Originally Posted by
singing_in_the_rain
I was just shocked at how different mine and the prisons definition of a mental health problem is.. How can seriously self harming men be "cleared of any mental health problems"?? Disturbed and unpredictable people, really badly hurting themsleves. How is that not mental illness?
First of all, I would like to point out that self-harming is not equivalent to a mental illness. People can self-harm without being mentally ill, just as people an be mentally ill without self-harming. Whilst in many cases self-harm is a symptom of mental illness, this is not always the case. People self-harm for many reason (because voices tell them to, to feel pain/emotion, as a coping mechanism) and in prison this is no different. Just because someone has learnt that a valid way for them to cope with stress (in this case often the stress of being locked away from reality) is for them to harm themselves, this does not equate to mental illness.
I was also hit by the sentence describing a man who was deemed not to have any mental health problems "so it must be anger management or a personality disorder instead"
My second point is with regards to the issues surrounding mental health problems and personality disorders. I think the misunderstanding here is that the type of personality disorder has not been specified. Although most personality disorders are indeed of a psychiatric nature there are some (anti-social personality disorder for example) which has some roots in psychiatric nature, but is also very strongly based in behavioural and environmental aspects and are thus not always seen as being an issues with mental health as such.
Finally, having myself watched the programme, I feel the need to remind you that only ONE person in that hour long episode had any psychological training, and that was the psychiatrist who was features for about a total of 3 minutes if that. None of the nurses or prison wardens within the episode would have been trained in either psychiatry or forensic psychology. As such it would be perfectly understandable for them to not fully understand the differences and similarities between mental illnesses and personality disorders.
With regards to your own diagnosis, nothing should allow you to undermine what you have been told by specialists who have seen you. Only someone who has seen you and assessed you can understand your unique group of symptoms, and thus pass judgement on what your possible diagnosis is, therefore do not let anything you read or hear interfere with that in any way.