Attitudes of People With Emotional Problems Towards Mental Illness

Abstract

Many specialists in the field of medicine believe that the public should know more about mental health. People affected with mental illness and emotional problems are limited in their emotional growth and compatibility with other human beings. The relief of mental illness and emotional problems has beneficial effects on society as a whole.In the past, attitudes toward mental illness and the mentally ill have varied greatly. In some cultures the mentally ill have aroused fear, revulsion, and disgust resulting in their rejection, neglect, and ill-treatment by society. In other cultures some types of emotional problems were considered to be spiritual blessings and people so affected were given special consideration and tolerance. In other cultures mental illness was regarded as is any other natural disorder which man may possess and thus was treated with understanding and psychotherapeutic techniques. RATIONALE In order to study the attitudes of people with emotional problems toward mental illness, three levels of the Guttman-Jordan Scale were selected. The Guttman-Jordan Scale measures and analyses attitudes toward any kind of specific object or concept in any specific situation. The three levels selected were: (a) Normative Behaviour -what others think about interaction with persons who have emotional problems, (b) Personal Moral Evaluation -what is believed by others to be right or wrong about their attitudes and behaviour toward people with emotional problems, and (c) Personal Feeling -how the subject himself feels toward persons who have emotional problems. These levels of attitude -behaviour were chosen because it was felt they would provide the necessary information needed to conduct the study. ATTITUDE-BEHAVIOUR SCALE AND FACET THEORYThe methodology for this study is based on The Attitude-Behaviour Scale -Mental IllnesslEmotional Problems which uses the facet theory and scaling methods developed by Louis Guttman of the Israel Institute of Applied Social Research and the extensive research of John E. Jordan at Michigan State University. This method measures a continuum of human behaviour from verbal to cognition orientation to overt action. The Attitude-Behaviour scale is a self-report instrument attempting to measure an individual's cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects of life. Utilizing the Attitude-Behaviour Scale, it has been possible to analyze the facet theory and the related elements of attitude, consequently producing a better, more comprehensive and rigorous methodology for the area of attitude investigation.