Modern life is fraught with pressures and anxieties. The hectic lifestyles, desire to win, the extremely tough competition, and the inability to handle disappointment leads to many a psychological problem. Mental health has become a buzzword as one can see innumerable reports on TV and in the print media. Increasingly, people over the world are turning their attention to a much neglected aspect about themselves, their minds. To understand and interpret human behavior and its motivation is a fascinating area of study called Psychology. Psycho-Analysis is another branch that deals with applying Sigmund Freud’s techniques to analyze human behavior.
Sigmund Freud, the Austrian physician has become synonymous with Psycho analysis. After all, it is he who successfully applied new investigation techniques such as catharsis and dream interpretation to unravel what was hidden in one’s mind. A prodigious author, he penned over 40 books in his life time, which laid the foundation for psycho analysis. In the early twentieth century, mental health was synonymous with madness. It was Freud’s techniques of psycho analysis that showed the world that madness was a curable disease. He also went on to show that the manner of healthy men and women also showed signs of neuroses and psychoses, although, not in a debilitating way. He showed that the essential difference between normal and the mad men was not the incidence of these neuroses and psychoses but the ability to handle them.
Modern Mental Health system however adopted principles from other streams of thought such as client-centered research and behavioral therapy. Modern medicine also borrows heavily from the advances made in understanding the anatomy of the human brain and how various regions within the brain work. Today’s mental health system gives a more holistic therapy borrowing from various schools of thought.
A list of mental illnesses along with their causes, etiology, and possible remedies has been codified. The American Psychological Association’s (APA) DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is the most respected and most followed classification of mental illnesses. Today’s systems deal with a wide range of disorders such as addictions, schizophrenia, neuroses, psychoses, sleep disorders, psycho sexual ailments and so on. Stress and anxiety related disorders are widely known but neglected area. More working professionals fall prey to these disorders due to the long hours at work and general deterioration of meaningful relationships and alienation from society. Health systems extend a warm and friendly hand by offering counseling, medical treatment, and information. Training people and their families to battle the mental disease existing in one person’s mind, together is the goal striven for by modern mental health systems.