The history of the treatment of mental illness in Australia is chastening. Initially in Victoria, for example, most people were looked after at home. With the huge growth in population and rootlessness during the gold rush the number of people with mental illnesses grew and places of asylum were built. Subsequently new theories about how to treat people were discovered and welcomed. But the financial resources always lagged behind the need and mentally ill people often lived under appalling conditions. These would be exposed by the press, leading to public concern and government inquiries. These demanded heavy investment which, however, was delayed and only partially delivered.
MODERN SCIENCE
Now modern science has contributed to a fuller understanding of different forms of mental illness. As a result, there are many forms of treatment, chemical and psychological, that can improve the health and life of people who are mentally ill. The gap between need and the availability of resources to people who need them, however, remains large. For this reason, the theme of the World Mental Health Day this year (10 October) is timely. It insists that mental health is a universal human right. That right, however, is only incompletely respected.
Part of the reason for this neglect is the stigma associated with mental illness. When we are confronted with mental illness in our friends and relatives we often fail to comprehend it. We see persons who perhaps have displayed great gifts of intelligence and personality become withdrawn, unable to concentrate and participate in society, and perhaps seeking relief in addictive behaviour.
If we do not understand the pain of their condition, we can easily be led to blame them for refusing to make an effort to lift themselves out of it. We can become resentful, and perhaps secretly fearful that the condition may be contagious. A person who suffers from mental illness may then withdraw further as their friends and acquaintances avoid them and as their social world shrinks.
VALUING PEOPLE
As a result, the stigma that attaches to mental illness causes both the ill person and those who love them become further isolated. They cannot talk about or find people to listen to their feelings and experience. Mental illness then magnifies and spreads.
The experience of mental illness and our exposure to it test the value we place on human beings and their lives. If we value people by their charm, their ability to build easy relationships, by their success in work and making money, then people who are mentally ill may seem to fail on all counts. They can be seen as having no value. That led to them once being put out of sight and out of mind in institutions.
The right approach to mental illness is to focus on and value the persons afflicted by it as persons, not as problems. That means caring for them by listening to them, staying with them even if we do not receive a response, encouraging them to talk about it, and rejoicing in their attempts to reach out that may seem so small to us but is significant to them.