1.8 Conclusion

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From the course by University of Toronto

The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness

109 ratings

University of Toronto

The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness

109 ratings

Learn how social factors promote mental health, influence the onset and course of mental illness, and affect how mental illnesses are diagnosed and treated. This course explores how our understanding of mental health and illness has been influenced by social attitudes and social developments in North America and around the world. The course begins by situating our contemporary mental health practices in historical context, then looks at different aspects of mental health, mental illness and mental health services and their connections to what’s going on in our social environment.

From the lesson

Welcome and A Brief History of Madness

We begin with a quick orientation to the course and continue with our first lecture topic: A brief history of madness.

1.0 Introduction 7:39

1.1 Visiting the asylum 9:04

1.2 Why the asylum? 20:06

1.3 20th century mental health care 14:11

1.4 Antipsychiatry 12:07

1.5 Deinstitutionalization 15:53

1.6 Community-based mental health care 15:51

1.7 Recovery and mental health 11:04

1.8 Conclusion 4:31

Bonus material: An introduction to author Caroline Fei-Yeng Kwok 6:31

Meet the Instructors

Charmaine Williams
Associate Professor
Faculty of Social Work

Okay, so there it is.

Just over 100 years of the history of psychiatry and

madness in somewhere around two hours.

I hope you hung in there.

So what is it that we're supposed to learn from reviewing that history?

Because the thing is, I really feel that you have to understand what

happened in the past in order to understand what's happening right now, and

maybe even think about what the future might hold.

So, what are some of the big lessons there?

I actually look forward to hearing what you think they are from in

the discussion forums.

But some of the things that I take away from reviewing all of this again,

is that one of the most consistent things there has been about

the way that we've dealt with mental illness, is that we swing back and

forth between incredible optimism, and then incredible pessimism.

And that means that we often are withdrawing resources without really a lot

of thought given to what is going to happen next.

Because just because we decide that the methods that we have aren't working at

the moment, doesn't mean that people are not still dealing with mental disorder and

suffering because of it.

So that swing back and fourth is one of the things that I

really notice when I think about the history of mental illness.

I'm sorry the history of madness.

The other thing that I think I take home from this is that there's

an entire sort of industry that has developed around dealing with madness.

That has to be taken into account when we're thinking about the social

context of mental health and illness.

So, that is somewhat about the actual services that are provided, but that's

also about things like pharmaceutical industries and all that sort of thing that

we'll probably come back to as we move our way through the course.

But certainly that industry has an influence on how we think about who

is mentally well, and who is mentally ill, and what we're supposed to do about that.

And then another thing that I think I take home when I think about the history of

mental illness and madness is that the communities

that we live in have always been a part of the solution and part of the problem.

So, at different times, we've thought that the community caused mental illness, and

we thought the community was the solution in some ways.

And in all of that, I'm not sure that we have given much thought to

what the community could do to make things healthier,

for not just people who are diagnosed with mental illness, but for all of us.

So if we know that people are not doing well out in the community,

if we know that social circumstances are part of what bring on mental illness for

some people, then what are we prepared to do in our communities to make them more

mentally healthy places?

That is certainly a topic we are going to return to in this course as well.

So I look forward to discussing that with you and

hearing about your thoughts on that in the discussion forum.

So I've mentioned the discussion forum a few times, and

in closing I'm just going to tell you a little bit about what's going to be

happening with regard to homework and discussion forums over the course of this.

So the first thing is we are going to set up discussion forums for every lecture

that will have questions posted that I hope you will engage in discussion about.

And then also a section for questions about the readings and

maybe there will be other things that Coursera builds in.

But there'll definitely be those opportunities for

discussion amongst yourselves.

And of course I will be getting involved as well.

So, I'll be reviewing what's in the discussion forums,

with some help of course.

And what I'm hoping is that if there are things that really seem to be hot topics,

maybe they're being voted up by you, or

there's a lot of people posting about them.

Then I'll do some kind of a video response in between lectures to respond to

whatever that is.

The other thing is that we are going to have homework.

It is a course.

[LAUGH] We're going to have some homework.

And what we've decided to do is have homework assignments every other week.

So that one week you're working on your homework assignment.

And the next week you have time to also be marking assignments of your colleagues.

So hopefully it's enough to keep it stimulating for you, but not too onerous.

And I really think they're going to be on interesting topics and

things that you'll really enjoy.

So I look forward to seeing what you do with those homework questions as well.

So, that's it It for our first lecture and

I will look forward to seeing you next week.

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