GENDER AND MENTAL ILLNESS: AN AUSTRALIAN OVERVIEW

Abstract

This article highlights the centrality of gender to mental health nursing practice by providing evidence that gendered assumptions are embedded in psychiatric knowledge. After a brief account of gendered rates of mental illness, the first two-thirds of this article explores formal psychiatric diagnostic criteria, casebook specificity, and processes involved in gaining a psychiatric diagnosis in relation to gender. In contemporary psychiatric practice the two tendencies of overdiagnosis and underdiagnosis are simultaneously evident, with woman-predominant styles of expressing distress being particularly associated with underdiagnosis. The final sections of the article outline gendered attitudes and expectations that impact on clients and their treatment, along with common gendered differences relevant to mental health nursing and people living with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, psychosis, and dual diagnosis.