Health, 15(3), 431. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15030431

Read, J., Renton, J., Harrop, C., Geekie, J., & Dowrick, C. (2020). A Survey of UK General Practitioners about Depression, Antidepres-sants and Withdrawal: Implementing the 2019 Public Health England Report. Thera-peutic Advances in Psychopharmacology, 10, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/2045125320950124

Rost, M. (2021). “To Normalize is to Impose a Requirement on an Existence.” Why Health Pro-fessionals Should Think Twice Before Using the Term “Normal” with Patients. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 18(3), 389–394. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-021-10122-2

Segura, K. (2015). Defining Normal. Retrieved June 28, 2023, from https://www.csustan.edu.

Shear, M. K., Simon, N., Wall, M., Zisook, S., Neimeyer, R., Duan, N., Keshaviah, A. (2011). Complicated Grief and Related Be-reavement Issues for DSM-5. Depression and Anxiety, 28(2), 103–117. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.20780

Sismondo, S. (2021). Epistemic Corruption, the Pharmaceutical Industry, and the Body of Medical Science. Frontiers in Research Met-rics and Ana-lytics, 6, 614013. https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.614013

Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika – SSKJ (n. d.). Normalen. Retrieved July 7, 2023, from https://www.fran.si.

Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika – SSKJ (n. d.). Objektiven. Retrieved July 7, 2023, from http://www.fran.si.

Stravynski, A., & O’Connor, K. (1995). Under-standing and Managing Abnormal Behavior: The Need for a New Clinical Science. The Journal of Psychology, 129(6), 605–605. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1995.9914932

Tausch, N., Kenworthy, J., & Hewstone, M. (2007). The Confirmability and Disconfirm-ability of Trait Concepts Revisited: Does Content Matter? Jour-nal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(3), 542–556. http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.3.542

Tripathi, A., Das, A., & Kar, S. K. (2019). Biopsy-chosocial Model in Contemporary Psychia-try: Current Validity and Future Prospects. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 41(6), 582–585. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijpsym.ijpsym_314_19

Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.

Wade, D. T., & Halligan, P. W. (2017). The Bi-opsychosocial Model of Illness: A Model Whose Time Has Come. Clinical Rehabilita-tion, 31(8), 995–1004. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269215517709890

Whitaker, F. (2023). Pogubnost kemopsihiatrije. Ljubljana: UMco.

Williams, S. J., Martin, P., & Gabe, J. (2011). The Pharmaceuticalisation of Society? A Frame-work for Analysis. Sociology of Health and Illness, 33(5), 710–725.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9566.2011.01320.x