Language affects us

[Fredd50]

Hi,

I've been following, with interest, the conversations unfolding in the UK around the language of mental health. It seems unknown to many that labels such as "schizophrenia", "bipolar", "depression", "personality disorder" etc are not actually references to "brain diseases" but to patterns of thinking/feeling or behaving that people experience when they are in (very real) severe distress.

Of course, our brains are the physical part of us that are central to processing our feelings and reactions, but that doesn't mean that when something goes wrong that it starts and ends with our brains.

When it comes to labels, the categories of thinking/feeling and behaving in distess that get labelled are actually voted on by a committee, and then the search for some physical processes happens afterwards. 

The growing discussion in the UK is that a lot of success has been had by looking at mental health in a very different way: that all experiences, including the most difficult highs and lows or experiences that might have otherwise been called "psychosis" are actually complex but normal and understandable reactions to trauma, accumulated trauma or accumulated reactions difficult life stresses and relationships. That meaning can be made of all of these experiences in time and that people can heal. 

The video below is a conversation in England about some of the changes that are happening and being worked towards and conversatioms that are being had around changing the language of mental health. While some of it is UK specific, most of it is very relevant worldwide.

The alternative model of "psychological formulation" is available in Australia from some private and even some public clinical psychologists, who are willing to practice from the UK guidelines.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=cVCA_qg0DX0

[Former-Member]

Great post @Fredd50 and really interesting ideas.  I agree that 'normal and understandable reactions' can be a very helpful and de-stigmaising way to view mental health concerns. Thanks for sharing this with the forums.

[s-jay]

Thanks for sharing,I agree - language is core to how we understand the world and even create culture...