D240

TMA01 – Summarise and discusses the presentations of mental health in the two newspaper articles given at the end of this TMA.


Many newspaper articles argue that mental health problems are very common in the population (Batty, 2011; Street-Porter, 2010). Both articles represent mental health in different ways. The Daily Mail article (Street-Porter, 2010) labels depression as a fashionable trend, whilst the Guardian article (Batty, 2011) locates depression as ones cause of material experiences of poverty and suffering. Therefore, this assignment will recapitulate how mental health illness issues are presented in both articles; including materials about diagnosis, history of counselling and psychotherapy, and drug treatments.

Historically, society was focused on religious beliefs, thus mental health illness was morally seen as a problem and people were identified as ‘mad’ (2010, p. 24). In the nineteenth century there was a shift in industrialisation, capitalism and science and away from religion. Mental health issues were therefore seen as treatable (2010, p. 11). Psychological theorist such as Emil Kraeplin believed that a mental illness was a biological and genetic problem. He synthesized a classification system into a workable model that could be used to diagnose and treat the mental patients (2010, p. 24), whereas, Sigmund Freud believed it involved psychological factors (2010, p. 94).Psychiatrist use two main criteria to diagnose mental health illness; Diagnostic and statistical Manual (DSM) and the International Classification of Disease (ICD). These criteria have led to greater consistency of approach to the diagnosis and classification of mental illnesses (2010, p. 26-27).
Although there is no diagnostic test for depression to confirm whether somebody has the illness, more people are now being diagnosed with mental health problem due to the change of climate and culture we live in (Healy,2010d).   Street-porter concurs that depression is increasing...