Contemporary Philosophies of Mental Health and Illness.

Running head: CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHIES OF MENTAL HEALTH AND ILLNESS
CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHIES OF MENTAL HEALTH AND ILLNESS
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CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHIES OF MENTAL HEALTH AND ILLNESS
Introduction
Philosophy is a discipline that should be the focus of all mental health practices and care.
Nonetheless, people ask the question as to why should philosophical enquiry lead them to define
and explain mental health and illness. Ahonen (2019) provides a strong explanation on this
stating that mental illness found a place in the philosophical writings of ancient writers such as
Plato and others. These philosophers although understood “mental illness along the lines of
ancient medical thinking, their ideas regarding the nature and location of the soul, informed their
theories of mental illness”. Whenever human beings experience any sort of mental distress, they
are confronted with philosophical questions about their personal identity, the relationship of the
self with the nature, ownership of thoughts and so on.
In the given essay hence, the philosophies and narratives of mental health and mental
illness shall be discussed along with the challenges faced by the nurses.
Discussion
Explaining philosophy
Philosophy could be defined as the abstract enquiry into the basic questions concerning
knowledge, existence and morality. Philosophy is then divided into categories of epistemology,
ontology, and questions of ethics. While epistemology involves questions of truth and validity
along with the limits of an individual, ontology includes questions relating to existence. Matua
(2015) however observes that these complex definition and divisions of philosophy make it aloof
and isolated from daily life. Nonetheless, philosophers in the contemporary era have given much
importance to the applications of philosophy in everyday life and attempted to clarify the aspects
associated with the discipline.

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CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHIES OF MENTAL HEALTH AND ILLNESS
When it comes to mental health, the philosophy is characterized as a query into those
questions about existence, ethics and knowledge. The areas of mental health where philosophy
could be applied include the relationship between the mind and brain, mental illness being
considered a disease, comprehending the subjective experience of mental issue and the ethical
issues concerning psychiatry (Kvalsvig, O'Connor, Redmond, & Goldfeld, 2014). The particular
areas in psychiatry where philosophy could be applied include the questions about coercion and
care.
Philosophies and narratives of mental health and mental illness
Research has found that valuing the patient’s perception of the mental illness, known also
as the illness narrative, is a vital tool n improving the healthcare. According to Caddick, Smith
and Phoenix (2015), mental health narratives differ as per the different people who experience it
or witness it. The authors argue that mental health and mental illness narratives as understood by
those experiencing it have to be given utmost importance. When a practitioner is able to
understand the narratives of the patient, it becomes easier for treating, or rather helping the
patient. Mental health narratives help in establishing paradigms of recover within the practice
and policy of mental health, as Llewellyn-Beardsley et al. (2019) note. According to the authors,
“mental health recovery narratives are diverse and multidimensional and to a greater extent than
illness narratives, they incorporate social, political and rights aspects”. The philosophies of
mental health and mental illness are diverse as well. As Grant (2014) argues, philosophical
discussions on mental disorders are and should be the focus of contemporary practitioners. It is
the philosophical writings that have contributed towards replacing “mental illness” with the term
“mental disorder” thus demarcating between a disease and a disorder. The philosophical