Interviews and Reflection Report - Essay Example

Open discussions on topics such as mental health have always been a taboo in most societies (Solomon et al, 2005). Even to this day the word “mental”succeeds in grabbing attention and raising eye brows. However with increased awareness about the importance of mental health in an individual’s life, many have accepted the fact that many mental illnesses can be treated if the person is handled with love and care.The interview was conducted with 10 people aged between 13-60 years and consisting of 5 male and 5 female subjects.

Through this interview I aimed to understand the perception and awareness of people about the different forms of mental illness that exists in today’s society and how most people think about handling people with psychological problems. Before the interview was conducted I hypothesized that most people will have some form of knowledge about mental illnesses and at least 80% will be able to name three different types of mental illnesses where depression might be the most common. I expected that most people will understand that not all patients are a threat to society and that through proper counselling and clinical therapies, people with mental illnesses can recover and lead a normal life as well.

Furthermore, I expected a very average result when it came to people knowing where to seek help in order to help a mentally ill person they knew. After I had conducted the interview, the results were a bit different than what I had expected. Most people knew about mental illnesses and 100% of the people were able to name mental problems. However, contrary to my expectation, alcoholism and drug addiction were the most popularly known addiction problems. This may be because of the increases awareness programme that works with addiction problems.

Also, most people were shocked when they heard that 1 in 5 people were mentally ill and 90% of the subjects said they did not know that mental illness was a huge problem. 80% of the subjects believed that mentally ill people were a challenge to society and needed proper asylums and rehabilitation centres to help they recover. Most importantly, only 1 of my subject was able to name 2 organizations that worked for mentally ill people.The results indicate that even though most people of different age groups were aware of mental problems there was widespread lack of sensitization among the people especially among the middle aged people.

However, people did not know that mental problems were so widespread. The results also highlighted the fact that most people lacked awareness about the organizations that could be approached to help such victims.This activity helped at least spread a little more awareness about mental illness. I personally feel that involvement of many more subjects would not only help in obtaining concrete results but also spread more awareness. Lastly, this activity helped me understand that besides mental patients, the general public also needed to know more about mental problems and that there exists dire need for sensitization campaigns as well.

ReferencesBeyond Blue 2014,Beyond Blue, Hawthorn, Victoria, viewed 2nd March 2014, http://www.beyondblue.org.au/ Solomon,P.L. et al .2005, Family violence among adults with severe mental illness: a neglected area of research. Trauma, Violence and Abuse, 6 (1), p.40-54.