Mental Health Awareness

On May 3^rd the winners of the mental health award were announced by the association of mental health in the United States. This event is scheduled to take place on the June of this year, but the winners have been announced early before the date. The event is aimed at recognizing several personnel that has played an essential role in mental health in various ways and also those that have bravely lived with mental health and overcame it.  The media has been targeted as part of the personnel that has played an essential role in the psychological health of many other participants (Mental Health America, 2018). The two primary perspectives that this event brings out about mental health are the social and cognitive aspects of mental health.

The social perspective of mental health is an essential aspect of helping people to come up with ways to deal with mental disorders. The first award in this event is directed to a health advocate Jennifer Marshall who has made an effort to improve the attitudes that people have towards individuals that are suffering from mental health (Levula, Wilson, Harré, & Harré, 2016). This award signifies the importance of social factors such as gender, social class; race and ethnicity have on mental health. More so, the importance of social institutions in helping to fight mental health disorders.  The mental institutions pose as one of the significant ways in which the challenges that mental health has on a family, work and income can be lessened by the coming up of these institutions (Letícia et al., 2017). The second award is directed towards the media that had played a significant role in enlightening the society on several aspects as pertains to mental health which has improved the way different people mental disorders.

The cognitive factor, on the other hand, is also well depicted in the event. Cognitions factors in very many ways affect the mental health of individuals, and this event signifies how the modification of the environment will change psychological health through aligning the cognition factors. The different media awards that have been given to individuals who recognize that the different cognitive factors that people have are not determined by them but rather it is who they are and they should be appreciated in regards of their personality. Individuals have no control over the different cognitive factors that they experience and hence should not be blamed for the behavior they exhibit.

The main similarities between the two factors that have been presented in this event are that both recognize the presence of the mental issue in the society and the need that they are addressed on time. The two aspects also appreciate the fact that the community has failed to some extent to understand the magnitude of mental disorders and those that make an effort to so should then be recognized. Various differences still are depicted by the two factors. While the social factors primarily focus on the society and multiple ways in which it can help people with mental disability live a healthy life, the cognitive factors mainly focus on the individuals and primarily on means that they can experience improve their functioning in the society and on ways in which they can cope better. One of the techniques is through the people appreciating who they no matter their deficiencies and learning to live with others.

Part 2

One of the critical ways that should be employed to increase public knowledge on the mental issue is through coming up with a more public forum in the media and in many other public places to enlighten the society on the importance of appreciating people with mental disability in the community. The public forum attracts many people from different social ranks that may not be aware of the challenges that are posed by mental deficiencies in the community and the different way in which these factors can be dealt with. The awards are sure to attract many people who invite even more people to come out and direct their efforts towards helping those with mental disorders. The forums are also useful ways of reducing stigma among the affected through improving the way the people around them treat them. The reduced stigma then helps to improve their mental conditions and in turn, enhance their functional ability in the society.

The main limitation of the technique is that public forums are very expensive to host and with the limited resources they may not be frequent as they ought to be. The are many regulations in regards to how public forums should be conducted and this challenges the organizations that may want to engage in. It is also expensive to advertise a public forum especially when it is done in the media. Still the attendance of the public forum may be questionable especially in areas where they have never been done before (Khawar et. al., 2017). This uncertainty again makes the use of public forums questionable and one that needs to be looked into keenly.

References

“Mental Health America Announces Winners Of 2018 Awards”. 2018. Mental Health America. http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/mental-health-america-announces-winners-2018-awards.

Khawar, R., Sultana, A., Maryam, R., Khawar, M. U., & Amin, R. (2017). The Role of Chronotypical Factors in Mental Health and Academic Performance of University Students in Faisalabad. Isra Medical Journal, 9(5), 329-333.

Letícia O., A., Miguel, F., Gordon, C., Claude R., C., & Alexander, M. (2017). How to tell a happy from an unhappy schizotype: personality factors and mental health outcomes in individuals with psychotic experiences. Revista Brasileira De Psiquiatria, (2), 126. doi:10.1590/1516-4446-2016-1944

Levula, A., Wilson, A., Harré, M., & Harré, M. (2016). The association between social network factors and mental health at different life stages. Quality Of Life Research, 25(7), 1725-1733. doi:10.1007/s11136-015-1200-7