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Beliefs and theories about mental illness vary greatly throughout the eyes of professionals. Many view mental illness as a serious condition, while others take it less seriously and see it as a part of everyday life. Although many think doctors are always right, they underestimate the influence and power these physicians exercise based upon their own personal views and ideas. Illustrated in the article, Social Class, Ethnicity and Mental Illness, Ann Vander Stoep and Bruce Link try to show whether there is a relation between mental illness which is linked to ethnicity and people with diverse backgrounds.
In contrast, there is the view of Elaine Schowalter who is skeptical about doctors diagnosing mental illness and in her essay, Defining Hysteria, where she portrays her disbelief and doubts relating to hysteria. As a result, contradicting beliefs have lead to people being misdiagnosed and the mentally ill have suffered these negative consequences. Stoep and Link clearly show personal prejudices can lead to tainted results and answers impacting the mental health service policies. Because Jarvis was an accredited doctor with fifty- plus years experience, people were inclined to believe his data and theories about mental illness based upon social class and ethnicity.
Edward Jarvis was one of the first physicians in America to practice psychiatry and to apply statistical methods to the study of health and social problems (1396). He had the credentials and education that assisted him in persuading others. Jarvis long career and status made it even easier for him to manipulate his data according to his own beliefs. Jarvis had both the numbers and the methodology to test his assumptions, but he did not do so. The conclusions he drew from his survey played and influential role in shaping the public mental health policies throughout the nation (1397). This goes to show how Jarvis personal beliefs were able to alter the truth.
Jarvis was not the only one guilty of this. A notable physician / scientist , Samuel George Morton, also had his own prejudiced ideas. His beliefs reflected the relation between race and cranial capacity which were believed to mirror intellectual capacity. Even more recent, Dorothy Lewis advocates her viewpoints concerning adolescents. Her personal opinion was that youths locked up in correctional facilities would tend to be more violent than those housed in a psychiatric hospitals. Like Jarvis, both Morton and Lewis also let their personal beliefs undermine their ability to perform unbiased research.
Polluted perceptions about mental illness are clearly shown throughout Stoep and Links article. Jarvis biased beliefs have been detrimental to our society back then as well as today, being that patients went untreated. Stoep and Link state, Perhaps his own New World middle class, Protestant, agrarian values had blinded Jarvis, an erudite scientist, to the facts embedded within his own carefully collected data (1402). His power and personal values tainted the outcome of his research and experiments. In the nineteenth century, there was limited research and information about mental illness as a disease; in fact, it was poorly understood by many, including doctors: The definitions of mental health status used by Jarvis are less clear. The psychiatric nosological categories of the day included insane lunatics and feeble-minded idiots.
In the lay and medical literature, insane persons were described as melancholic, maniacal, or simple mad (1397). People were quite confused about mental illness and it was referred to and labeled many different names. Interestingly, Jarvis conclusions tended to gain credibility for the simple reason that he was educated and had over fifty years experience including high status in the field of mental illness. His background carried the day for him.
Just a few of Jarvis accomplishments noted by Stoep and Link include, Jarvis was the founder of American psychiatric epidemiology was his remarkable study of the prevalence of mental disorder in 19 th century Massachusetts (1396). He was well educated with the knowledge to perform such research. Moreover he was, commissioned by the Massachusetts state legislature to undertake a thorough census that included the identification of all insane and feeble-minded persons within the state (1396 - 97). Obviously, this gave him more recognition and credibility in the eyes of the public.
Because people were inclined to accept his pronouncements, he told them what they wanted to hear and they were charged. Jarvis did not like the Irish and thought they were crazy, also leading him to manipulate his data accordingly. His prestige and respect paved the way for people not to doubt his research and statistics. Jarvis was a Protestant, instilled with agrarian values and came from a middle-class background, which I presume altered his way of thinking toward the Irish.
In a way, his judgment was somewhat impaired making it difficult for him to make a proper analysis. On the basis of his crude findings, and without actually performing social class-stratified analyses, Jarvis asserted, Here is a large number of foreign lunatics within the state and hospitals and places of public (1397). He distorted his data in order to match his theory about mental illness. Jarvis refers to the foreign-born as, strangers dwelling among us (1397). It seems that he even looks at them like they are a type of alien. Elaine Schowalter doubts the concept of mental illness and argues that it is not as serious as people are making it out to be.
She believes it is a natural part of life and behavior that almost everyone experiences. It appears to her that maybe their isnt such a thing when they there is not even a single answer to explain mental illness, - limps, paralyses, seizures, coughs, headaches, speech disturbances, depression, insomnia, exhaustion, eating disorders- the doctors have despaired of finding a single diagnosis (14). Showalter thinks hysteria is being over-diagnosed and is poorly defined. Factors involving modern hysteria include anorexia and bulimia, which were two diseases that grew and became more prevalent over the years.
These illnesses were recognized in the 1870 s, but not much attention was paid to them, as they were not so common back then. In 1983, when Jane Fonda revealed her problems with bulimia, girls who may not have known about vomiting as a form of weight control were exposed to the information. A decade later they could learn about bulimia through the tribulations of Princess Diana (21). The disease became more noticeable and accepted when people saw celebrities and role models involved in this kind of behavior. As a result of all this attention, anorexia became epidemic.
By the 1990 s, some researchers recognized that publicity accorded to anorexia and bulimia was creating a secondary wave of patients, and that men too were developing eating disorders (22). Once recognized, these two diseases spread as if they were contagious, becoming widespread and very well known. Another factor was Mass Hysteria, which included witchcraft and witch-hunts to relieve paranoia. Witchhunting, wrote Brian Level, became one of the ways that people could maintain their equilibrium at a time of great stress (24). People used witch-hunts as scapegoats to restore balance.
Mixed with old prophecies, wrote Cohn, paranoia, became a coherent social myth which was capable of taking entire possession of those who believed in it. It explained the suffering, it promised them recompense, it held their anxieties at bay, it gave them an illusion of security-even while it drove them, held them together by a common enthusiasm, on a quest whi...
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Research essay sample on Anorexia And Bulimia Mental Illness
