Mental Disorders

Mental Disorders

Health Professionals view mental and emotional problems as a continuum, with many fine shadings between the “optimum health” end and the end representing serious mental illnes.

When an individual is having difficulty coping with life problems, there is no single moment at which he or she can be said to have developed an actual mental disease. Nevertheless, for the purpose of study and treatment, mental health professionals have identified a range of specific mental problems that they term “mental disorders”. This term covers a wide variety of difficulties, ranging from disorders of behavior such as violent outbursts, to disorders of feeling such as depression, to disorders of thinking such as schizophrenia. Some are organically based, such as presenile dementia (Alzheimer`s disease); others are associated with environmental factors, such as combat stress,. The majority of mental disorders, however, probably fall somewhere in between: Physical problems, environmental stress, and problems of early psychosocial development may all play a role.

We should not be ashamed of mental disorders of think of them as “mysterious diseases”, even though their causes are not always understood. People who suffer from these disorders are just as human as the rest of us-they may be the man or woman down the hall, your best friend, a family member, or yourself.

And let us make one more very important point: According to modern thinking, just being “different” does not necessarily mean that an individual has a mental disorder. When today`s psychiatrists are considering whether an individual is suffering from a mental disorder, they look at the degree of distress or disability that is associated with the individual`s condition. They try to see, for example, whether the abnormal behavior is disturbing to the individual or disrupts his or her life. A person may be socially deviant-he or she may be a thief or a transvestite, for example, or may do things that other people consider odd or unpleasant-but this does not necessarily mean the person is mentally disabled.

It is difficult to distinguish between mental health and mental disorder-and, not surprisingly, it is just as hard to classify the mental disorders themselves. Human behavior is far too complex to be easily categorized. Yet some definitions must exist so that mental health professionals can establish common ground for discussion and treatment. Over the years, most practitioners and researchers have come to accept-if with occasional misgivings-the categories suggested by the American Psychiatric Association in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, as it is popularly known.

The third edition of DSM, published in 1980, raised a storm of controversy because it did away with many standard classifications-including neorosis, the familiar mental disorder everybody talked about at cooktail parties. Neurosis was gone; in its place the new DSM used such term as “anxiety” or “personality disorder”. Gone too was homosexuality as a classified disorder. Preferring not to label those who might simply be deviant, but not mentally disturbed, DSM-III stated that homesexuality is considered a mental disorder only if the individual is unhappy with his or her sexual orientation.

It is important to remember that each mental disorder is not a separate, sharply defined condition. Sometimes an individual may suffer from more than one disorder.

References :

Marvin R Levy, Mark Dignan, Janet H Shirreffs, Essentials of Life & Health, Fourth Edition, Random House, New York, 1984.

Amaerican Pychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd ed, Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1980.