A 34-year-old young man jumped from the fourth floor of his home because of mental disorder, attempted suicide and was sent to a mental hospital. Why is he crazy? It turns out that he lives with his brother who has epilepsy. When my brother's illness broke out, he suddenly fainted, his limbs twitched, his face was pale, he spat, and his voice sounded like a sheep's song. So he has been afraid that he will get this disease, so he is insane.
After three years of painful experience in a mental hospital, he deeply felt that the treatment of mental patients was extremely unreasonable and unscientific. In particular, the social misunderstanding of mental patients made him feel the most painful. Because a mental patient, even after recovery, will still be discriminated against. Based on his personal experience, he decided to devote himself to the study of mental illness.
The man who attempted suicide was Clifford Bierce (1876- 1943), an American psychiatrist, the initiator of mental health movement and the pioneer of mental health. After he was discharged from hospital on 1908, he wrote an autobiographical book called "A Heart to Find Yourself". After the publication of 1909, it was reprinted almost every year for a long time and became a popular best seller. In this book, Bierce appeals to people to pay attention to the unfair and inhuman treatment of mental patients, which has aroused widespread concern in society.
However, when this book was first published, it was met with social indifference and criticism. Some people even regard this book as "madness" of a "madman". Fortunately, william james, a famous psychologist at that time, and Adolf Mayer, a psychiatrist, sympathized with and supported them. They made speeches and wrote articles respectively (James wrote a preface for Bierce's book), which fully affirmed and praised the book. In this way, it began to correct all kinds of incorrect views on psychiatry in American society at that time. The word "mental health" formulated by Meyer is gradually understood and recognized by people.
However, there is another saying: Isaac Ray of the United States published the book Mental Health at 1863, but it was not recognized; This technical term was formally adopted after the book Mental Health was published in Croston, England from 65438 to 0908. Who first put forward the term "mental health" can be left to the psychohistory family for textual research; There is no doubt that "mental health" was put forward at the beginning of the twentieth century, so it is a new discipline. Due to Bierce's enthusiastic appeal, the subject became stronger and stronger, and eventually developed into a social movement, and mental health was generally recognized by the society and gradually paid attention to.
Bierce also overcame many difficulties, established the world's first mental health committee and launched a mental health movement all over the world. Because mental health movement is originally a social movement to improve mental hospitals and promote early diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, its purpose is to popularize mental health knowledge and early treatment measures, prevent and reduce the occurrence of mental illness, thus promoting mental health and ensuring social peace.
With the assistance of the United Nations World Health Organization, the World Mental Health Association was formally established. In China, the Central University of Taiwan Province Province opened the discipline of mental health on 1988, and established the China Mental Health Association on 1985. Several major hospitals in China set up brain departments, and several major cities set up psychiatric hospitals. However, mental health outpatient consultation has not been well developed in China, and mental health knowledge has not been popularized in society.
You may ask: Why can psychologist James and psychiatrist Meyer "have a unique eye" and find that "mental health" is bound to become a booming new discipline, thus vigorously sponsoring and enthusiastically supporting it? Speaking of it, the two also had an intriguing "episode."
It turned out that James was in a state of mild mental disorder for some time after his thirties. At that time, he was daydreaming all day, and some inexplicable sadness and disappointment came to his mind, which made him fall into the abyss of depression and even had suicidal thoughts several times. Later, he was determined to study philosophy and advocate pragmatism, the dominant philosophical school in modern America, which changed his world outlook and outlook on life (it can be said that James adopted the ancient "faith therapy" to cure his mental illness), his mind was pinned, his lifestyle was normalized and his mental state gradually recovered.
Meyer, on the other hand, suffers from a depression that leads to mental disorder after middle age because of his beloved and revered mother who loves literature, leaving the originally quiet, happy and harmonious family shrouded in the fog of pain and anxiety. This unfortunate family environment inspired Meyer to devote himself to the research of psychiatry since he was a child, and saved his beloved mother and many unfortunate people like her from the pain of mental disorder.
Young friends, psychological fear, anxiety, tension, depression and other negative emotional factors can easily lead to mental illness. do you believe that？ Bierce's experience is a powerful example. Also, James, as an outstanding psychologist, has had symptoms of mental disorder, which shows that "mental illness" is not terrible or shameful. At the same time, the experiences of these two scientists also enlighten us: when they were young, they were mentally unhealthy and even suffered from mental illness. Not only can it be completely cured, but it can even heal itself without drugs. Moreover, it has not prevented them from making great achievements in their careers and becoming outstanding figures who have contributed to society and mankind.
Having said that, you may ask: What is the relationship between "mental health" and "mental health"? As a new discipline, mental health was generally called "mental health" before the Second World War. After World War II, many psychiatrists and medical psychologists felt that the word "mental health" was somewhat lacking in science. They think that mental health pays more attention to guiding people how to diagnose, treat and prevent mental diseases in a negative sense, but ignores how to actively explore how to maintain and improve people's mental health from the principles and methods of psychology. They pointed out that mental health initially focused only on early diagnosis and early treatment of mental illness. Later, although it also promoted mental health, it was far from achieving this goal. With the development of the theory and technology of psychiatry and medical psychology, it is more important to actively promote people's mental health from theoretical principles and methods according to the requirements of the rapid development of modern society and the continuous improvement of people's spiritual life. In contrast, the word "mental health" has a more positive and constructive meaning, so it is simply replaced by "mental health" or "mental health care".
I think that replacing mental health science is not only the development result of advanced scientific theories and methods, but also the inevitable trend of the development of the times. Incidentally, the word "health" in mental health is "hygie" in English, which originated from the ancient Greek goddess "Hygeia", so the word "health" originally meant "health".