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Chapter 1
Introduction and Themes

Overarching Themes

The Science Base of the Report

Overview of the Report's Chapters

Chapter Conclusions

Preparation of the Report

References

Chapter 1
Introduction and Themes


This first Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health is issued at the culmination of a half-century that has witnessed remarkable advances in the understanding of mental disorders and the brain and in our appreciation of the centrality of mental health to overall health and well-being. The report was prepared against a backdrop of growing awareness in the United States and throughout the world of the immense burden of disability associated with mental illnesses. In the United States, mental disorders collectively account for more than 15 percent of the overall burden of disease from all causes and slightly more than the burden associated with all forms of cancer (Murray & Lopez, 1996). These data underscore the importance and urgency of treating and preventing mental disorders and of promoting mental health in our society.

The report in its entirety provides an up-to-date review of scientific advances in the study of mental health and of mental illnesses that affect at least one in five Americans. Several important conclusions may be drawn from the extensive scientific literature summarized in the report. One is that a variety of treatments of well-documented efficacy exist for the array of clearly defined mental and behavioral disorders that occur across the life span. Every person should be encouraged to seek help when questions arise about mental health, just as each person is encouraged to seek help when questions arise about health. Research highlighted in the report demonstrates that mental health is a facet of health that evolves throughout the lifetime. Just as each person can do much to promote and maintain overall health regardless of age, each also can do much to promote and strengthen mental health at every stage of life.

Much remains to be learned about the causes, treatment, and prevention of mental and behavioral disorders. Obstacles that may limit the availability or accessibility of mental health services for some Americans are being dismantled, but disparities persist. Still, thanks to research and the experiences of millions of individuals who have a mental disorder, their family members, and other advocates, the Nation has the power today to tear down the most formidable obstacle to future progress in the arena of mental illness and health. That obstacle is stigma. Stigmatization of mental illness is an excuse for inaction and discrimination that is inexcusably outmoded in 1999. As evident in the chapters that follow, we have acquired an immense amount of knowledge that permits us, as a Nation, to respond to the needs of persons with mental illness in a manner that is both effective and respectful.

Overarching Themes

Mental Health and Mental Illness: A Public Health Approach

The Nation’s contemporary mental health enterprise, like the broader field of health, is rooted in a population-based public health model. The public health model is characterized by concern for the health of a population in its entirety and by awareness of the linkage between health and the physical and psycho- social environment. Public health focuses not only on traditional areas of diagnosis, treatment, and etiology, but also on epidemiologic surveillance of the health of the population at large, health promotion, disease prevention, and access to and evaluation of services (Last & Wallace, 1992).

Just as the mainstream of public health takes a broad view of health and illness, this Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health takes a wide-angle lens to both mental health and mental illness. In years past, the mental health field often focused principally on mental illness in order to serve individuals who were most severely affected. Only as the field has matured has it begun to respond to intensifying interest and concerns about disease prevention and health promotion. Because of the more recent consideration of these topic areas, the body of accumulated knowledge regarding them is not as expansive as that for mental illness.

Mental Disorders are Disabling

The burden of mental illness on health and productivity in the United States and throughout the world has long been profoundly underestimated. Data developed by the massive Global Burden of Disease study,1 conducted by the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and Harvard University, reveal that mental illness, including suicide,2 ranks second in the burden of disease in established market economies, such as the United States (Table 1-1).
Mental illness emerged from the Global Burden of Disease study as a surprisingly significant contributor to the burden of disease. The measure of calculating disease burden in this study, called Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), allows comparison of the burden

Table 1-1. Disease burden by selected illness categories in established market economies, 1990

Percent of Total DALYs*
All cardiovascular conditions 18.6
All mental illness** 15.4
All malignant diseases (cancer) 15.0
All respiratory conditions 4.8
All alcohol use 4.7<
All infectious and parasitic diseases 2.8
All drug use 1.5

*Disability-adjusted life year (DALY) is a measure that expresses years of life lost to premature death and years lived with a disability of specified severity and duration (Murray & Lopez, 1996).

**Disease burden associated with“mental illness” includes suicide.

of disease across many different disease conditions. DALYs account for lost years of healthy life regardless of whether the years were lost to premature death or disability. The disability component of this measure is weighted for severity of the disability. For example, major depression is equivalent in burden to blindness or paraplegia, whereas active psychosis seen in schizophrenia is equal in disability burden to quadriplegia.

By this measure, major depression alone ranked second only to ischemic heart disease in magnitude of disease burden (see Table 1-2 ). Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder also contributed significantly to the burden represented by mental illness.

Table 1-2. Leading sources of disease burden in established market economies, 1990

Total DALYs (millions)
Percent of Total
. All causes 98.7 .
1
Ischemic heart disease 8.9 9.0
2
Unipolar major depression 6.7 6.8
3
Cardiovascular disease 5.0 5.0
4
Alcohol use 4.7 4.7
5
Road traffic accidents 4.3 4.4

Source: Murray & Lopez, 1996.

Mental Health and Mental Illness: Points on a Continuum

As will be evident in the pages that follow, “mental health” and “mental illness” are not polar opposites but may be thought of as points on a continuum. Mental health is a state of successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with other people, and the ability to adapt to change and to cope with adversity. Mental health is indispensable to personal well-being, family and interpersonal relationships, and contribution to community or society. It is easy to overlook the value of mental health until problems surface. Yet from early childhood until death, mental health is the springboard of thinking and communication skills, learning, emotional growth, resilience, and self-esteem. These are the ingredients of each individual’s successful contribution to community and society. Americans are inundated with messages about success—in school, in a profession, in parenting, in relationships—without appreciating that successful performance rests on a foundation of mental health.

Many ingredients of mental health may be identifiable, but mental health is not easy to define. In the words of a distinguished leader in the field of mental health prevention, “. . . built into any definition of wellness . . . are overt and covert expressions of values. Because values differ across cultures as well as among subgroups (and indeed individuals) within a culture, the ideal of a uniformly acceptable definition of the constructs is illusory” (Cowen, 1994). In other words, what it means to be mentally healthy is subject to many different interpretations that are rooted in value judgments that may vary across cultures. The challenge of defining mental health has stalled the development of programs to foster mental health (Secker, 1998), although strides have been made with wellness programs for older people (Chapter 5).

Mental illness is the term that refers collectively to all diagnosable mental disorders. Mental disorders are health conditions that are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior (or some combination thereof) associated with distress and/or impaired functioning. Alzheimer’s disease exemplifies a mental disorder largely marked by alterations in thinking (especially forgetting). Depression exemplifies a mental disorder largely marked by alterations in mood. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder exemplifies a mental disorder largely marked by alterations in behavior (overactivity) and/or thinking (inability to concentrate). Alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior contribute to a host of problems—patient distress, impaired functioning, or heightened risk of death, pain, disability, or loss of freedom (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).

This report uses the term“mental health problems” for signs and symptoms of insufficient intensity or duration to meet the criteria for any mental disorder. Almost everyone has experienced mental health problems in which the distress one feels matches some of the signs and symptoms of mental disorders. Mental health problems may warrant active efforts in health promotion, prevention, and treatment. Bereavement symptoms in older adults offer a case in point. Bereavement symptoms of less than 2 months’ duration do not qualify as a mental disorder, according to professional manuals for diagnosis (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Nevertheless, bereavement symptoms can be debilitating if they are left unattended. They place older people at risk for depression, which, in turn, is linked to death from suicide, heart attack, or other causes (Zisook & Shuchter, 1991, 1993; Frasure-Smith et al., 1993, 1995; Conwell, 1996). Much can be done—through formal treatment or through support group participation—to ameliorate the symptoms and to avert the consequences of bereavement. In this case, early intervention is needed to address a mental health problem before it becomes a potentially life-threatening disorder.

Mind and Body are Inseparable

Considering health and illness as points along a continuum helps one appreciate that neither state exists in pure isolation from the other. In another but related context, everyday language tends to encourage a misperception that “mental health” or“mental illness” is unrelated to“physical health” or“physical illness.” In fact, the two are inseparable.

Seventeenth-century philosopher Rene Descartes conceptualized the distinction between the mind and the body. He viewed the “mind” as completely separable from the “body” (or“matter” in general). The mind (and spirit) was seen as the concern of organized religion, whereas the body was seen as the concern of physicians (Eisendrath & Feder, in press). This partitioning ushered in a separation between so-called“mental” and“physical” health, despite advances in the 20th century that proved the interrelationships between mental and physical health (Cohen & Herbert, 1996; Baum & Posluszny, 1999).

Although“mind” is a broad term that has had many different meanings over the centuries, today it refers to the totality of mental functions related to thinking, mood, and purposive behavior. The mind is generally seen as deriving from activities within the brain but displaying emergent properties, such as consciousness (Fischbach, 1992; Gazzaniga et al., 1998).

One reason the public continues to this day to emphasize the difference between mental and physical health is embedded in language. Common parlance continues to use the term“physical” to distinguish some forms of health and illness from“mental” health and illness. People continue to see mental and physical as separate functions when, in fact, mental functions (e.g., memory) are physical as well (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Mental functions are carried out by the brain. Likewise, mental disorders are reflected in physical changes in the brain (Kandel, 1998). Physical changes in the brain often trigger physical changes in other parts of the body too. The racing heart, dry mouth, and sweaty palms that accompany a terrifying nightmare are orchestrated by the brain. A nightmare is a mental state associated with alterations of brain chemistry that, in turn, provoke unmistakable changes elsewhere in the body.

Instead of dividing physical from mental health, the more appropriate and neutral distinction is between “mental” and “somatic” health. Somatic is a medical term that derives from the Greek word soma for the body. Mental health refers to the successful performance of mental functions in terms of thought, mood, and behavior. Mental disorders are those health conditions in which alterations in mental functions are paramount. Somatic conditions are those in which alterations in nonmental functions predominate. While the brain carries out all mental functions, it also carries out some somatic functions, such as movement, touch, and balance. That is why not all brain diseases are mental disorders. For example, a stroke causes a lesion in the brain that may produce disturbances of movement, such as paralysis of limbs. When such symptoms predominate in a patient, the stroke is considered a somatic condition. But when a stroke mainly produces alterations of thought, mood, or behavior, it is considered a mental condition (e.g., dementia). The point is that a brain disease can be seen as a mental disorder or a somatic disorder depending on the functions it perturbs.

 The Roots of Stigma

Stigmatization of people with mental disorders has persisted throughout history. It is manifested by bias, distrust, stereotyping, fear, embarrassment, anger, and/or avoidance. Stigma leads others to avoid living, socializing or working with, renting to, or employing people with mental disorders, especially severe disorders such as schizophrenia (Penn & Martin, 1998; Corrigan & Penn, 1999). It reduces patients’ access to resources and opportunities (e.g., housing, jobs) and leads to low self-esteem, isolation, and hopelessness. It deters the public from seeking, and wanting to pay for, care. In its most overt and egregious form, stigma results in outright discrimination and abuse. More tragically, it deprives people of their dignity and interferes with their full participation in society.

Explanations for stigma stem, in part, from the misguided split between mind and body first proposed by Descartes. Another source of stigma lies in the 19th-century separation of the mental health treatment system in the United States from the mainstream of health. These historical influences exert an often immediate influence on perceptions and behaviors in the modern world.

Separation of Treatment Systems

In colonial times in the United States, people with mental illness were described as“lunatics” and were largely cared for by families. There was no concerted effort to treat mental illness until urbanization in the early 19th century created a societal problem that previously had been relegated to families scattered among small rural communities. Social policy assumed the form of isolated asylums where persons with mental illness were administered the reigning treatments of the era. By the late 19th century, mental illness was thought to grow“out of a violation of those physical, mental and moral laws which, properly understood and obeyed, result not only in the highest development of the race, but the highest type of civilization” (cited in Grob, 1983). Throughout the history of institutionalization in asylums (later renamed mental hospitals), reformers strove to improve treatment and curtail abuse. Several waves of reform culminated in the deinstitutionalization movement that began in the 1950s with the goal of shifting patients and care to the community.

Public Attitudes About Mental Illness: 1950s to 1990s

Nationally representative surveys have tracked public attitudes about mental illness since the 1950s (Star, 1952, 1955; Gurin et al., 1960; Veroff et al., 1981). To permit comparisons over time, several surveys of the 1970s and the 1990s phrased questions exactly as they had been asked in the 1950s (Swindle et al., 1997).

In the 1950s, the public viewed mental illness as a stigmatized condition and displayed an unscientific understanding of mental illness. Survey respondents typically were not able to identify individuals as“mentally ill” when presented with vignettes of individuals who would have been said to be mentally ill according to the professional standards of the day. The public was not particularly skilled at distinguishing mental illness from ordinary unhappiness and worry and tended to see only extreme forms of behavior—namely psychosis—as mental illness. Mental illness carried great social stigma, especially linked with fear of unpredictable and violent behavior (Star, 1952, 1955; Gurin et al., 1960; Veroff et al., 1981).

By 1996, a modern survey revealed that Americans had achieved greater scientific understanding of mental illness. But the increases in knowledge did not defuse social stigma (Phelan et al., 1997). The public learned to define mental illness and to distinguish it from ordinary worry and unhappiness. It expanded its definition of mental illness to encompass anxiety, depression, and other mental disorders. The public attributed mental illness to a mix of biological abnormalities and vulnerabilities to social and psychological stress (Link et al., in press). Yet, in comparison with the 1950s, the public’s perception of mental illness more frequently incorporated violent behavior (Phelan et al., 1997). This was primarily true among those who defined mental illness to include psychosis (a view held by about one-third of the entire sample). Thirty-one percent of this group mentioned violence in its descriptions of mental illness, in comparison with 13 percent in the 1950s. In other words, the perception of people with psychosis as being dangerous is stronger today than in the past (Phelan et al., 1997).

The 1996 survey also probed how perceptions of those with mental illness varied by diagnosis. The public was more likely to consider an individual with schizophrenia as having mental illness than an individual with depression. All of them were distinguished reasonably well from a worried and unhappy individual who did not meet professional criteria for a mental disorder. The desire for social distance was consistent with this hierarchy (Link et al., in press).

Why is stigma so strong despite better public understanding of mental illness? The answer appears to be fear of violence: people with mental illness, especially those with psychosis, are perceived to be more violent than in the past (Phelan et al., 1997).

This finding begs yet another question: Are people with mental disorders truly more violent? Research supports some public concerns, but the overall likelihood of violence is low. The greatest risk of violence is from those who have dual diagnoses, i.e., individuals who have a mental disorder as well as a substance abuse disorder (Swanson, 1994; Eronen et al., 1998; Steadman et al., 1998). There is a small elevation in risk of violence from individuals with severe mental disorders (e.g., psychosis), especially if they are noncompliant with their medication (Eronen et al., 1998; Swartz et al., 1998). Yet the risk of violence is much less for a stranger than for a family member or person who is known to the person with mental illness (Eronen et al., 1998). In fact, there is very little risk of violence or harm to a stranger from casual contact with an individual who has a mental disorder. Because the average person is ill-equipped to judge whether someone who is behaving erratically has any of these disorders, alone or in combination, the natural tendency is to be wary. Yet, to put this all in perspective, the overall contribution of mental disorders to the total level of violence in society is exceptionally small (Swanson, 1994).

Because most people should have little reason to fear violence from those with mental illness, even in its most severe forms, why is fear of violence so entrenched? Most speculations focus on media coverage and deinstitutionalization (Phelan et al., 1997; Heginbotham, 1998). One series of surveys found that selective media reporting reinforced the public’s stereotypes linking violence and mental illness and encouraged people to distance themselves from those with mental disorders (Angermeyer & Matschinger, 1996). And yet, deinstitutionalization made this distancing impossible over the 40 years as the population of state and county mental hospitals was reduced from a high of about 560,000 in 1955 to well below 100,000 by the 1990s (Bachrach, 1996). Some advocates of deinstitutionalization expected stigma to be reduced with community care and commonplace exposure. Stigma might have been greater today had not public education resulted in a more scientific understanding of mental illness.

Stigma and Seeking Help for Mental Disorders

Nearly two-thirds of all people with diagnosable mental disorders do not seek treatment (Regier et al., 1993; Kessler et al., 1996). Stigma surrounding the receipt of mental health treatment is among the many barriers that discourage people from seeking treatment (Sussman et al., 1987; Cooper-Patrick et al., 1997). Concern about stigma appears to be heightened in rural areas in relation to larger towns or cities (Hoyt et al., 1997). Stigma also disproportionately affects certain age groups, as explained in the chapters on children and older people.

The surveys cited above concerning evolving public attitudes about mental illness also monitored how people would cope with, and seek treatment for, mental illness if they became symptomatic. (The term “nervous breakdown” was used in lieu of the term “mental illness” in the 1996 survey to allow for comparisons with the surveys in the 1950s and 1970s.) The 1996 survey found that people were likelier than in the past to approach mental illness by coping with, rather than by avoiding, the problem. They also were more likely now to want informal social supports (e.g., self-help groups). Those who now sought formal support increasingly preferred counselors, psychologists, and social workers (Swindle et al., 1997).

Stigma and Paying for Mental Disorder Treatment

Another manifestation of stigma is reflected in the public’s reluctance to pay for mental health services. Public willingness to pay for mental health treatment, particularly through insurance premiums or taxes, has been assessed largely through public opinion polls. Members of the public report a greater willingness to pay for insurance coverage for individuals with severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia and depression, rather than for less severe conditions such as worry and unhappiness (Hanson, 1998). While the public generally appears to support paying for treatment, its support diminishes upon the realization that higher taxes or premiums would be necessary (Hanson, 1998). In the lexicon of survey research, the willingness to pay for mental illness treatment services is considered to be“soft.” The public generally ranks insurance coverage for mental disorders below that for somatic disorders (Hanson, 1998).

Reducing Stigma

There is likely no simple or single panacea to eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness. Stigma was expected to abate with increased knowledge of mental illness, but just the opposite occurred: stigma in some ways intensified over the past 40 years even though understanding improved. Knowledge of mental illness appears by itself insufficient to dispel stigma (Phelan et al., 1997). Broader knowledge may be warranted, especially to redress public fears (Penn & Martin, 1998). Research is beginning to demonstrate that negative perceptions about severe mental illness can be lowered by furnishing empirically based information on the association between violence and severe mental illness (Penn & Martin, 1998). Overall approaches to stigma reduction involve programs of advocacy, public education, and contact with persons with mental illness through schools and other societal institutions (Corrigan & Penn, 1999).

Another way to eliminate stigma is to find causes and effective treatments for mental disorders (Jones, 1998). History suggests this to be true. Neurosyphilis and pellagra are illustrative of mental disorders for which stigma has receded. In the early part of this century, about 20 percent of those admitted to mental hospitals had“general paresis,” later identified as tertiary syphilis (Grob, 1994). This advanced stage of syphilis occurs when the bacterium invades the brain and causes neurological deterioration (including psychosis), paralysis, and death. The discoveries of an infectious etiology and of penicillin led to the virtual elimination of neurosyphilis. Similarly, when pellagra was traced to a nutrient deficiency, and nutritional supplementation with niacin was introduced, the condition was eventually eradicated in the developed world. Pellagra’s victims with delirium had been placed in mental hospitals early in the 20th century before its etiology was clarified. Although no one has documented directly the reduction of public stigma toward these conditions over the early and later parts of this century, disease eradication through widespread acceptance of treatment (and its cost) offers indirect proof.

Ironically, these examples also illustrate a more unsettling consequence: that the mental health field was adversely affected when causes and treatments were identified. As advances were achieved, each condition was transferred from the mental health field to another medical specialty (Grob, 1991). For instance, dominion over syphilis was moved to dermatology, internal medicine, and neurology upon advances in etiology and treatment. Dominion over hormone-related mental disorders was moved to endocrinology under similar circumstances. The consequence of this transformation, according to historian Gerald Grob, is that the mental health field became over the years the repository for mental disorders whose etiology was unknown. This left the mental health field“vulnerable to accusations by their medical brethren that psychiatry was not part of medicine, and that psychiatric practice rested on superstition and myth” (Grob, 1991).

These historical examples signify that stigma dissipates for individual disorders once advances render them less disabling, infectious, or disfiguring. Yet the stigma surrounding other mental disorders not only persists but may be inadvertently reinforced by leaving to mental health care only those behavioral conditions without known causes or cures. To point this out is not intended to imply that advances in mental health should be halted; rather, advances should be nurtured and heralded. The purpose here is to explain some of the historical origins of the chasm between the health and mental health fields.

Stigma must be overcome. Research that will continue to yield increasingly effective treatments for mental disorders promises to be an effective antidote. When people understand that mental disorders are not the result of moral failings or limited will power, but are legitimate illnesses that are responsive to specific treatments, much of the negative stereotyping may dissipate. Still, fresh approaches to disseminate research information and, thus, to counter stigma need to be developed and evaluated. Social science research has much to contribute to the development and evaluation of anti-stigma programs (Corrigan & Penn, 1999). As stigma abates, a transformation in public attitudes should occur. People should become eager to seek care. They should become more willing to absorb its cost. And, most importantly, they should become far more receptive to the messages that are the subtext of this report: mental health and mental illness are part of the mainstream of health, and they are a concern for all people.


1 Murray & Lopez, 1996.

2 The Surgeon General issued a Call to Action on Suicide in 1999, reflecting the public health magnitude of this consequence of mental illness. The Call to Action is summarized in Figure 4-1.


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