Mental Health Reform

Western social sciences have a beginning that stretches into the European landscape. More specifically, psychiatry begins to tackle the mysteries of the subjective from a White male European perspective. Understanding the nature and function of things like, the unconscious, the conscious mind, emotions, mental and relational patterns, and normalcy with regard to mental health derive from this narrowly distributed body. While this thrust has had some contributions, it cannot escape the jumpstart to a way of knowing about mental illness and mental health that carries strong tendencies to overlook other epistemologies held by various cultures in which subjective properties are named and understood differently.

Western epistemology does not exist without an understanding of what is. Ontology or the nature of being occupies a space in all epistemologies. Western epistemology within the social sciences is no exception. While several cultures understand the universe to be composed of both material and immaterial properties, all of which are interrelated or connected, western psychiatry and psychology holds to a more material and evolutionary ontological approach that reduces the material into compartments and denies the immaterial (i.e., Spirit, God, the paranormal, UFO encounters). Moreover, it both predetermines a specific state of reality that influences what is mentally normal and positions its version of reality as the one in which all clients should understand and articulate their human experiences.

Several have pointed to serious concerns about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). While psychiatrists and psychologists admit to an imperfect evolution about the book, the concerns involve more than that. Voicing an imperfect path is too general of an explanation, especially when harm has taken place. For example, the DSM contains evidentiary claims when, in fact, little to no evidence exists in major pockets of some 900-pages describing mental disorders. And this imperfect evolution has sometimes contained hints of financial distribution from major players such as big Pharma, making it quite difficult to see that the client is the priority.

For each of the above, SPAE encourages the social sciences to discuss how western ontology and epistemology: (1) could contribute to cultures that align with its philosophy while serving less effectively cultures that function out of a dissimilar but equally viable worldview; (2) have historically been bias and oppressive by insisting that other expressions of reality conform; and (3) define and describe with authority mental illness, which other cultures understand to be normal transient symptoms leading to a greater desired outcome.