Mental Health vs. Mental Illness | Psychiatrist Talks About Mental Health Awareness

#mentalhealth #mentalillness #mentalhealthawareness #drelliott
Mental health awareness is good. However, I'm worried it might be having side effects. For me, there are two big issues - mental health is very different to mental illness and all the increased awareness is not leading to more funding to give more support.I firmly believe that these awareness campaigns have good intentions but need a change in emphasis. We need to move from putting mental health and mental illness together as one entity, and make sure we give proper attention to some of the most stigmatized mental illnesses.

[Mette_Abildgaard]

Thank you for talking about this. I’ve also noticed during the last few years that it seems to be a trend to pathologise normal human emotions and experiences.

Not only is it an issue that perfectly healthy and functioning people are made out to be sick when they aren’t, but doing so also inadvertently reduce these disorders/illnesses to normal human experiences, which can be so, so frustrating for the people who actually have these conditions.

As an autistic person it feels so dismissive and somewhat belittling to have ASD reduced to just social awkwardness.

[michaelcarnelian]

As Sontag pointed out, we tend not only to use metaphors when talking about illness (we "battle" cancer, for example), but we also use illnesses as metaphors. We speak of someone being "OCD" when they are simply neat, "psycho" when they are loud or rude, and "depressed" when they're sad, even if they're reacting to a situational stimuli in an appropriate way, all of which erases the complexity of the lived experience of mental illness while continuing to stigmatize it. We do the same thing with physical health (I'm a fat person who gets lots of jokes about diabetes, a disease from which I do not suffer). I don't know how we change this situation. I did, however, very much enjoy this video. Good work, as usual.

[장난감곰-wr]

Thank you for making this video. It was very much needed for somebody to voice this specific topic. Using medical terms to describe normal range of human emotions can be as detrimental as leaving actual symptoms of a mental illness undiagnosed. Spreading awareness has of course been the reason for the immense development in the understanding of mental health...but overanalyzing the same can lead to numerous misconceptions and rumours that may afflict certain notions about what comes under "normal" behaviour and what doesn't.

(P.s.- You are extremely underrated and I'm now officially in love with your channel! Take care 😊)

[emilyday]

Thank you for this I agree that mental health awareness does generally focus on the more presentable side of mental health but more stigmatised mental illnesses are still very much stigmatised and misunderstood. I remember when I left my job in A&E and started working in an acute adult mental health unit I was very shocked by the reactions I got from people who still thought that it was a horrible dangerous place to work and I would be attacked every day worked their 8 months and was not assaulted once (been assaulted manny times in general hospitals though) and what I learned there from both the patients and staff was invaluable even though I did decide to do adult nursing it was my favourite job to date and I still have all the leaving cards from my patients. I think in addition to the public, general health care staff also need to be more aware of the less common and more stigmatised mental illnesses I.e. psychotic and personally disorders and the less socially acceptable sides of mental illnesses like a severe lack of personal hygiene. I also firmly agree with the need to be careful around language so often I see people refer to someone doing something awful as psychotic which is totally inaccurate and just adds to the massive stigma their is already. Thank you for spreading some much needed awareness in this regard

[MadePramana]

Great topic! Yes I think it’s also important to increase awareness on mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, personality disorder, etc. People should be aware of differences between normal human emotion or mental distress with mental illness.

[jennadavies]

👏👏People forget that mental illness is an umbrella term that actually covers a variety of conditions and that these conditions are not simply an emotional reaction but rather a disorder or illness which in turn impacts how a person processes their emotions and perceives things/ events. We need to bring these conditions out into the light one by one in their own right if stigma is to be truly challenged futher. I think this video highlights a massive flaw in campaigns that need addressing.

I once took part in some mental health research, during the course of the day people began to disclose their diagnosis to the group. I noticed how no one mentioned Borderline Personality Disorder. Thinking people may judge I held back at first but I finally said I had BPD. As soon as I spoke up others came forward and it was mentioned how none of us liked to admit it due to the stigma which surrounds it. We then discussed stigma in general and in that moment I realised it's ok to feel anxious but not have an anxiety disorder. It's ok to be sad but not clinically depressed. We've all experienced someone calling our name just to realise no-one did yet we judge those with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia when they talk about auditory hallucinations. By all means let's normalize our human experiences and emotions but not in a way that fuels stigma around mental illness.

[GabrielKnightz]

Let's be blunt, on a macro scope it sadly comes down to popularity contests in the social media culture. They're somewhat mutually exclusive halves of the same coin, just because you keep one side polished doesn't mean it does anything for the other.
An analogy i like is one of stubbing our toes. If by tomorrow my toe heals and becomes an anecdote but you can't walk on yours then there might be some underlying causes you should look into. Everyone feels sad, empty, broken, anxious, uptight from time to time but when that crosses a line that infects your everyday life, maybe take the time to address it.
(no, i don't know who i'm talking to. Just talking out loud i guess)

[LsELevation]

Some people equating it with “weakness or lack of resilience” 🚨🚨🚨🚨

[cathunsworth]

Love this. Can I suggest a similar parallel for how talking about mental health (despite some of the problematic overuse of terms) might help mental illness? The clean eating nonsense has vastly increased the number of gluten free products available in the supermarket. So my mum, who has Coeliac’s, can find pasta she can eat without a prescription. The clean eating obsession angers me intensely, but I can now cook food for my mum when she visits.

[henk-]

Although I agree with the message, I think we have to be very careful about it. Because it is very possible for people with real mental disorders to listen to this and think that they're exaggerating and thereafter not seek treatment although desperately needing it. That should not happen. What is your opinion about this?

[APsychForSoreMinds]

Interesting vid, sir. I liked your analogy to physical health.

[christiancarter]

This is the best video I've seen on this topic in a very long time.

We also have a tendency to get people to spread awareness... get people to seek support but they're not essentially getting lead to a door to an empty room if reform and change isn't coming from a federal level

[adelehammond]

we need mental illiness awareness campaigns and we need a government to actual fund mental health services

[theresar]

I like the way you presented this topic. I think there is a lot more self diagnosing in the past few years, like when you hear about an illness on the news or web MD something, and everyone believes they have it. This also does not help those with an illness. Depression for example, people will tell you to get over it more and more because they will have knowledge of someone who said they had depression, and got over it a few days later. Very well said to not minimize everyday average feelings, but also say you probably don't need medication.

[shawnellisuk]

nice avocado painting peeking out behind your right ear

[happypiranha]

Thank you for bringing up this topic! The general public I believe is very misinformed about mental illness. They think feeling “depressed”and clinical depression are the same thing. They are not. Also, a huge issue I have is how people say things such as “I’m so OCD about this.” OCD is a serious anxiety disorder, not some weird quirk you have. I was diagnosed with a mild form of it and it is not a fun time. Another issue is people think that Tourette’s Syndrome is just people swearing all the time. No it is not! Along with my Bipolar 1 disorder I was also diagnosed with mild motor Tourette’s as well. It bothers me that people think Tourette’s syndrome (or vocal Tourette’s) is just a bunch of swearing which - correct me if I’m wrong- I read was actually uncommon in vocal Tourette’s. Could you do a video on Tourette’s Syndrome? Also, Bipolar Disorder isn’t someone being moody, or being happy then sad, nor the weather changing constantly. These are serious, life-long conditions. Saying things like this makes the disorders sound trivial and minimize them. And minimizes the person’s suffering and struggles.

[Uhlbelk]

It's strange, as a doctor now, I think back on people I knew 30 years ago who were on medications for mental illness and the side effects seemed very profound. And now I consider how we are trained and managing my patients symptoms, and unless the treatment has changed significantly, it makes me think that the people I knew back then had much more serious illness than what we currently diagnose. I guess this is not simply a pop culture phenomena.

[VS-resr]

Might you be willing to react to Crazy Ex Girlfriend, specifically the episode "Josh is Irrelevant"? The whole show is very well considered, but this particular episode addresses the ambivalence of getting a label.

[ben-otux]

great concise video as usual, just wanting some of my thoughts cleared up on this topic, if you’re willing:

i remember having a conversation with a close friend who suffers from mental illness about this very topic - with both of us acknowledging the distinction between mental health and illness, but also delving more deep into the topic of self diagnosis

my main question would be: what do you think could be the biggest harms (if any) associated with self diagnosis?
thanks for your time if you get around to answering this

[thedragonblade]

to be honest yes I agree that people try to place diagnoses onto people and themselves as if being in some situations like being anxious to being in an exam to have an anxiety disorder. and the other issue is that of conditions that still have lots of misunderstandings like you mentioned but id note autism in particular as I have seen lots of situations of socially awkward people being called autistic despite holding only this among limited not involved traits. this has in turn created a significant issue in my opinion regarding social conditions as it means that now people think they understand conditions like autism and end up doing things that can be more harmful than helping. for example, telling an autistic person they don't seem autistic.