>That's more philosophically embarrassing than holding a belief in mind-body dualism that wildly contradicts everything else you believe.

I'm reminded of the annoyance I feel every time certain places start up with their "it's mental health awareness day/week/month/whatever" posts, and crossing over with the "wouldn't say this if it wasn't an anonymous board thread" but putting it here since it's a response:

IMO the biggest hurdle to better "mental health" care is the notion that "mental health" is some sort of separate thing from a concept of whole-body health.

Yes, "mental illness" is real in so far as, like any other organ, the brain can have deformities or chemical imbalances that interfere with it working the way it's supposed to, and being the brain, the symptoms of those malfunctions tend to manifest as strange behavior. And sure, treating those issues is as sensible as treating any other organ malfunction and probably improves the quality of life of people with real health problems.

On the other hand, "mental illness" is often just a convenient excuse for the powers that be to pathologize behavior they don't like. This is very convenient for them, since suddenly you're not a malcontent being persecuted, you're "sick" and need "help", and forcing someone into "treatment for medical reasons" tends to allow sidestepping all the court proceedings that would normally go with trying to jail someone (in countries that have such checks, but even in those that don't the "helping someone who is sick" excuse is good for garnering sympathies from others who might otherwise object). Rather than go with the predictable example that usually gets invoked and leads to the predictable flamewars, have this instead:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania

Between that, and the persistence of "mind = spirit" type conceptions where it's basically a weird reskin of old beliefs about demonic possession and exorcism, is it really any wonder that "mental health" has a stigma attached to it?