Who Thinks The Language Of 'Mental' Illness Needs To Be Updated?

bpcyclist · Jul 19, 2020, 12:11 PM

I believe words matter. I think some of those we use, such as depression, mental illness, bipolar,and probably others may actually promote stigma unintentionally. I wonder if anyone else shares any of these feelings? Or maybe I am just alone in this.

*Beth* · Jul 19, 2020, 12:21 PM

Well, I know there's a movement to change the term "borderline personality disorder" to"emotional disregulation disorder." I think that's good. BPD is such an outdated and stigmatizing name.

bpcyclist · Jul 19, 2020, 12:55 PM

Good example, I would support such a change. Thanks, Beth!

Fuzzybear · Jul 19, 2020, 12:58 PM

I also think words matter. And poor use of words can promote stigma. Good thread.

seesaw · Jul 19, 2020, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bpcyclist

I believe words matter. I think some of those we use, such as depression, mental illness, bipolar,and probably others may actually promote stigma unintentionally. I wonder if anyone else shares any of these feelings? Or maybe I am just alone in this.

Couldnt agree more. I'm studying to become a patient advocate and I am now encouraging others to refer to mental illness as psychiatric disorders. Although I would even prefer we go so far as to realign these all as neuro-psychiatric or neurological disorders, considering what we are learning about how the brain is changed. It's not just chosen behaviors or learned behaviors
And I dont like mental health disorder because still using the word mental, to me, stigmatizes that it's not real.

FluffyDinosaur · Jul 19, 2020, 01:24 PM

If it's an obvious misnomer or an obviously insulting word, then I'm all for changing it. But in general I think it's more important to promote understanding of what mental illness really is. Otherwise, whatever new terms you choose will just take on the same stigma before long. In that case you can keep changing words forever but it won't really make a difference.

bpcyclist · Jul 19, 2020, 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seesaw

Couldnt agree more. I'm studying to become a patient advocate and I am now encouraging others to refer to mental illness as psychiatric disorders. Although I would even prefer we go so far as to realign these all as neuro-psychiatric or neurological disorders, considering what we are learning about how the brain is changed. It's not just chosen behaviors or learned behaviors
And I dont like mental health disorder because still using the word mental, to me, stigmatizes that it's not real.

Thank you, seesaw. i never understood how someone could choose to become psychotic...

Jul 19, 2020, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bpcyclist

I believe words matter. I think some of those we use, such as depression, mental illness, bipolar,and probably others may actually promote stigma unintentionally. I wonder if anyone else shares any of these feelings? Or maybe I am just alone in this.

I will post what I mentioned in another thread a while back.

I find it interesting that when you say, I have depression, it's slightly more acceptable than saying I'm bipolar

if you say I'm bipolar, people seem to think you're crazy. if you say you are depressed, people seem to be more sympathetic.

I wonder if it's less to do with words and more to do with how the media portrays MI?

bpcyclist · Jul 19, 2020, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raging vortex

I will post what I mentioned in another thread a while back.

I find it interesting that when you say, I have depression, it's slightly more acceptable than saying I'm bipolar

if you say I'm bipolar, people seem to think you're crazy. if you say you are depressed, people seem to be more sympathetic.

I wonder if it's less to do with words and more to do with how the media portrays MI?

Yes, labels that carry different consequences.

childofchaos831 · Jul 19, 2020, 09:36 PM

One thing we heard in a group therapy a while back was the difference between "I'm sorry" and "I apologise." For some people, saying "I'm sorry," the brain may hear "I'm a sorry person," so saying "I apologise" is better language to use.

It can really be about the language. We prefer "psychiatric illness" over "mental illness" ourselves. But the latter comes out of our mouth more often from the simple fact that we are used to using it more. Changing the common language used is difficult. Everyone has to be on board. There are still people out there who still call Bipolar disorder Manic Depression, which is the older name.

We would love to see a change to language that is less stigmatizing. It would take a movement from all of us to get done though.

Nammu · Jul 19, 2020, 09:43 PM

I hate how the use behavioral health in place of mental health, it’s Like it’s an implied behavior that you can change if you just try.

childofchaos831 · Jul 19, 2020, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nammu

I hate how the use behavioral health in place of mental health, it’s Like it’s an implied behavior that you can change if you just try.

So true. We still would prefer psychiatric over mental, but behavioral is worse.

Nammu · Jul 19, 2020, 09:55 PM

Yeah, psychiatric is better than mental.

bpcyclist · Jul 19, 2020, 10:20 PM

Behavioral is just appalling, to me.

seesaw · Jul 20, 2020, 12:27 AM

100 % agree that behavioral health as a term for referring to our illnesses is awful. I think it comes out of literature promoting theories of behavioral change. Therapists and other providers use these behavior change theories to help patients adhere to new diets, medication regime, CBT, etc to promote their clinical health outcomes, likes A1C levels or in our instances perhaps fewer MI related episodes.

So while I understand the references to behavioral health, that doesnt describe my illness. My illness isnt the result of behaviors. Behavrios may be a symptom, but they arent the cause. And simply addressing the behavior doesn't change the problem.

sarahsweets · Jul 20, 2020, 02:14 AM

I think a lot of it has to do with the media's portrayal/ societal beliefs ingrained into people's minds by some movie or dumb book/celeb's bad behavior. Anytime there is a tragedy the first thing people look for is the 'why' behind it and the internet theories take off. People speculate about bipolar, autism, BPD, addiction, schizophrenia, etc based on something tragic or stupid that happened. Or if a famous person has bipolar and has some sort of fit or meltdown as a result of bad behavior they quickly say its bipolar that causes it. Or lets say a celeb has an actual mental illness and is in the middle of an episode then the media takes off about their personal mental well being. I am reminded of Carrie Fisher on a cruise losing it and reading story after story about her antics with no compassion. Or Britney Spears and the head shaving incident or Amanda Bynes. All of a sudden people have a vested interest in personal tragedy. Its like their own personal train wreck show to watch while people spin out of control through no fault of their own in many cases. And there are movies and shows- what comes to mind is Girl Interupted. Winnona Ryder had BPD in that movie and was in a long term hospital surrounded by cliches of mental illness. Its like someone opened a book from 1965 about BPD or psychosis or bulimia or whatever and decided to make a shallow movie about it. My understanding is that this movie was based on a book but Hollywood made it so much more sensational. I cringe anytime anyone with notoriety has an issue and a mental illness because its only a matter of time before people turn the convo about stereotypical behaviors associated with mental illness. Most people will not watch a movie or twitter clip about someone in crisis and investigate the illness or situation further. All they do is hit 'share' or copy and paste the link into their post and in two seconds its viral. Who can fight that? Adding to that is the rampant self diagnosis's people give themselves based on a celeb or a tidbit of info they see or hear or read. "I am so up and down today its like I am bipolar". Nearly everyone with BP has heard that before. I feel the same way about narcisissim. All of a sudden everyone is a narcissist.

The Black Dog · Jul 20, 2020, 03:47 AM

The language we use does hold a lot of stigma. I think the more exposure people have will help with that. Most people I know dont understand what bipolar is....my wife even is still trying. Its hard to break those old stereotypes without an engaging medium. If I try explaining bipolar to someone who doesnt understand it, its like, “do you have an hour?” or
It’s kinda like Homeland except there are different types because everyone doesn’t necessarily experience the same exact symptoms and we arent all superheroes. Some of us are just left with the negatives without saving the day.

More education comes with more interest - where does that come from?

FluffyDinosaur · Jul 20, 2020, 05:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sarahsweets

I think a lot of it has to do with the media's portrayal/ societal beliefs ingrained into people's minds by some movie or dumb book/celeb's bad behavior. Anytime there is a tragedy the first thing people look for is the 'why' behind it and the internet theories take off. People speculate about bipolar, autism, BPD, addiction, schizophrenia, etc based on something tragic or stupid that happened. Or if a famous person has bipolar and has some sort of fit or meltdown as a result of bad behavior they quickly say its bipolar that causes it. Or lets say a celeb has an actual mental illness and is in the middle of an episode then the media takes off about their personal mental well being. I am reminded of Carrie Fisher on a cruise losing it and reading story after story about her antics with no compassion. Or Britney Spears and the head shaving incident or Amanda Bynes. All of a sudden people have a vested interest in personal tragedy. Its like their own personal train wreck show to watch while people spin out of control through no fault of their own in many cases. And there are movies and shows- what comes to mind is Girl Interupted. Winnona Ryder had BPD in that movie and was in a long term hospital surrounded by cliches of mental illness. Its like someone opened a book from 1965 about BPD or psychosis or bulimia or whatever and decided to make a shallow movie about it. My understanding is that this movie was based on a book but Hollywood made it so much more sensational. I cringe anytime anyone with notoriety has an issue and a mental illness because its only a matter of time before people turn the convo about stereotypical behaviors associated with mental illness. Most people will not watch a movie or twitter clip about someone in crisis and investigate the illness or situation further. All they do is hit 'share' or copy and paste the link into their post and in two seconds its viral. Who can fight that? Adding to that is the rampant self diagnosis's people give themselves based on a celeb or a tidbit of info they see or hear or read. "I am so up and down today its like I am bipolar". Nearly everyone with BP has heard that before. I feel the same way about narcisissim. All of a sudden everyone is a narcissist.

I agree with this, the media is where most people get their "information." For some reason the media also seems to associate bipolar with serial killers, never really understood that one.

I'm still not a fan of changing words or using euphemisms. IMHO it doesn't help against racism and it won't help here. I will say that "behavioral health" is a stupid term that has all the wrong implications. Those are the sort of words that are worth changing. But I don't really see what's wrong with the word "bipolar", and I'm even fine with "manic depressive", for that matter.

In some cases all the euphemisms make it worse. It's like in some mental health facilities where they insist on calling people "clients" instead of "patients." I would rather just be called a patient because by going out of your way to use euphemisms, to me it just implies that there's something so shameful about the situation that we can't just call it what it is.

TishaBuv · Jul 20, 2020, 06:08 AM

I surmise Behavioral Health type terms refer to B F Skinner.
B. F. Skinner | Department of Psychology

When I studied psychology in college in the early 1980’s we differentiated the talk therapy of Freud to the behavioral therapy of Skinner.

He’s the father of Experimental Psychology vs. Clinical Psychology, in which my sister and BIL have Ph.D’s....bad choice for them, no jobs.

My new psychiatrist tells me they are changing the DSM to do away with many diagnoses and focus on neuroscience instead.

fern46 · Jul 20, 2020, 07:14 AM

For me, the biggest opportunity lies in actually understanding what we experience. If we knew the root cause and understood exactly why and how we cycle we could then strive to develop language that accurately reflects the reality we face. For now, I feel like the vocabulary available is symbolic of where we are in terms of understanding. We are still fumbling around in the dark and it makes sense our terms are equally as clumsy.

I have recently had an episode that occurred alongside a decent level of insight and I found myself saying 'I don't know if this makes sense' and 'this is incredibly difficult to explain' to describe my experiences. It simply feels otherworldly at times and I think if we are going to get this right we need to think bigger than selecting amongst the current terms for a best fit. For example, I had something I could potentially call 'awake sub-conscious mirroring' going on. Essentially, my dream world was overlaid on top of my awake world and my internal thoughts were mirrored back to me symbolically as I moved through my day. We currently just call that 'psychosis'. We could do better. It almost progressed to the point where my subconscious mind eclipsed my waking world. Trying to convey that to my pdoc and therapist is currently a bit messy.

bpcyclist · Jul 20, 2020, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Black Dog

The language we use does hold a lot of stigma. I think the more exposure people have will help with that. Most people I know dont understand what bipolar is....my wife even is still trying. Its hard to break those old stereotypes without an engaging medium. If I try explaining bipolar to someone who doesnt understand it, its like, “do you have an hour?” or
It’s kinda like Homeland except there are different types because everyone doesn’t necessarily experience the same exact symptoms and we arent all superheroes. Some of us are just left with the negatives without saving the day.

More education comes with more interest - where does that come from?

I hope and believe it shall come from all of us.

bpcyclist · Jul 20, 2020, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FluffyDinosaur

I agree with this, the media is where most people get their "information." For some reason the media also seems to associate bipolar with serial killers, never really understood that one.

I'm still not a fan of changing words or using euphemisms. IMHO it doesn't help against racism and it won't help here. I will say that "behavioral health" is a stupid term that has all the wrong implications. Those are the sort of words that are worth changing. But I don't really see what's wrong with the word "bipolar", and I'm even fine with "manic depressive", for that matter.

In some cases all the euphemisms make it worse. It's like in some mental health facilities where they insist on calling people "clients" instead of "patients." I would rather just be called a patient because by going out of your way to use euphemisms, to me it just implies that there's something so shameful about the situation that we can't just call it what it is.

thanks, fluffy, for this. I agree about the trend toward using words like 'client' or 'consumer.' It belittles us, IMHO. We are patients, like any other.

bpcyclist · Jul 20, 2020, 08:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fern46

For me, the biggest opportunity lies in actually understanding what we experience. If we knew the root cause and understood exactly why and how we cycle we could then strive to develop language that accurately reflects the reality we face. For now, I feel like the vocabulary available is symbolic of where we are in terms of understanding. We are still fumbling around in the dark and it makes sense our terms are equally as clumsy. t

I have recently had an episode that occurred alongside a decent level of insight and I found myself saying 'I don't know if this makes sense' and 'this is incredibly difficult to explain' to describe my experiences. It simply feels otherworldly at times and I think if we are going to get this right we need to think bigger than selecting amongst the current terms for a best fit. For example, I had something I could potentially call 'awake sub-conscious mirroring' going on. Essentially, my dream world was overlaid on top of my awake world and my internal thoughts were mirrored the lexicon must be expanded.o me symbolically as I moved through my day. We currently just call that 'psychosis'. We could do better. It almost progressed to the point where my subconscious mind eclipsed my waking world. Trying to convey that to my pdoc and therapist is currently a bit messy.

Thanks, fern. I agree completement. Just in the realm of psychosis, there is such variety of individual experience as to require a modern and timely lexicon, if for no other cause than to facilitate cleaner communication.

Soupe du jour · Jul 20, 2020, 10:11 AM

This is such an interesting question. I do agree that the words used add to stigma. I don't know the best substitutes, but I was thinking of maybe ditching "bipolar disorder" because I dislike the word "bipolar". I dislike that people say "I am bipolar", though I know many people like to say that. It is even misused by people who don't have the disorder.

What came to my mind was "mood disorder", an already used term. Do people think that term is less stigmatizing? I know that includes people with depression only, but I feel it is in the same realm as what we experience. We do experience depression. Some a lot. Maybe "Mood disorder - depression only". Or "Mood disorder - with hypomania" and "Mood disorder - with mania". Even "Mood disorder - mania only" for people who never had depression. They can even be abbreviated (i.e. MD-DO, MD-H, MD-M, MD-MO). Then any other descriptor can be added. I think the longer or more cryptic the description the more clinical it sounds, which could be good. Maybe this sounds silly.

seesaw · Jul 20, 2020, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bpcyclist

Thanks, fern. I agree completement. Just in the realm of psychosis, there is such variety of individual experience as to require a modern and timely lexicon, if for no other cause than to facilitate cleaner communication.

What would be helpful at this point is that we've gotten far along enough in care that patients could really help distinguish the lexicon since many patients are now much more able to manage their symptoms and be coherent about what is occurring for them. Just like we can describe different degrees and kinds of dissociation, different kinds of flashbacks, different kinds of self harm, different forms of ideations. A ground breaking psychologist right now would start using the self reported data of patients to better classify what we experience and what is useful in those situations.

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