The understanding of mental health has changed drastically throughout history. In the early
stages of understanding mental health the term social deviancy was used to describe mental
disorders. It was in largely connected to poverty and social unproductiveness. The solution
to growing poverty in new bourgeois society was exclusion. The establishment of bourgeois
society demanded the adjustment of social norms and morality. This lead to the exclusion of
not only poor people and beggars but also prostitutes, lepers, homosexuals and anyone who
did not fit the new codes of conduct. The closure and medication of insanity set the
groundwork for the scientific study of insanity, which was established in the 19th century as
a medical science. This gave the understanding of insanity a scientific credibility. The
antipsychiatry movement of the second half of the 20th century began to criticize the
shortcomings of the psychiatric method which was, at the time, based mostly on a
positivistic, biological understanding of mental health. This movement thought that the
mental health of patients is based more on social circumstances than their anatomical
shortcomings. Since then the understanding of mental health is not solely based in medical
theory but incorporates social factors in to its research and understanding. Despite this the
medical field, chiefly psychiatry, still holds a monopoly on public discourse about mental
health. The aim of this research is to show that the understanding of mental health must
transcend solely medical explanations and that its treatment must be more holistic. This
research presents an overview of literature focused on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic
on mental health. The pandemic and the ensuing measures put in place to curb the spread
of the Corona virus have brought important changes to the lives of individuals. The mental
health of populations worldwide has declined sharply during the pandemic. Lockdowns and
school closures are crucial changes which have a decidedly negative effect on mental health.
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