Bunton    

Mental Illness

Sherry Bunton

Kaplan University

May 4, 2005

        Mental illness has always fascinated and frustrated me at the same time.  I know this sounds strange, but in my family I had to try and deal with Mental illness on a daily basis.  My cousin has mental retardation and my mother took her in and took care of her after her mother passed away.  My husband’s sister has manic depression and bi-polar disorder, and we are the ones who look after her and make sure she is keeping her psych appointments and taking her medication.  My husband’s nephew also suffers from mental retardation and he has been living with us since his mother died six years ago.  

Mental illness is fascinating in trying to figure out why people affected by it think the way they do and why they do the things they do.  In the case of my nephew, it can become very frustrating when his thoughts and actions cause him to do things to get him into trouble.  I have been able t o figure out most of the time when he is going to misbehave because he gives himself away by the things he says or does just prior to the event. So I am able to stop some of his behavior.  He gets upset with me because I am able to figure out what he is going to do before he does it and he never is able to understand how I know what he is up to.  He doesn’t have a clue that he gives himself away or how I am able to figure out what he is up to.  

Join now!

The medical model is the model of mental illness that I am most familiar with.  It is the belief that mental illness is a disease and is caused by physical illness that can be treated by treating the patient (Kornblum & Julian, 2004).  I have always been told by the doctors I would take my nephew to that mental illness is usually caused by a chemical imbalance of the brain and can be treated with medication to bring the imbalance back into balance.  In my nephew’s case, his mental retardation was brought on by a traumatic brain injury, so there ...

This is a preview of the whole essay