Child Mental Health, Stigma and Injustice

Child Mental Health: Distributive Injustice, Health Injustice, and Stigmatization. 

Joaquín Díaz Atienza

INTRODUCTION

I believe that the elimination of stigma that produces the Mental illness It is an impossible task. Its perpetuation is fueled both by those of us who claim to fight against it and by those who harbor deep-seated prejudices and/or other unconfessed needs.

It was launched in the 1980s in Andalucía the Psychiatric Reforma reform that would lead to failure because it was more deeply imbued with, even more captive to, a doctrinal and partisan creed, which did not provide the management and scientific tools reasonable.

Taking into account the attempts made in other countries, and their corresponding failures, the Andalusian Mental Health ReformIt was an uncontrolled and completely improvised experiment that would gradually lead to its own failure until it was definitively confirmed with the Decree 77/2008 on Clinical Management UnitsThe reform shifted from magical and utopian thinking to prioritizing purely economic savings over the mentally ill; Cost control takes precedence over the individual's care needs. For example, electroshock therapy has gone from being demonized to being used far too readily.

This conspiracy involves not only unethical, power-hungry professionals, always ready to sell themselves and anyone who gets in their way, but also associations that call themselves "defenders" of the rights of the mentally ill, more than one of which has been bought off by political powers (a situation that persists today). I recommend you also read these two articles related to the topic:

1. 1. PSYCHIATRY: A STIGMATIZED SPECIALTY. SOME STEREOTYPES

1. 1. SOCIAL STIGMA IN PATIENTS WITH ADHD

But what is this apparent libel trying to denounce?

• • I denounce this game with the mentally ill, who, on the one hand, is used as a carnival element, and is played with to represent the "The carnival of madmen" through the streets of Almería ¹in the style of JAqueline Verdeaux, that so impacted Foucault and, at the same time, is used as an accounting commodity;

• • I report that the mentally ill continue to be treated as a rare and dangerous animal that must be segregated from the rest of the patients;

• • I report that mental illness is used as a business opportunity by NGOs subservient to political power, producing an absolute lack of control over the quality and suitability of healthcare;

• • I denounce that only child and adolescent offenders can benefit from certain structures that should belong to the health system and not to justice or social services.

• • I report that children's mental health is the Cinderella of mental health, as demonstrated by the progressive dismantling of resources and the inequality between the different children's mental health units in Andalusia;

• • I report that children and adolescents, contrary to what the Law determines, are not cared for in their own spaces and properly equipped, contributing to the stigmatization and the increase in the anguish that the presentation of a mental health problem already implies in themselves and their families;²

• • I report that when urgent care is needed for psychological or psychiatric reasons, the person is labeled as "mentally ill," a label that not only stigmatizes, but also negatively affects subsequent emergency consultations;

• • I report the overmedicalization of our children and adolescents due to pressure from parents, teachers and the pressures and favors of laboratories, as well as diagnostic and therapeutic fads;

• • I report that the limitations of some organizations force diagnoses so that school-age patients can access certain educational privileges;

• • I report that the convenience of certain teachers forces us to medicalize students, as is evident from the fact that, depending on each teacher, the student is a problem or not;

• • I report that medications with more side effects have to be prescribed in childhood and adolescence simply because they are cheaper;

• • In short, I denounce The trivialization and frivolity with which children and adolescents with mental health problems are treated, despite the grandiloquent political discourse that only serves to deceive those who, fortunately, have not had to face these problems.

1. This article was written as a denunciation of a trend that became popular in Almería, consisting of dressing up chronically mentally ill patients and holding street parades, complete with music. and that he became the laughingstock of the whole world
2. I must admit that the situation has improved in recent years