A characteristic of Mental Health worth considering

Something problematic with the fact that Mental Health conditions are now considered as illnesses is that, what characterizes the mind, is that its function is to interpret the external world, and it cannot interpret itself as ill. So, it is very hard to actually accept that something is wrong with yourself when your mind is telling you that what’s happening is that there are external circumstances affecting you. Let me be more clear about this with an example.

When one feels depressed, it is usually the case that one feels depressed about something: sometimes about the world being unfair, the loss of a loved one, a feeling of being inadequate, etc. In any case, it is not that one immediately thinks that your own mind is failing in any way, or that yourself (or rather, your mind) is being affected by something. It takes a lot of information about depression and conscious analysis to realize that depression is not about the external world. A similar case can be done for schizophrenia; people always express their feeling that what is wrong is the external world: that they are being chased or watched (paranoia), that their wife is a clone (Capgras syndrome), that they are being cheated on because of the lottery numbers (Erotomania), etc. Since the logic thinking is known to be working correctly in these examples (depression and schizophrenia) and the mind's function is to interpret the world, it is the mind's only option to inform the conscious person that there is something wrong with the external world, and not in oneself.

Given that this is the case, it can be better understood that accepting treatment is something challenging and requires a lot of courage and trust from the sufferer. In the first place, it has to be the case that the patient is willing to put other people's testimony above his own. In schizophrenia, the subject has to accept, at face value, that the circumstances that he describes are non-existent;  the epistemic authorities (family, friends, doctors) must be trusted despise what the patient believes to be true. Not only that, but he also has to believe that these authorities are not mistaken about his mental health status. This combination is devastating for the person: he has to a)give up his chance to do something about the circumstance that are affecting his life, and b)accept that hos own mind is wrong, despise of  him not thinking that is the case, which involves immediate stigmatization and a self-image detriment.   

Although putting things these way seems a bit dramatic, it is just the logical consequence of what I mentioned in the first paragraph: that the mind is designed to interpret the external world and not itself. And these circumstances apply to a range of mental health conditions: bipolar, depression, OCD, etc. So, it is my opinion that mental health professionals and policy makers should try to attenuate the mistrust, the stigmatization and the suffering of people with mental health conditions. Although this seems like common sense, compassion, and respecting people's basic rights, it is also a contrast to the idea that treatment should be compulsory and forced if necessary. As this argument pretends to show, it is not the case that patients with acute mental health conditions  are "not there" or "irrational". Their mind is just functioning the way it always has by interpreting the world, but getting it wrong.

An argument against the compassionate solution is that people seem to arrive at the hospitals in a state in which they will not accept arguments such as "this is for our own good", or "what you are saying is impossible, irrational, or simply not true". This is the reality of acute states, that is true. People at that point are in such a state that these arguments will not work. And they don't because of the logic I exposed earlier: your brain, the only thing you have and it's you, is telling you otherwise. Bad news is that there isn't a simple solution to that yet, as far as I know. But trust in others has to be a crucial component. Trust that has to be able to overcome the obvious logic that what you know is true. Trust that has to prepare the person to accept the logical claim that the world is what others tell you, and not what you have seen. This, as you can see, presents many moral problems too. But surely, it is potentially a better response than handcuffing someone and forcing him to an unknown amount of time in a place where he doesn't trust anybody, taking medication that he thinks he doesn't need.