World Mental Health Day falls on October 10 each year since 1994. Although each year has a theme, from “Depression, a Global Crisis” to “Mental Health in an Unequal World,” no theme has ever addressed why mental health becomes a more serious issue each year. In 2023, the theme is Mental Health is a Universal Right, even as the right to a cure remains obscure.
The World Mental Health Federation, which started Mental Health Day, claims to promote awareness, advocacy and prevention. That means awareness of the prominence of mental health issues, advocacy for the rights of people who’s mental health is suffering and the prevention of mental health issues by “improving emotions, functioning, and health-fostering environments.” Yet none of these actions is reducing mental illness.
Mental Health America admits to “unconscionable rates of suicide, school drop-out, homelessness, and involvement in the juvenile justice system” among children, alone, in the United States. They state that, overall, “50% of Americans…will meet criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in their lives.”
Why is this number not much lower and why are the rates of suicide and other mannifestations of mental illness “unconscionable”? Perhaps because what’s being done simply isn’t working.
No Cause, No Cure for Mental Illness
The exact cause of mental illnesses like psychosis is unknown in the field of psychology. Psychosis refers to a group of mental illness symptoms that show that a person is losing touch with reality. Its root word, like psychology, is psyche, which refers to the spirit, in Greek. At the core of this terminology is an admission that mental illness is actually a spiritual illness. But because religion is commonly rejected as a cure within psychology, or even as a prevention, for spiritual illnesses, psychologists can only continue to have more cases on their hands as years pass.
Rejection in itself is a form of spiritual illness. If a person rejects the Almighty Creator, but believes an iPhone has a creator, that is an illness. If a person rejects the law of the Almighty Creator and accepts only man-made laws, that’s also an illness. This rejection leads people to step out from what pleases the Creator into what displeases the Creator. Affliction can only result.
With rising incidences of psychosis, it almost seems like the theme for this year should instead be Mental Illness is a Universal Right instead of mental health.
IP Correspondent
