Replacing the Term “Mentally Ill”

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Not long ago, the New York Times ran a headline that said, “When the right to bear arms includes the mentally ill.”

And that and some other headlines recently prompted an online essay from journalist Carrie Goldberg.

And she was urging that we drop the term, the mentally ill.

And she had a couple of reasons for this, one of which was that the use of the, in this case, creates a sense of other and separateness and stigma, because you wouldn’t talk about discrimination against the African-Americans or respect for the gays or equal pay for the women.

And another argument that she brought up was the idea that the term mental itself is a problem because so often there are physical components to mental illness. If you’re talking about depression or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, you know, there’s chemistry that goes along with how you feel.

And we posted this article to our Facebook page, and my gosh, the reactions we got ran the gamut from this term has made me cringe for years to I’m sick to death of political correctness.

Yeah, I can see another problem with it being that mental illness is a spectrum of problems.

You can have mild depression, which is completely invisible to the outside.

Exactly.

And then you can have these other mental illnesses, which are utterly visible to the whole entire world.

And it’s difficult to lump all those people together with all these different problems.

Exactly.

Maybe you take medication for anxiety or, you know, phobia is a diagnostic term.

If you have a phobia about public speaking, are you mentally ill?

Are you mentally ill?

It’s a really good question.

Another thing that occurred to me is we, when we talk about, we don’t talk about the disabled or we’re not supposed to.

You talk about people with disabilities.

Exactly.

And it’s exactly the same parallel, I believe.

You are taught when you work with these groups that it is people with disabilities because they are whole people who have something extra.

But there’s another thing here, too.

It occurs to me that describing them by this affliction not only paints with a broad brush, but it’s like saying the acne.

You know, the acne of America.

Right.

Need clear a cell.

Right.

The cancer.

Yeah.

The cancer of America.

It’s a strange way to lump them together and to mark them with this one particular color.

Yeah.

On the other hand, we don’t flinch at saying the elderly.

We don’t.

Maybe that’s a change that will happen.

Who knows?

Yeah.

I want to respond, though, to the complaints of excessive political correctness.

This is a term that I believe is code for I want to do what I want and don’t want to have to take your feelings into account.

When people complain about excessive political correctness, it tends to be that the world isn’t going their way.

I don’t know that such a thing is actually a problem.

I can relate to the idea of, you know, sometimes you really feel like you’re walking on eggshells.

And, yes.

And don’t you need to sometimes?

Well, that’s a really good question.

The consideration for other people.

But then it’s hard to know where to step.

True.

I mean, like.

Life is difficult.

Yes, we make mistakes.

Yes.

It’s not always going to be easy and it’s not always going to go our way.

Well, exactly.

Pity the poor headline writer.

How would you have solved this problem?

Oh, but I’ve known headline writers that should be imprisoned.

This isn’t even their worst offense.

Well, what would you say is an alternative to when the right to bear arms includes the mentally ill?

Would it be the psychiatrically impaired?

I don’t know.

You know, there’s another element to this that I think is worth discussing.

And we’re kind of musing aloud here and not really coming up with firm answers.

True.

And we welcome your responses.

But the movement towards believing in the concept of neurodiversity is important when we’re thinking about this.

This idea that conditions that in the past we saw as abnormal, we’re now starting to think of them as a different kind of normal.

And for example, people with Asperger’s syndrome might be seen as not a problem to be fixed, that they simply exist as they are.

And they’re just outnumbered by other people who don’t have Asperger’s.

And we can take this concept of neurodiversity and start to think about, well, what happens if you start to treat people who have mental illnesses as perfectly ordinary, except for this one little thing in which you help them if they need it?

You know, it’s an interesting idea.

That’s a really good point.

We welcome your thoughts on this.

We don’t have all the answers.

This is a conversation still happening on our Facebook page.

Join us there to talk more about this with us and other listeners, or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.