Mental Illness |
|
|
|
|
||
|
Mental illness is such a slippery term that we find ourselves substituting others for it-mentally disturbed, severely disturbed, troubled, disordered, distressed. They turn out to be just as slippery. Medical professionals use terms such as neurotic, psychotic, paranoid, schizoid, and schizophrenic. In the old days people were just called crazy. The most common form of mental illness is neurosis. Neurosis may be viewed as expressions of conflict-conflict between impulse and reality, between one impulse and another, between desires and duties that are irreconcilable. Conflict is normally we all express it in our daily lives. Conflict may be conscious or unconscious.
Most of us accept conflicts as part of life. They may cause temporary upsets, but they pass and we go on. But some upsets are not temporary, and some responses are out of proportion to the actual situation. People who have difficulty adapting to conflicts, who overact to their situation, 1nay be called neurotic.
A person who fails to adapt to these stresses may express his mal-adaptation in various ways-through depression, anxiety, sleeping or eating disorders, or excessive drinking. Neurotics repeat the the same behavior patterns over and over.
Other mental illnesses include phobias (strong and unreasonable fears) and psychomatic disorders. Emotional factors contribute heavily to illnesses such as ulcers, asthma, obesity, high blood pressure. Our bodies and minds are so linked that doctors estimate that more than half the ailments they treat have a psychological component. The last two major mental illnesses are schizophrenia and depression. Schizophrenics have a distorted, fragmented view of reality. The diagnosis of depression is a matter of degree. The depressed person feels tired, hopeless, powerless. Severe depression can be treated with drugs. Mental illness is America’s primary public health problem. It costs us $21 billion yearly and strikes 10 percent of the population.
|
||