By Ahmad Ali

Over the past few years, there has been a progressive destigmatization of mental health across the world, leading to a rise in awareness and encouraging more people seeking help. This phenomenon has allowed more research and progress to be put into the large spectrum of mental health, paving the way for better identifying and treating different cases and potentially save lives. However, misconceptions regarding mental health and treatments still exist, both inside and outside the professional sphere, resulting sometimes in inefficient medication and a deceptive approach to mental health related cases.

These misconceptions have led to a gap in our understanding of the complex reality of mental health, allowing some who aren’t necessarily concerned by these issues to find room to exploit them to their benefit. Eventually, the exploitation has led to the commercialization of mental health, an exploitative portrayal of mental illness for the enjoyment of others and services marketed to better mental health. Omar Shawif has had to deal with ADHD, anxiety and depression and feels like he’s been misunderstood regarding his treatment. “I was prescribed medication to help me deal with my ADHD symptoms and they were mostly effective.

It was never treated completely but that’s normal as different people respond to psychiatric medication differently. The medication helped me perform better at my job, be more social, and generally function better as close to a neuro-typical person as I can be,” he told Kuwait Times. Although noticing improvement with his ADHD, Shawif was disappointed with how professionals treated his depression and anxiety, leading him to believe that misconceptions exist also amongst professionals. “There was a massive misunderstanding between me and the professionals I saw. Depression was treated as an illness that needed eradication as if dealing with the flu.

No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t communicate that depression was a normal reaction to my life circumstances. The way the symptoms are treated is not to contextualize them in the normal human experience, but rather medicate them and worry about what could be the cause of the symptoms later.” Noor Mubarak, a psychological well-being practitioner based in the UK and a graduate member of the British Psychological Society shares her take on such matters: “While it’s true that it is sometimes the case that both clinicians and patients over-pathologize normal distress, environmental factors do not rule out a clinical diagnosis. Situational factors can contribute to the development of symptoms of mental health problems, such as grief leading to depression, or workplace stress to anxiety”.

She added that “Biological, psychological and social factors are all taken into account and the resulting symptoms are what form the diagnosis, regardless of whether the origin of symptoms be biological or social.” Social media pseudoscience Shawif has noted that these misconceptions are carried on through commercialization, benefiting others who sometimes aren’t at all concerned by the effects of mental health issues. However, he specified how these benefits are sometimes not financial: “Yes, there’s the profit incentive to sell psychiatric medications and hours of therapy sessions, but the biggest way that mental health has been commercialized is through social media.”

While some therapists fail to understand the line between legitimate human reaction and an actual clinical symptom, untrained influencers with incentives to increase their following have removed that line, opening the way for “pseudoscience” to take over the current conversation about mental health. “A lot of social media influencers took our real intention to improve our wellbeing to be better mentally and have turned it into a meme, presenting generic solutions with no credibility or source to our very complex problems, in the hopes of gaining online exposure.” Mubarak stresses the importance of having the proper qualifications as a professional in order to be able to properly treat a case.

“Treatment protocols used by registered mental health professionals are first tested to ensure that they work to improve a person’s mental state without causing any harm. Studies are completed to ensure a new treatment will have a beneficial outcome on participants, compared to placebo, waitlists or other alternative treatments. It is therefore hugely important to ensure that your mental health professional is qualified and a member of their relevant professional body to ensure that the treatment received is appropriate.”

Mubarak adds an emphasis on the importance of education to not only destigmatize it, but equally to help us have a better understanding of mental health. “Education is important, mental health problems are often a result of factors that are completely out of our own control, such as situational factors genetics or traumatic experiences. They should therefore be treated by acknowledging the problem and then tackling it. Recognizing that these issues are not results of ingratitude or the fault of the individual, just like many physical illnesses is a big step in improving our understanding and experiences with mental illness.”