Society Must Care for Mental Health Sufferers

Society Must Care for Mental Health Sufferers,
Not Make their Behaviour a Law and Order Question 

Follow-Up on the role of society and mental health sufferers.  Another article from the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) continues to discuss the role of societyin assisting mental health sufferers.

Here is an excerpt:

 ”…How the Act will operate in practice, especially given the problem of resources and the lack of recognition of society’s responsibility, remains to be seen. However, it is certain that the fight is ongoing against bad legislation that will in practice do damage to communities and individuals. What is required is for society to take up care and responsibility for mental health sufferers, and for government to legislate to guarantee the resources for the appropriate social bodies to be able to fulfil this responsibility. The outlook underlying the government’s legislation is that there is a class of people separate from so-called normality. Social control is therefore necessary, the argument goes, over those with a “mental disorder” or “illness”. The role of mental health professionals in this scenario is to be agents of this social control and provide the rest of society with protection against those with disorders or illnesses. In this scenario, again society is let off the hook. The fact that society is the conditioning factor for the stresses that lead to mental health suffering for the vulnerable and sensitive is left out of account. With the loss of coherence that this denial brings about, degrees of stress and outright physical illness as a result are the norm, not the exception.

It cannot be accepted that an individual’s behaviour or departure from the prevailing ideological and cultural norms as decreed by those in power should be made the target of punitive legislation. Instead of being stigmatised and tragic cases promoted to justify the prohibition of basic freedoms, mental health sufferers, as with everyone with special needs of various degrees and kinds, should be affirmed as human beings and be given every support, including the right of self-determination. As a whole, the people must ensure that a human-centred society prevails and organise to bring such a society into being, in unity with all those that are oppressed by the present anti-social political and economic system…”

Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wdie-07/d07-038.htm