Due to the nature of how madness is perceived, it cannot be truly discermed or differentiated from normal behavior. With what litle knowledge there is concerning the anatomy, physiology, and metabolic processes of the brain when it is relatively healthy or relatively unhealthy, only one statement can be made about a person’s psychological state for sure: They either function in society or they do not. It is uncanny that there is a public perception of what extreme mental illness is, but no solid public perception of what extreme mental wellness is. Some may give different responses depending on socioeconomic status, cultural values, and personal experiences. For example, under the philosophy of the American Dream, veganism,or of a religion, one may see someone that is mentally well as embodying certain values that are found in the ethos of their philosophy.
This demonstrates the fluidity of the term mental wellbeing. Why can’t a border be drawn? There’s an obvious difference in how wella person functions in society, right? The problem with this assumption is that there is no set definition or quantitative way to measure qualities of personality. Studies of mental illness, along with other studies of human behaviors, currently do not use any concrete methodologies to measure such things. “Arguably, quantitative scientific standards may be too reductionistic to apply to studies on creativity and mental illness.” (Waddel). In short, there are many barriers to truly defining the absolute mental wellbeing of an individual since there are no set definitions of mental illness. How cultural and socioeconomic status shapes the views of mental illness is readily seen in Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House.
In her accounts of investigative journalism into the asylum system at the times, she discovered that certain types of people are more likely to be institutionalized. In order to get into the asylum system in the first place, she feigned being a recent Cuban immigrant who had lost her baggage. This resulted in her being institutionalized primarily due to her projected nationality and socioeconomic class. More examples of people from different cultures and low socioeconomic status were present in Bly’s accounts of the asylum. The narrator in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper received a different treatment for her perceived mental instability. She was given what was called the rest cure at that time. This is primarily due to her projected nationality and socioeconomic class as well. She was treated differently from the patients in Bly’s accounts since she is presumably of English descent and is of the upper class. Both of these examples show people who can function in society, but are deemed mentally ill due to their place in society.
127 our experts are availableright now
In the current day however, these two women who were perceived as mentally ill in different ways would be treated differently since there has been a change in how mental illness is perceived in the United States and with further understanding of psychiatry. How mental illness is defined and treated will most likely continue to evolve along with the increasing understanding of the human brain and psyche. In Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, the main character, Andrew Laeddis, is a patient in the asylum system many decades after Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Mad-House. The difference between Laeddis and others in the abovementioned works is that Laeddis is shown in the film to be not functional in society due to his diagnosed post traumatic stress disorder. He is functional as a human being in that he can provide and care for himselt, but he does not function in society well due to his violent impulses referenced by the island’s warden: “You’re as violent as they come.” (Scorsese). Stil, this makes functional or not functional the only functional terms when talking about mental illness. Functionality of the individual in different contexts is another grey area that must be considered.
Andrew Laeddis is shown to be functional as a federal marshal, as Teddy Daniels, but not as himself. As always, all aspects of mental illness rely heavily on perception and context. Psychology and psychiatry are still relatively new and there are new discoveries being made about brain function every year. For now though, there is little knowledge of how to accurately discem an individual as mentally unwell using quantitative data that isn’t just based on expert opinion. Perceptions and traditions of different cultures, ideologies, social classes, and religions will continue to obscure the definition of sanity and mental wellness for now. The only distinction that can be made is very black and white and does not account for the complex grey area that is mental health. Forty years ago, mental health was different than it is today and was defined differently. One thing can be certain is that forty years from now, it will different again.
Works Cited
- Waddell, Charlotte. “Creativity and mental illness: Is there a link?.” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 43.2 (1998): 166-172.
- Gilman, Charlotte. The Yellow Wallpaper. The New England Magazine, 1892. Web. Bly, Nellie. Ten Days in a Madhouse. 1887. Print. Scorsese, Martin, dir. Shutter Island. . DVD.
