Mental Health

Mental Health and Psychological Disorders

Definition of mental health changes dramatically across time and culture. Legal and medical definitions of mental illness are revised over time. The most recent (fourth) edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) gives a progressive revision of the definition of mental illness; meanwhile, we can expect further criticism of the existing classifications.

According to DSM-IV, mental disorders are behavioral patterns or psychological syndromes in individuals. The DSM-IV definition of a mental disorder is connected to existing agony, with painful symptoms or significant impairment in the functionality of an individual's life. This can be in one or more important areas of functioning; or with particularly heightened risk of death, pain, disability; or with an important loss of freedom. While conceptualizing mental disorders, culturally approved responses should be taken into account. For example, clinically significant behavioral or psychological patterns must not simply be an anticipated or culturally accepted response to particular life events, such as lost of a loved one or having a baby. Mental disorders are considered a manifestation of behavioral, psychological, or biological dysfunction in the individual, regardless of its original source.

It is clear that similar to other health-related issues, the notion of mental health is gendered. In the mental health field, awareness of women's issues is increasingly prevalent, but sometimes the focus on women's issues is met with animosity from the medical community. Traditionally, in the mental health field, the majority of patients have been female, while the majority of therapists have been male. Moreover, diagnosis, theories, and applications have often been found to be highly sex biased, for example, by women's study groups founded by Marriane Walters, Betty Carter, Peggy Papp, and Olga Silverstein, in the late 1970s. Early on, most theorists and teachers in mental health field were men, which caused female colleagues to question whether the experiences of women in a changing world were sufficiently addressed by theories and applications. In their view, family therapy field needed to be more gender sensitive. They argued that family therapy, although by nature dependent on sex roles, was ignoring women's issues.

The social context of women's lives, especially the conditions that maintain women in subordinate relations, are strongly related to the mental health of women. Men and women in their gender role socialization are assumed to be different from each other. In [Page 554]dominant-male culture, it is assumed that women have learned (a) to define themselves in relation to others, (b) to define morality in terms of responsibility and care, (c) to develop exceptional sensitivity in noticing others' needs and being empathie to others, and (d) to hold back the aggressive and ambitious drives in order to avoid hurting others. It is accepted that boys must identify themselves with their fathers. Therefore, they must defend against and detach from their dependency to their mothers, whereas girls, being the same sex as their mothers, naturally maintain their primary attachment figures. Therefore, they develop greater concern about their relationships that are based on emotional connections and empathy. Recent research concentrates on how the politics of gender is associated with difficulties in intimate and family relationships; stressful events, such as reproductive crises; gender-linked violence and abuse; and social dislocation, such as homelessness and immigration. Issues of power and the influence of the social world entered into the mental health field through these research efforts.

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