It's Time To Recognize That Mental Health Is Essential To Physical Health - John Campo

The human brain is a wonder.

Through folds of tissue and pulses of
electricity, it lets us perceive, attempt
to understand, and shape the world
around us. As science rapidly charts
the brain’s complex structures, new
discoveries are revealing the biology
of how the mind functions and fails.
Given the centrality of the brain to
human health, its malfunctions
should be a priority, separated from
stigma and treated on par with the
diseases of the body. We aren’t there
yet, but the transformation is
underway.

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Mental disorders affect nearly 20
percent of American adults; nearly 4
percent are severely impaired and
classified as having serious mental
illness. These disorders are often
associated with chronic physical
illnesses such as heart disease and
diabetes. They also increase the risk
of physical injury and death through
accidents, violence, and suicide.

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The treatment of mental illness has
long been held back by the sense
that disorders of emotion, thinking,
and behavior somehow lack
legitimacy and instead reflect
individual weakness or poor life
choices. Not surprisingly, there has
been a mismatch between the
enormous impact of mental illness
and addiction on the public’s health
and our society’s limited commitment
to addressing these problems.

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Too often, individuals suffering from
serious mental illnesses — those in
greatest need of care — have been
isolated and cared for outside of
traditional health care, as in the
asylums of the past. There, mental
health care was separate from, and
far from equal to, traditional health
care.

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However, just as other fields of
medicine have evolved as knowledge
advanced during the past century,
psychiatry has also made profound
gains. Advances emerging from
unlocking the brain’s physiology and
biochemistry are coming at a time
when mental health care is being
integrated into traditional health
care. The potential has never been
greater to finally bring psychiatry
quite literally under the same roof as
the rest of medicine.