By Kiarah Barnes I'm sure you have heard of treating mental illness. What about solving and curing it? Well it is not that easy. There are many different kinds of mental illness such as Depression, OCD, Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Autism and many more. All of these have different causes and because of this scientists do not know what will "cure" mental illness. Although you can not cure all mental illnesses the same way, maybe knowing what certain disorders and diseases are caused by will help lead towards finding a cure or even better treatment. Some diseases and disorders, like schizophrenia, come mostly from genetics and we know this after many years of funding experiment and supplies that lead to dead ends when trying to find a cure but scientists are still studying it. Scientists started off thinking that mental illness was caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, genetics, or some sort of faulty wiring in the brain. Even if this may be true there was no actual science that backed this up. After a long time we started to find out little things about each disease that would help a lot in the long run. After many trials and errors some important facts were found like finding out schizophrenia is in fact mostly caused by genetics and how autism is also very gene caused as well. Gail Hornstein is a professor who is doing a study on people who go to a meeting like AA but instead of addiction they talk about their mental health. This study focuses on the participants struggles, how they handle them, and how this group will help them overall. There is a few questions that she would like to answer. She said, “We have underestimated the power of social interactions. We see people who’ve been in the system for years, on every med there is. How is it possible that such people have recovered, through the process of talking with others? How has that occurred? That is the question we need to answer.” Gail also mentions that in order to move forward scientists have to dig deeper into certain individuals and also dig deeper into the theory of how genes effect mental illness. The problem with this is often people who are struggling with mental illness often feel hurt, misunderstood, and mistreated to the point where they will not give all the information needed. Personally I do not have any diagnosed mental illness. Although I have never been diagnosed I do find that most people that I know, including myself, have had certain depressing times and feeling in their life. Especially during high school. Things happen to everyone and it is how we decide to deal with it that affects how our brains deal with things in the future. Even though genetics have an effect on our mental health past experiences also have an effect. School work, classes, friends, family, and many other things cause stress, anxiety, sadness, etc, even if it isn’t to the point of having to be diagnosed. Artical-
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/health/mental-health-psychology.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FPsychology%20and%20Psychologists&action=click&contentCollection=health®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=collection Images- http://www.hourdetroit.com/Hour-Detroit/April-2017/Erasing-the-Stigma-Surrounding-Mental-Illness/
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Ms. Carrigan's Psych ClassWe have been reading articles about psychological studies to inform the way we live our lives. Please explore, and we hope you learn a bit about the psychology in your life! Categories
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