Ideologies on Perceiving Mental Illness

According to the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health (2012), a mental illness is “a health problem that significantly affects how a person feels, thinks, behaves, and interacts with other people. It is diagnosed according to standardised criteria”. I will be discussing the neo-conservative, liberal and social democratic ideologies on perceiving mental illness.

I think a neo-conservative ideology would believe that is it the person’s fault for being affected by mental illness and that they need to fix themself and/or their situation so they can carry on with their life. In the article, ‘Federal budget cuts mean more employees struggling with layoff anxiety’, Curry (2012) talks about the anxiety people have about the federal government making budget cuts and the potential layoff with their jobs. Neo-conservatives would think that people shouldn’t have anxiety about layoffs because if they were to lose their job they could just go out and find another one. It would be perceived that it is not the responsibility of the government to assist the people being affected and provide social services or other programs to help their through their difficult times, but rather a problem that the person must just deal with. 

In the article, ‘Mental illness impact said to be bigger than cancer’, I read a point that made me instantly think of a liberal ideology. Ratnasingham (2012) writes "People can often dismiss mental illnesses as, 'Oh, that person is just feeling a little blue,'". I think that anyone who follows a liberal ideology would think similar to this because they wouldn’t consider outside factors as to why someone would have a mental illness, such as unfortunate or traumatic life experiences, the state of the economy, age, physical injury, and/or medical reasoning, etc.  There is a tendency to minimize what the person is feeling rather than acknowledge that it is something more serious and needs to be explored thoroughly to address it properly.

Another point that was made in the article ‘Mental illness impact said to be bigger than cancer’ made me think of the social democratic ideology on mental illness. Ratnasingham (2012) says "If we are able to help people when they do have the early onset, we could prevent a lot of this burden". Social democratic ideologies focus on the well-being of the people and work to find solutions to problems. Rather than blaming the individual, there is an effort to look for ways to prevent or help the individuals when symptoms or situations first arise. There would be a commitment to provide social programs and/or counseling to support those in need.

In conclusion, the three ideologies on mental illness differ significantly from one another. Neo-conservative often blame the people for being the way they are, liberal do not consider outside factors that might contribute to the mental illness and the social democratic focus on the well-being of the people and try to find solutions. 

Kristen  

References

Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health. (2012). What is mental illness. Retrieved November, 10, 2012 from http://camimh.ca/

Curry, B. (2012, September 21). Federal budget cuts mean more employees struggling with layoff anxiety. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved November 10, 2012, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/federal-budget-cuts-mean-more-employees-struggling-with-layoff-anxiety/article4561029/

Ratnasingham, S. (2012, October 10). Mental illness impact said to be bigger than cancer. CBC News Canada.  Retrieved November 10, 2012, from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/10/09/mental-illness.html

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