Removing the Stigma from Mental Illness

Psychological disorders affect our society in many ways and are more common than most would believe. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, An estimated 26.2% of Americans age 18 and older suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. If you take these statistics with the 2004 U.S. Census statistics this would equate to 57.7 million people. Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada for ages 15-44 according to the National Institute of Mental Health. There is a breakdown of the major mental disorders and they are mood, anxiety, psychosomatic, somatoform, sexual, dissociative and personality.

The mood disorder depression is probably one of the best-known examples of this category of disorders because many people seem to suffer from it in today's society. Depression can be caused by biological, psychological, and social issues along with overpowering emotions including sadness or unwarranted guilt. Biological factors are based on genetics and the heredity of these mood disorder genes. Psychological factors are the presence of cognitive distortions, which could be present due to devastating events in an individual's life that they may never recover from. Currently many different types of medication treat this disorder to improve the symptoms along with therapy using Beck's theory. Beck's cognitive therapy revolves around recognizing and correcting unsuitably negative and self-judgmental blueprints of reflection.