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The Forum > Article Comments > Towards a 21st century system of mental health care - an Australian approach > Comments

Towards a 21st century system of mental health care - an Australian approach : Comments

By Patrick McGorry, published 14/9/2011

A better understanding of mental health issues means that words like ‘nutter’, ‘schizo’ and ‘psycho’ will become as unacceptable as racist and sexist language is now. This is the antidote to the poison of stigma.

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Bravo Patrick McGorry. I am the mother of a 38 year old son whose mental illness went untreated for around 25 years,though for the first few years you blame all symptoms on adolescence and hope that they will 'grow out of it'. Had headspace been available, my son might have been treated earlier and not had to endure multiple relationships and their breakdown, poor physical health, multiple homes, not being part of his son's growing up, and more recently, until help arrived in the form of hospitalisation and treatment, homelessness and psychosis. He's now in rented accommodation and happy for that security. It is critical that accommodation is seen as a significant part of treating mental health.
Posted by popnperish, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 8:32:12 AM
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I agree that more money and resources ought to be made available for mental health, but I don't agree with the part about putting terms like "nutter" and "psycho" on par with "racist" and Sexist." These terms - racist, sexist - more often than not, are used to stiffle debate and discussion about issues concerning race and gender. As bad as calling someone a "nuter" may be, I think it's best to not allow government endorsed censorship into this area. Because, to be honest, some people do deserve the term "nutter."
Posted by Aristocrat, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 9:00:52 AM
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I am sorry to say this but this article offends me. I am a carer of my wife who has Dissociative Identity Disorder ( a mental disorder). Due to this disorder not been known about by the mainstream health system, my wife now also suffers with Epilepsy that can cause a vasovagal collapse (loss of consciousnesses, respiratory failure and heart arrest). Headspace told my son that is is imagining things that really happened. I get attacked by whoever via my YT accounts. I must get information via the internet or books published overseas and some of this is dis-information. I get depressed because I am usually hiding the fact that I live a very traumatizing experience with no help. Any agency that decides to help soon leave since they know nothing about D.I.D. None of this helps me shield the horrors from my children and have left me in monetary crisis for close to a decade. This is real (see below video) and my kids have been exposed to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnOOW3vrYGw

When does this end.
Posted by Alan Gresley, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 10:25:02 AM
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I stopped agreeing when it got to the point where it claimed mental illness was caused by social disadvantage. What a crock.

The best medical outcomes are achieved when patients have responsibility for managing their own health with a choice of professional advisers and supporters. This proposal is basically about surrendering to a vastly increased mental health industry.
Posted by DavidL, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 4:20:13 PM
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I sympathise, Alan Gresley, with your situation and would say that genuine mental illness needs to be addressed urgently.
But for me it's a problematic condition. Even those who be might diagnose as "genuinely" mentally ill, this doesn't establish the condition as spontaneous.
But to back up a bit, if Patrick McGorry is correct and his numbers of the mentally ill are accurate, why is treating them the priority? Do you suggest, Patrick, that mental illness of this magnitude, surely an epidemic, is a random affliction?
Obesity is another modern affliction, running at about the same rate as "mental illness", yet do we agonise over why so many individuals get fat? Is it in their genes, are they somehow predisposed? No, we know they are fat because their lifestyle is sedentary and avaricious--to coin a second-hand phrase, "consumptive'. This issue has been playing on Radio National this week; the sedentary lifestyle is depressive, which manifests as a tendency to comfort eat, which leads to weight-gain and positive feedback; low self-esteem, depression, comfort-consumption, addiction and bingo, "mental illness".
And you're saying lets have roving (and "assertive"?) mental illness teams in the community. Should we also have obesity paramedics?
When you have obesity and mental illness, and increased levels across the board of afflictions associated with an unhealthy environment, surely we should be looking at the environment, not sick individuals!
We have a sick culture, a culture of obesity and mental illness and sundry addictions. We are a degenerate race and individuals can grow healthily in a sick culture. The droves of the obese, cancerous and mentally ill tell us nothing about individuals and everything about the modern lifestyle.
As I was saying above, even many of those who can be said to be "genuinely" mentally ill are not necessarily indicative of an organic or individual pathology; they are our Canaries. We should not be palliating individuals, but looking at habitats.
But then mental illness is a boom industry and a lucrative market!
Posted by Squeers, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 7:08:30 PM
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Squeers writes: "We should not be palliating individuals, but looking at habitats." If some of mental illness is caused by chemical imbalance, why not palliate? But by all means look at habitat. I think the modern stresses of society are caused in part by more crowding, lack of access to natural areas such as forests, and high housing costs. These are all a function of excessive population growth so let's ease off a bit on that score, shall we?
Posted by popnperish, Thursday, 15 September 2011 9:13:50 AM
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