Mental Health Illness Article 2022

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH
MENTAL HEALTH
Name of Student
Name of University
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MENTAL HEALTH
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It is important to be noted that in the recent era, the number of mental health illnesses
has increased globally and across the country of Australia as well, given the level of stress
and anxiety that has affected the public health at an increased rate (Singer et al., 2019). The
social determinants of health such as lack of employability, lack of income and lack of
socioeconomic stability, non-accessibility to quality health services and primary as well as
institutional health services, lack of knowledge and education in addition to awareness about
one’s own health has led to the various complications with respect to the physical health as
well as with the mental health of the patients in a clinical care scenario (Stübner et al., 2018).
It is to be critically noted that in the community settings as well as in the urban settings, the
number of psychosocial, behavioral and developmental mental health complications are
increasing and it is interesting to note that not only the adults but the children are also
affected deeply and equally by the mental health conditions as much as the adults (Brandt &
Leong, 2017). In the previous century, before the developments in the field of
pharmacological management procedures in the field of psychiatry (Bommersbach et al.,
2016) – mostly the restraints and the electroconvulsive therapies were used to control and
manage the severe mental health conditions where the mental health affected person who has
deep seated depressive, manic, personality, mood, affect and perceptual issues or behavioral
issues and his behaviors are attributed by self-harm or harm to others as well (as seen in the
cases of psychosis and progressive or organic brain degeneration). Gradually, as the
scientific and the medical history suggest, with the evolution of new medications in the field
of medical psychology and psychiatry, medications such as sedatives and psychotropic
medications – the attention and the medical-scientific or rather the evidence based practice
shifted from the use and application of electroconvulsive therapy and the physical restraints,
seclusion to the use and application of psychotropic medications such as antidepressants,
anti-anxiety, hypnotics and the antipsychotics as well. From the later half of the last century,

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the use of psychotropic medications was highly popularized across the world and was
considered as huge development in the field of medical psychology or psychiatry.
Institutionalization versus deinstitutionalization of the mental health patients was huge
controversy and there has always been a debate about the span of stay of the mental health
patients in the nursing homes and in the hospitals as well and after what amount of time (Snir
& Raju, 2019) – the person can be discharged so that there is full recovery and very less
chances of readmission (Chisolm & Payne, 2016). The use of psychotropic drugs when it
started initially, for the first few decades made a very positive change in the society and in the
treatment culture of the mental health patients and it showed effective promise in the
treatment of severe self-harm conditions as well in cases of psychosis as seen dementia,
Alzheimer’s disease and in major depressive symptoms related disorders as well (Finkelhor
& Johnson, 2017). A diverse range of psychotropic medications were designed and they
primarily affected the chemical content and chemical makeup of one’s brain thus affect
mood, affect, behavior and emotions of a person – thus helping the recovery process in
various mental condition conditions (Tait et al., 2016). But as a matter of fact, the adverse
sides of these psychotropic drugs were never researched upon until the late end of the century
and when researched and audited upon the various adverse dug events following the
prescription, administration and intake of psychotropic medications- severe debates opened
up and controversies on whether to use psychotropic drugs to that extent and across all the
age groups especially in the children and in the youths arose. In the last few decades, the
controversies surrounding the use of psychotropic medications to control behaviours and
manage the symptoms for people who experience mental illness have taken a serious rise
(Ellett et al., 2018).
It is to be noted that the common psychotropic medications that are used in the
clinical scenario are alprazolam, Prozac, fluoxetine, Ativan or Lorazepam, Lexapro or