Counselling Society and Mental Health

COUNSELLING SOCIETY AND MENTAL HEALTH

The impact society and its pressures influences both mental ill health and its therapy and treatment.

[pic 1]

Contents Page…

• Introduction

• Societal influences that can have an impact on mental health. …. ….3

• Housing………………………………………………...4
• Labelling……………………………………………….6

• An evaluation of how a range of societal influences can impact on counselling provision ……………………………………………….8

• Cost………………………………………………........9
• Gender ………………………………………….........10

• The impact and consequences these influences may have on a person’s experience on counselling.

• An explanation of how a range of societal influences impact on access to provision for treatment of mental health problems.

• Culture
• Gender

Introduction

Whilst public awareness, understanding and tolerance of mental health conditions has grown considerably in the past few years, there are still barriers for individuals with mental health. Mental illness is a huge problem in the UK, with one in four people being affected at any one time (MIND, 2013). Most Counselling is done through the NHS which uses predominantly CBT therapy. There is an array of influences which can impact counselling provision such as the cost of certain counselling therapies and their availability to certain parties which could impact a person’s experience of counselling.  With the growing number of treatments for mental health problems there are also a range of societal influences which may impact on access to these provisions provided such as someone’s culture or Gender. And so the focus of this report is to examine the relationship between social factors and mental illness. This relationship will be explored by looking at how social factors contribute to mental illness, what effect they have on mental illness and what consequences mental illness poses to social factors.

Societal influences that can have a huge impact on mental health.

Social factors and processes are important if not crucial to the understanding of mental illness (Busfield, 2000). Not only is the body a biological phenomenon but it is also a social product (Seymour, 1998, as cited in Mulvany, 2000). Therefore, one can assume that mental disorders are a product of both genetics and environment (Busfield, 2000). There are many social factors that contribute to an individual's mental health. Factors like education, social environment (Wheaton, 2001), social relationships, family, peers, the public (Markowitz, 2001) and socioeconomic status (Miech, Caspi, Moffitt, Wright, & Silva, 1999; Busfield, 2000). Each social factor has an influence on how one lives and interacts with the world around them. It is the impact that these factors have on one’s life that helps determine their mental health outcome (Miech et al., 1999).