FEBRUARY IS PSYCHOLOGY MONTH: February is “Psychology Month” in Canada - we have just come off a month dedicated to raising public awareness of mental health issues. The terms psychology and mental health are ones that most people prefer to avoid or look away from. After all you have no problem tell your boss that “I can’t come into work today, I have the flu” but saying something like “I can’t come into work today because I am depressed” carries a far greater stigma. My academic background is in psychology and I maintain a keen interest in the subject today. I don’t think I have ever known anyone who didn’t suffer from some form of psychological impediment (myself included) at some point or points in their lives. Depression is one of the most common ailments - some people put their head under their pillow and pray for the darkness to pass, others take pills to find relief and some cope with the challenges through family and peer support with understanding friends and relatives. Emotional insecurity or instability is another very common problem - one that can be demonstrated easily think about reactions to comments on social media, think about the pushiness of others in line for a coffee or the discourteous behaviour of other drivers. Have you ever lost your temper and smashed something (hopefully not someone)? Of course you have, we all have, that is a sign of a mental health issue - in isolation as a one-off event it is just a part of the human nature but if it is a behaviour that repeats itself enough to impair relationships there is a problem. How do you address the problem, escape, confront, medicate or through social support? We all have psychological control mechanisms, the ego, id and super ego, that work to help our minds maintain homeostases - some people go further than others, that adds character, humour, interest and divergence to their personalities, but in the end there are limits of social acceptability that when crossed become offensive. Should we view people with mental illness a being incurable? Should we worry that they will become ill again? After all we don’t care how many times people get the flu - as long as it isn’t us. Do we want to live in a society that promotes health happiness and understanding or one that ostracizes and punishes those who are struggling? Certainly something to think about during “Psychology Month”.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 13:26:19 +0000
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