Mai Xiong - Week 9

In Kai Cheng Thom’s, “Belief in Mental Health” the author provides a critical analysis of mental health definitions and proposes “that mental health was invented to sell us something” (7). Thom believes “what that “something” is shifts and changes depending on who and where you are” (7). The author also articulates that there is a “darker, hidden underside to the definition of mental health...to be mentally healthy means to fit inside the confines of a job and heteronormative conceptions of sexuality/romance, to uphold social conventions of race and class and gender” (7). This reading offered a new way of looking at mental health. I question, what does “normal” really look like? Who gets to say what is “normal” and what is not? When something occurs out of the norms many tend to think of it as an other or weird -- something must be wrong with it because it does not fit into what we are used to.

There seems to be a connection between spirit and mental health when diagnosing human emotions and behavior. Choosing to refer to emotions and behaviors as mental health or spirit has its own benefits and consequences. However, in the current time, mental health seems to be more acceptable than stating that emotion or behavior is a result of spirit. This is because the spirit and the spiritual realm is one that is shuns on. I wonder is this because the spirit realm has a connection to religions? Could it be possible that religion is often coined as a way of coping with life, thus, the belief of a spirit realm is another way of coping?

I think Thom offers an important perspective on the idea of being healthy and what that means. Often having mental health means something is “wrong” and one is not “normal.” Thus, I ask the question of what and who gets to determine normal. I think Thom is right—what and who gets to determine normal go back to how our social structure and systems are organized.

A photo I took while I was aboard in Thailand.

Description: Leaf of a Bodhi tree- the tree that the Buddha sat under and reached enlightenment.