Very interesting discussion and I really appreciate the points of view of everyone here, thank you for sharing this…
This area is something I am passionate about because I am a former occupational therapist, and I provide support to people who are experiencing distress (I’ve just been accepted into post grad diploma of counseling so I can hopefully get paid once I finish! I can’t work in the community due to an immune disorder and other disabilities, so I want to tailor work around remote access over internet and phone..-side note☺️).
Ok this is what I’ve been rolling around in my mind regarding this topic: the term mental illness does unfortunately invoke negativity, due to the instigation and perpetuation of stigma that has been allowed to develop in society, in association with that term.
The term mental health is somewhat ambiguous, because ‘health’ has widely varying interpretations depending on the perception of the observer/beholder, and ‘illness’ has a somewhat narrower scope in perception (meaning, people can view ‘health’ in a variety of ways, however they may view illness as being something easier to define as a state of un-wellness).
Ok..brain health includes intrinsic factors that presume the illness comes from within (so well discussed above when environment is the contributing factor to illness), so this isn’t wholly applicable to apply as a descriptive term to ‘mental illness’ either..this is given perspective when using terms like kidney (or other organ or organ system) health or illness, where the dysfunction originated *from* that organ…🤔
Hmm. Ok, so I think brain health can apply to brain injury or cognitive decline, because it is a physical change in the tissue (either suddenly or over time) that primarily did not originate from psychological or behavioural change (even they may be secondary..more on that in a second), and impacts on the organ itself from its prior organ-function/structure state to a changed organ-function/structure state (this being a uniquely defining event that demonstrates change from one state to another within the organ, like how previously not blocked cardiac arteries can then become blocked which is then deemed physical changes to that organ, for instance, that lead to it having changed function or higher risk for other outcomes of health).
Having said that, I think a term that may work is psychological and/or emotional health, which focuses on other outcomes of brain activity that aren’t directly associated with structure or physical change from an event (whether acute like TBI or evolving like amyloidosis dementia), and refer to the aspects of change directly related to psychology and emotion.
I think this is a more legitimising term, because in other realms of care, the professional and the state of unwellness have some common nouns; cardiologist for cardiac health, pulmonologist for lung health, nephrologist for kidney health… I think psychologist/psychiatrist for psychological and or emotional health sounds a much more apt descriptor.
When I am referring to advocacy work I am undertaking across the nation or in my state (I live in Au), I always refer to ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’ as ‘psychological states of health or unwellness’, and I always ensure the term is framed descriptively, rather than personally (respecting people in general and person’s individually to ensure their agency and autonomy is upheld).
And lastly, when I am working with someone, I always ask them what their preferred identifier is for what they are living with, because they may frame their entire health in a totally different construct, and I should be respectful of that difference, because knowing that difference will facilitate an opportunity to use their framework to help them in the most appropriate way (rather than trying to change them and get them to overlay their own construct with an external construct of health - think how different cultures see perspectives of health..not everyone sees their body the same as another person does).
What do you guys think?
PS: the term psychological health can also encompass extrinsic influencers, like lived experience/environmental factors; this is an important difference between mental health/mental illness/brain health that may not be as encompassing. And this also clarifies brain health (physical or neurological changes or conditions) and psychological health into clearly identifiable categories that then can have sub categories of particular conditions (ie: brain injury as a sub category of brain health) can interact and influence/be influenced by psychological health (ie: anxiety as a sub category of psychological health) that can influence/be influenced by brain health. I think this distinction is warranted, because the brain is the only bodily organ that functions to influence how we interact with and interpret everting outside of ourselves, so two different categories (brain/organ health) and that engagement of self with everything outside of self (psychological and/or emotional health) should be clearly described, which may facilitate much better understanding (ie: knowing with clarity that additional functional dimension of the brain in influencing our interactions with the world and how impactful psychological health and wellbeing is to a persons function in their world (both in themselves and around them).