.png)
Mental health is a matter of concern in the modern world. It is one of the global centers of attention. The reason behind this is the increasing number of people with psychological distress. Along with the increasing concern, there is a group of people with the accepted wisdom that such mental health issues weren’t present in the past and the reason for this issue in today’s world is solely because of the increased dependence on technology. It is true that technology is affecting people’s mental health to a certain extent. Apart from this, there are a lot of social, cultural, and environmental factors that contribute to such issues, which also play a major role in a person’s life. In the past, mental health was an area that was overlooked and brushed off. This led to people believing that such concerns didn’t exist back then.
Even though the area of mental well-being was overlooked in the past, the Western world has a history of having minimal levels of mental health concerns even during that period. As we know, the West is much more developed in everything compared to the rest of the world. They were comparatively advanced in mental health in the past too. Mental health began gaining more attention in the Western world in the 18th century. People like Philippe Pinel in France and William Tuke in England influenced a positive attitude towards mental health by expressing concern, care, and kindness towards people who were psychologically disturbed. Later on, in the 19th century, the field of mental health started gaining more attention, leading to the development of psychiatry in the West. The early 20th century was marked as a significant period as Sigmund Freud introduced psychoanalysis, which focused on the unconscious mind, which according to him, had an influence on mental health. The mid-20th century saw increased awareness about mental health, especially after World War II, as a huge population suffered from war-related trauma. The late 20th century witnessed influential developments in mental health. The emergence of DSM, which became central to psychiatric diagnosis, occurred during this time. Later in the 21st century, mental health started gaining global attention. By this time, Western countries had become well-developed in the field of psychiatry. The people of the West give equal importance to both mental and physical health.
Even though the importance of mental health is gaining attention globally, there are certain parts of the world that don’t really give mental health the importance it needs. Taking the case of South Asian countries like India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, they are yet to develop awareness about the importance of mental health. Even if the statistics show that these countries are developing, it is still a matter of debate. While the West gives much importance to mental health and deals with it with care and kindness, it is not the same in the case of the South Asian community. In South Asia, mental illness is a taboo topic. In many South Asian households, people try to hide mental illness from society as it is viewed as something that could shatter the reputation of their family. Even though people are gaining knowledge about the importance of mental health, it is still not given much attention as South Asians prioritize society’s thoughts and judgments over the importance of mental health.
Looking into the importance given to mental health by the West and South Asians, we can conclude that the degree of emphasis on mental health is largely influenced by culture. The major issue here is that Western culture is mostly individualistic, where society is not given much attention. In contrast, South Asian culture is collectivistic, where society plays a key role in a person’s life.
However, mental health is something that should be kept separate from the influence of culture. Mental health should receive equal attention all over the world regardless of culture, religion, caste, gender, and race. Global citizens should be well aware of the importance of mental health so that people who need attention for mental health issues can get the care and kindness they deserve.
Hamna Noorudddeen is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.
