Md. Arafat Rahman :
Health is the root of all happiness. When the body is not good, we become mentally ill and mentally broken, which is manifested through our behavior. In real life, it is possible to maintain mental well-being through positive emotional states and emotional satisfaction. There is a lack of awareness about mental health in our country, so every human being must have an idea about protecting mental health.
Mental health is the provision of a healthy state of mind and body and harmony with the environment. According to psychologists, all human behavior is purposeful. At the root of this purposeful behavior are some demands. Only when a person accepts all the problems and crises of real life and fulfills his needs through struggle, mental satisfaction is gained and the provision of harmony is possible. Mental health is protected through this successful provision.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is maintained only when a person is mentally, physically and socially healthy and happy and his or her skills are present in all walks of life. A mentally healthy person can understand his or her own abilities, adapt to the natural pressures of life, and contribute to the society. People can become physically ill at any time. The mind has an interrelationship with the body. If the body is sick, the mind may not be well. Our minds sometimes become happy and sometimes sad as a result of interacting with various stimuli in the environment. So it is difficult for a person to be always healthy mentally.
Mental health is widely associated with a person’s behavior, which in most cases is naturally self-defeating and incoherent. This behavior is harmful to individuals and society. The disease manifests itself in several types of debilitating conditions or symptoms. In addition, these symptoms can manifest as mental or physical symptoms or both. Although many people in Bangladesh are suffering from various mental illnesses, this disease is the most neglected in Bangladesh. The prevalence of this disease in Bangladesh is probably almost equal to other developed countries.
Mental illness can be divided into different ways. Mental illness, called psychosis, is characterized by abnormality in thinking, feeling, and behavior. Such an illness makes a person unfit to work in society. In the case of a psychotic patient, insight does not work and the ability to perceive real problems is lost. Abnormalities of thinking in such patients cause confusion. In these patients, a conscious feeling or hallucination usually occurs due to the absence of any appropriate external stimuli. People with such complications in Bangladesh are often referred to as insane.
There are usually two types of psychosis – physical and functional. Obvious abnormalities in the brain and other bodily systems are observed in the case of physical psychosis. Complications of physical psychosis are fatal or chronic. Symptoms of cerebral palsy include loss of consciousness and memory, speech and thinking disorders. In Bangladesh, psychosis and delirium are considered to be the most common forms of psychosis.
Schizophrenia and dementia are two important functional psychosis. The word schizophrenia comes from the Greek language. It means breaking the mind. That is, chaos or lack of communication. Misconceptions, hallucinations, incoherent speech, incoherent behavior and negative perceptions are seen in patients with schizophrenia. About one-fifth of all mental health patients in Bangladesh suffer from schizophrenia. Psychiatric disorders are equally observed in both men and women in Bangladesh.
Neurosis is an emotional complication that manifests itself primarily through anxiety. Neurosis is less severe than psychosis. The neurotic sufferer’s social relationships hamper. Unrealistic and inconsistent fears or anxieties are considered to be the main cause of such complications. Anxiety complications include: panic, fear, general anxiety complications, paranoid complications, post-traumatic stress disorder, and more.
Mental retardation is the degenerative intelligence caused by the defective development of the brain. Lack of intelligence from childhood, short and slow mental development during adolescence, impaired learning ability and poor behavioral and social adaptation are some of the symptoms. It is a disability, but not a disease. Mental health care is underdeveloped in Bangladesh. The official care and treatment of the mentally ill in the country began in 1957 with the establishment of a sixty-bed mental hospital in Pabna. The number of beds was later increased to four hundred.
It has become a common belief that mental illness is caused by supernatural and most of them are incurable. Many mentally ill patients in Bangladesh receive treatment in religious and traditional ways. They also go to fakirs, kabiraj and magicians for treatment. Most of them provide wrong treatment to patients and exploit them. Knowledge and awareness about mental illness in Bangladesh is still at an early stage and there is no advanced center for rehabilitation of mental patients. It is essential to organize seminars, symposiums and workshops to create awareness about mental illness and ensure the availability of modern management facilities.
(Mr. Arafat is Asst. Officer, Career & Professional Development Services Department, Southeast University).
