Techno-science and mental illness

Thinking about techno-science in my life I think of the countless conversations about mental health and illness between my mom and me. My mom went back to school to go into community counselling when I was ten. I was old enough for my mom to attempt to explain to me some of the different disorders she would study out of an old edition of the DSM when I would ask. After getting certified, my mom has moved between small clinics in rural Wisconsin with an organization attempting to bring mental health services to communities that don’t have access. Today she sees a lot of women and kids that have grown up in abusive families and people who lack many of the resources to live with diagnosed and undiagnosed mental illnesses.

When I started having conversations about mental health with my mom, I originally found some of these things confusing. We hear different arguments form others on their take on mental illness that varies between, ‘More people have depression/anxiety/[insert mental illness/disorder here] because mental health is a fast growing field and mental disorders are being created all the time’ to ‘depression just means you are sad’ to ‘mental illness is an excuse’ etc. etc. etc. I have had conversations with my mom that include things like how the mind changes to deals with trauma, how genetically inherited disorders can affect daily functioning, and behavioral and emotional signs that people may be dealing with certain mental issues.

The things we have been reading definitely relate to how we view mental illness and disorders in society today. Mental health awareness and its resources in healthcare is something that has drastically changed even in the past 20 years. How we view mental illness, its causes, how it affects us, and even what it is are all things that would be approached differently by each of the authors we have been reading. Pinker would address mental illness as the result of genetics pasted from earlier generations and nothing more. Latour’s argument in the role of naming and discourse in what we know to be true would seek to explain how we classify new conditions and disorders and Elliot would say that the semantic contagion is what allows people to know that they “have something” or give them ideas about certain disorders that they may not know about otherwise. Lewontin would argue that the diagnosis of mental states and illnesses is what affects people the most.

The more I continue to learn about mental health and illness I think the simple answer might be that it isn’t always that simple. Techno-science tells us a lot about how the mind and mental health can be affected by genes and biological make-up, one’s environment and life style, how people perceive themselves and how they function, how others perceive them, and much more. Mental illness and disorders can be specific or vague and complicated.