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Sunday, July 1, 2007
The Misunderstood Disease

There have been advances in many areas of medicine, yet mental illness remains both misunderstood and mistreated.Persons suffering from mental illnesses are still treated as if having mood or perception disorders means they are less intelligent and are incapable of knowing what they think or want.

In the United States, the current trend is to overmedicate people who show any signs of mental illness while ignoring the need for compassionate counseling. The trend of emergency personnel is still to become irritated with persons who arrive in the hospital with mental rather than physical issues.

There is still no avenue for proper treatment of such individuals. I have heard more than one health care professional say that they wished that people who came to the E.R. presenting with self-mutilation would just "do it right and get it over with." This sort of uncompassionate lack of caring is but one reason why persons who are mentally ill are reluctant to get treatment. Another is cost.

Insurance does not provide for psychological counseling any better than it provides for "alternative" health care treatments such as chiropractic care. Many people who are mentally ill lack the resources to afford adequate counseling and the choice becomes to either go to the county mental health center, where the counselors are overworked and used to handling only critical cases, or to forego counseling entirely.

Cost aside, it is difficult to find a counselor that one can trust to treat them like a human being of equal worth rather than a defective second class citizen. Is it any wonder that so many people who are mentally ill go undertreated or untreated?I went on the line and published my book because these issues need to be addressed--worldwide!

I told the truth about the circumstances behind the creation of parts of the story because the spirit with whom I co-authored the book is one of the most shocking examples I've ever seen of how little mental illness is understood and how badly it's stigmatized. The general population needs to be better educated about mental illness, but more sadly still, our medical and even mental health professionals need to learn greater compassion in treating the widespread and diverse problems of sufferers.

When you buy a copy of my book, 50% of the profits are donated to the World Health Organization's mental health division. Please spread the word.
-extracted from cheesemeisters blog
11:04 PM

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