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A review by victoriaheldt
This Book Will Change Your Mind About Mental Health: A journey into the heartland of psychiatry by Nathan Filer
5.0
I thought I had a good understanding of mental health until I read this book.
It made me rethink the topic of stigma (especially it made me question why we are talking about stigma as opposed to "discrimination" when it comes to mental illness).
Shocking was the realisation that the diagnosis of mental illnesses is in general only focused on the clustering of certain symptoms into groups - so it is only about labeling symptoms as supposed to pointing to an underlying disease. For issues not relating mental health you go to your GP and tell him your symptoms, he might come up with an idea what it is and after some tests this hypothesis will be confirmed or not (e.g. "my leg hurts, can't move it. - > might be broken - >x ray - >yes, it's broken"). However, this logic does not apply to mental illness where it stops at labeling the symptoms. This realisation changed my perspective as seeing mental health diagnoses as something important, that you must accept and live with it. It's not.
I enjoyed the structure of the book since it has a perfect balance between writing in essay form about the theory and giving great examples. The author has a talent for showing that behind numbers and statistic real humans and their personal stories hide.
Also, it is the first time that I truyly enjoyed listening to an audio book which was narrated by the author.
It made me rethink the topic of stigma (especially it made me question why we are talking about stigma as opposed to "discrimination" when it comes to mental illness).
Shocking was the realisation that the diagnosis of mental illnesses is in general only focused on the clustering of certain symptoms into groups - so it is only about labeling symptoms as supposed to pointing to an underlying disease. For issues not relating mental health you go to your GP and tell him your symptoms, he might come up with an idea what it is and after some tests this hypothesis will be confirmed or not (e.g. "my leg hurts, can't move it. - > might be broken - >x ray - >yes, it's broken"). However, this logic does not apply to mental illness where it stops at labeling the symptoms. This realisation changed my perspective as seeing mental health diagnoses as something important, that you must accept and live with it. It's not.
I enjoyed the structure of the book since it has a perfect balance between writing in essay form about the theory and giving great examples. The author has a talent for showing that behind numbers and statistic real humans and their personal stories hide.
Also, it is the first time that I truyly enjoyed listening to an audio book which was narrated by the author.