Misunderstanding mental health hurting families – psychotherapist

Cecelia Campbell-Livingston

Sunday Gleaner Writer

Psychotherapist Vassell Ogilvie said the time has come for more emphasis to be placed on understanding mental illness, which will ultimately lead to many lives being saved.

A societal change, he believes, is needed to transform attitudes towards persons in the society who are suffering with mental illnesses.

Referencing the recent incident where a 24-year-old man allegedly killed both his parents in Christian Pen, Portmore, St Catherine, Ogilvie said the terminology used to describe the man's dastardly act is ‘parricide’.

“Parricide has been theorised by psychologist Kathleen Heide as children who suffer from mental illness. They have sometimes been abused by their parents (abuse can present itself in different form such as physical, sexual, psychological, emotional social, mental, and spiritual). Sometimes these individuals are just antisocial and kill for selfish reasons,” he shared with Family and Religion.

According to Ogilvie, many persons with mental illness are also diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is also imperative to note that schizophrenics, when treated effectively, are no more dangerous than the average person. However, there is a group of schizophrenics with psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations, which can be manifested in aggressive behaviours, especially if they are using drugs and alcohol.

Ogilvie said that mental health is grossly misunderstood in many societies in general, and in Jamaica in particular, many persons who are suffering from mental illness are believed to be demon-possessed or ‘obeahed’. Thus they are denied the opportunity for proper treatment.

The practice of labelling mentally challenged persons as 'mad man' or 'mad woman' also poses an additional problem because many of them are treated as outcasts, and so they walk the streets aimlessly instead of getting access to proper mental-health resources.

Ogilvie said the only time some family members realise that they are dealing with a person with mental-health problems is when they go berserk – harming someone or even taking their own lives.

It is then that they are left puzzled and angry, wondering why a loved one would suddenly turn on them when in reality, he said, they were actually fighting their own demons without any assistance.

Zoning in on the crime and violence facing the country, Ogilvie said it didn’t just happen overnight but was allowed to gradually build up as the family network fell asleep on all the red-flag signals.

“The Diagnostic Statically Manual-5 references 'disruptive control disorder', and if you look closely at some of the problems, these young people (gang members) fit these criteria. They are angry, argumentative, vindictive, distressed, and under severe impairment. Another phase of this mental illness is demonstrated as an 'intermittent explosive disorder',” he explained.

According to Ogilvie, the youngsters' behaviour manifests itself in physical outbursts. They are unable to manage stressful situations, resulting in physical violence (specifically gun violence).

He said, however, that all is not lost, but that as a country, we must admit that we have failed the youth.

“We also need to have a more positive view of mental illness and treat it as a problem. We then need to develop strategies to assist youngsters, from infancy to high school, by developing programmes to assist them with building their self-esteem and how to resolve conflicts,” he noted.

Ogilvie said a better family structure is needed, with both parents in the home as the father's physical absence from the home is detrimental to any child's development.

“Children are growing up alone, and they lack proper socialisation. They need guidance physically and spiritually. I am pleading with the Jamaican fathers to become more active in their children's lives, especially the boys,” he said.