What is Mental Illness?
Mental illness is very common. About one in four people in Britain has this diagnosis, but there is a great deal of controversy about what it is, what causes it, and how people can be helped to recover.
People with a mental illness can experience problems in the way they think, feel or behave. This can significantly affect their relationships, their work, and their quality of life. Having a mental illness is difficult, not only for the person concerned, but also for their family and friends.
Mental illnesses are some of the least understood conditions in society. Because of this, many people face prejudice and discrimination in their everyday lives. However, unlike the images often found in books, on television and in films, most people can lead productive and fulfilling lives with appropriate treatment and support
Diagnosis
Psychiatrists have classified mental distress into different categories or diagnoses. Making a diagnosis helps a doctor to assess what treatment is needed and to predict what is likely to happen. It can also be a relief to a distressed person to be able to put a name to what is wrong. But there are limits to diagnosis. Each person's experience of mental distress is unique and it can be misread, especially if there are cultural, social or religious differences between doctor and patient. Different doctors may give one person completely different diagnoses. Simply focusing on the symptoms can mean that not enough attention is paid to the person as a whole, and to their situation.
It's important to remember that a diagnosis does not have to determine the whole course of life, and may come to be a relatively minor part of an individual's identity or history. It's possible to recover completely from mental distress and many do. Sometimes, people even emerge from the experience feeling stronger and wiser. Others get over the worst, but remain vulnerable, and relapse from time to time. Some don't recover, and will continue to receive treatment in the long term.
How can the mental health system help?
The large psychiatric hospital on the edge of town is a long-lasting and powerful image of the mental health system. It's fast being overlaid by an image, drawn from news reports of people with mental health problems, who are living in the community, being violent or homicidal. Both images are very misleading. The vast majority of people diagnosed as mentally ill are not violent, and the old Victorian institutions have slowly been closed down, to be replaced by care in the community. For the small minority still needing hospital admission, psychiatric wards in general hospitals are taking the place of separate psychiatric hospitals.
If you are having problems, your first point of contact with the mental health system is likely to be your GP. Under the Government's Care Programme Approach, your GP should make an assessment of your needs and offer you appropriate treatment at the local surgery. This may be advice and information, a prescription for medication or counselling. Your GP can also refer you to specialist mental health services, if necessary.
You may be referred to a consultant psychiatrist attached to a hospital, or to the Community Mental Health Team (CMHT). The CMHT support people with mental health needs living in the community, and also their carers. The teams consist of social workers and health professionals, since the NHS and local authority can join forces to provide both community mental health care and community care services. The team may include a community psychiatric nurse (CPN), a psychologist, an occupational therapist, a counsellor and a community support worker, as well as a social worker. One member of the team will be appointed as your care coordinator, to keep in regular contact with you.
Residential care and supported living services are options for people who require support in developing/ maintaining their daily coping skills and/ or would be at risk without this additional input.
