Mental health became an important topic during the past year especially the quarantine time when people were isolated from each other and had more time to reflect on themselves and their being in daily life. In one of my systematic injustice diaries, I point out the reason why minorities got into therapies is a less seeing situation in our country. In this post, I am going to emphasize the reason by analyzing its context and the background.
In one newspaper article, one of the most popular systematic injustices topics is pointed to the mental health barriers in the Black community. Moreover, from the website, National Mental Health Alliance, negative attitudes and beliefs towards people who live with mental health conditions are pervasive within the U.S. and can be particularly strong within the Black community. One study showed that 63% of Black people believe that mental health disabilities tights with personal weakness. There are mainly two reasons that cause these effects: the difference in culture and how these cultures influence their socioeconomic status, and the effect of the discrimination that still happening in nowadays society. Due to the fact slavery existed in African American history, the misconception is that African Americans are not sophisticated enough to develop depression, anxiety, or other mental health disorders, and this led to a misconception of mental health issues and learning to ignore mental illness or call it other terms, like ‘stress’ and ‘being tired. Thus, according to the website, they often refer to their mental illness like physical illness. For instance, describing bodily aches and pains when talking about depression. Additional to African American communities, Asian Americans were also suffering from misconceptions of mental disabilities. Many Asian Americans also have strong family obligations that center around traditional and cultural values. Asian philosophical traditions strongly identify someone’s self-value with their ability to care for their family and community. These cultural thoughts encourage the idea that people with mental illness, who may not live up to these stereotypes, obligations, and values, are failures, valueless, or have no identity or purpose.
The second reason was mostly that many discriminations that minorities still encounter in their daily as living in this systematical injustice society. For example, due to this phenomenon, African Americans would not turn to therapists for help with a fear of being judged. The National Mental Health Alliance also indicated this situation can be stressed by provider bias and inequality in healthcare. In nowadays, we can still examine that health providers, both conscious and unconscious, and a lack of cultural competency can result in misdiagnosis. This ultimately can lead to mistrust of mental health professionals and create a barrier for many to engage in treatment.
Linking back to our course example, the topic of mental health issues in minorities can mostly relate to Deming’s Example in the book The Leavers. Due to his new environment in his adopted family, he struggled to identify and recognized his personal value and true identities. Another issue that is stressed in minorities’ mental health is that they often felt that could not relate to others in their environment. Deming’s experience is relatively unique due to his experience of shifting communities and his memories with his mother, we can understand how personal experience can influence their emotions and every person is a case by case but not represented as a single story, which is an important concept in psychological studies today.
Reference:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/asian-american-mental-health#why-is-there-a-stigma
https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/how-can-we-break-mental-health-barriers-communities-color
https://www.nami.org/Your-Journey/Identity-and-Cultural-Dimensions/Black-African-American
Your post is very interesting and extremely relevant today, as you said. Minorities have different views on a lot of things in our country due to their unique experiences in the past and today. One of these things that is often overlooked is the view on mental health, which is just now becoming much more important to people. Especially in poorer communities, mental health can certainly be viewed as a weakness, especially when so much crime and poverty is occurring. It is important to keep everyone in mind when discussing mental health because different people have different experiences, as you outlined in regard to The Leavers.
What an excellent read, nicely written! and very informative. I have always known men over women have a more difficult time expressing mental health issues and seeking any kind of help because they are supposed to be “strong” and “not show emotion” but I have never thought about the African American aspect of being judged and fearing socioeconomic status, but I can see where they would think that way coming from what they have had to prove over and over again. Thank you for your insight
I found your post to be very interesting and educational. Mental health is such an important thing and not something anyone should ever be ashamed of. Your post truly shows how there is a major injustice occurring within our system. It is so sad that our society can make people feel the need to push their feelings aside and ignore them so then they do not feel “judged”. Great post and than you for all the information!
Very well-written post. Racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minorities often suffer from poor mental health outcomes due to multiple factors including inaccessibility of high-quality mental health care services. To your point, the misconception of African Americans not needing the mental health services since they have been through slavery is straight discrimination and injustice towards them.
I enjoyed reading this! Being of the minority population I connected with everything you said is i personally didn’t go through it so omen I know did. It’s not talked about enough, its a very relevant topic especially after quarantine. The crazy idea that someone came up with about African American people not being sophisticated enough is ridiculous. We’re all humans living in a crappy world and people of lighter tones don’t get dealt the cards we do. Not doing anything about it increases that injustice. I appreciate the time taken out to go in detail about this and let facts be known.
Hello,
thank you for such an enlightening post. I never knew there was so much reasoning behind people choosing to not attend therapy. There is surprisingly so much history to consider with a topic like this and how it relates to the reactions towards mental health, especially in communities of color. As you said, there are so many negative stigmas surrounding this subject that need to be permanently erased. All people should have the support to address all areas of health where needed without the worry of being judged or misunderstood.
This was very well-written! Thank you for writing about this topic to bring awareness to this. Mental health is very important, and this highlights that people of color have different experiences and reasons to keep them from getting the help that they need. The inequality in healthcare is a huge issue that needs to be fixed.
This post was is interesting and very informative. Before reading this post I knew that mental health was considered taboo topic especially in many minority groups. I also come from a small minatory group and over the years I noticed how this topic is not talked about enough in our community. I think it was important how you pointed out that the healthcare system isn’t very helpful in addressing this issue.