In mainstream mental health provision, which is concerned with healing the mind, psyche etc. there are also universal theories of behaviour change, and we will take a little time to explore them now.
In the realm of our emotional or mental health, I’d like to propose that the mental health of all of us is judged by how we behave.
It is our behaviour that attracts concerned others’ attention to us. If our behaviour is substantially different to what is deemed by most of the population to be normal, and this behaviour causes fear, anxiety, embarrassment, shame or even anger in concerned others, then those concerned others may refer us to mental health professionals (or we may refer ourselves, if our behaviour is causing us sufficient unhappiness) with the long term aim that our behaviour is modified to what is acceptable to those closest to us, the rest of society and, of course, if we are in distress, ourselves.
On meeting the mental health professional, (in the vast majority of the types of mainstream mental health provision that I am aware of) patients are examined, or assessed, in a manner similar to how they would be assessed if they were physically ill.
In fact, the practitioner who responds to the individual seeking help (a mental health nurse or psychiatrist) will almost always have done their basic training in the medical model. Also, the individual in distress is usually referred to as a patient.
Following the initial assessment, (just like a physical illness) whatever is wrong with them is diagnosed, and then some form of medication, or other approved medical treatment is prescribed so that their behaviour will change to what will ultimately be normal and, (as I said above), acceptable to the majority of people in society.
The paradigm of assess – diagnose – prescribe mostly uses universal theories of change that have been tried and trusted in the realm of physical illness for healing of mental illness and the emotional distress that accompanies it.
In the next post I will discuss how this paradigm works on what we call the margins of society.