How much am I responsible for what’s happening in my mind? Do I have any power to
overcome this? Do I depend solely on medication? Am I helpless in this? –These are questions that righty haunt the mentally distressed, and perhaps they have often not been given the best answers.
Current practices in the field of mental health often follow the disease model, which describes mental illness as a disease no different from any other disease. The implication is that the average person has no more control over the state of their mind than they do over their kidney or heart. While it is good to counter the toxic myths in society that lead to shaming and blaming the emotionally distressed and the mentally ill, it is harmful to completely remove personal responsibility and power from the equation. That leads mental health practitioners to view those they help as victims rather than managers of their own distress, and plants the same idea in those seeking help.
Any psychology major knows that different schools of thought within psychology give different degrees of personal power over the human mind. Integrative therapists often use these insights to provide help that is tailor-made to suit the needs of those they help. Humanistic, cognitive and other viewpoints especially stress the fact that people can and must propel their own progress and recovery if they are to be healthy and independent individuals. This thinking is at the root of the notion that therapists and their clients together make decisions on how the client can overcome their difficulties.
In a Psychology Today article, Dr Loretta Breuning lays out a more action-and-responsibility focused model of mental health care. She emphasizes that since no one has a perfect past, it does no good to blame the social environment for the problems of the distressed. Instead, self-management skills need to be taught generally to all, especially in youth when neuroplasticity is higher. It’s hard to take responsibility for your brain, she says. It’s hard for everyone, which is why we need to work constantly at what goes on in our brains.
Comments