mental illness

Mental Illness Terminology

A brief description of the mental illnesses that are most frequently mentioned in the Mental Illness Report can be found below. This information is provided by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a grassroots advocacy organization in the USA. This and further information can be accessed at www.nami.org. Information can also be accessed on the website of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder, or manic depressive illness, is a serious brain disorder that causes extreme shifts in mood, energy, and functioning. It affects 2.3 million adults in the USA, and is characterized by episodes of mania and depression that can last from days to months. It can run in families. Bipolar disorder is a chronic and generally lifelong condition with recurring episodes that often begin in adolescence or early adulthood, and occasionally even in children. It generally requires lifelong treatment, and recovery between episodes is often poor.

Brain damage

Also of relevance to this report is the issue of serious brain damage that may be equivalent to mental retardation, but which would not be defined as such because it occurred not as a lifelong developmental disability, but as the result of an accident or other traumatic event. The case of Nicholas Hardy in Florida is instructive. In February 1993, 18-year-old Hardy shot himself in the head after he had shot and killed James Hunt, a police officer who had stopped Hardy and three other youths. The suicide attempt left Nicholas Hardy in a coma for several weeks, after which he slowly regained the ability to speak and walk. A competency hearing was held in August 1993 to determine if he could stand trial. He was found to be incompetent due to his self-inflicted brain damage, and he was sent to the Mentally Retarded Defendant Program at Florida State Hospital. There he received training in an effort to restore him to competency. In February 1995, he was found competent to stand trial, and on 14 February 1996, he was sentenced to death. In June 1998, the Florida Supreme Court re-evaluated the aggravating factors in the crime and found that they were outweighed by the mitigating circumstances. The Court noted that the neurological experts who had examined Hardy concluded that his brain damage meant that he "was no longer the same person who killed Sergeant Hunt." It commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment without parole.

Competence

Like insanity, competence is a legal, rather than medical, term. In the USA and many countries, an accused or convicted person must have a capacity to understand the legal process they face and the possible consequences of that process in order to be liable to trial or punishment. Competence must be demonstrated to proceed with a trial, with sentencing the prisoner or with carrying out an execution.

Dissociative disorders

These are so called because they are marked by a dissociation from or interruption of a person's fundamental aspects of consciousness (such as one's identity and history). There are many forms, the best known of which is dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) where an individual has one or more distinct identity or personality that surfaces on a recurring basis. All of the dissociative disorders are thought to stem from trauma experienced by the sufferer.

Insanity

The definition of insanity is a legal rather than medical concept. The first concept of insanity was drawn from English common law (the M'Naghten Rule) and stated that accused persons were absolved of criminal responsibility if they were incapable of understanding their action or its wrongfulness. A finding of insanity could lead to acquittal on these grounds. More recently the concept of "volition" – the capacity of the person to ensure that their behaviour conforms to the law – was introduced in US jurisprudence. A person unable to conform to legal requirements may be ruled to have a diminished level of responsibility.

Major depression

Major depression is a serious medical illness affecting nearly 10 million people in the USA in any given year. It can significantly interfere with an individual's thoughts, behaviour, mood, activity, and physical health. Left untreated, depression can lead to suicide.

Mental disorder

This term encompasses all types of problem with mental function including mental illness, arrested or incomplete development of mind (known as mental retardation), psychopathic disorder and any other disorder or disability of the mind.

Mental illness

This term refers to disorders of thought, mood or behaviour. They are unrelated to intelligence and many can be treated effectively. Examples include depression, anxiety, and psychosis.

Mental retardation

This refers to arrested or incomplete development of intellectual capacity. It starts in childhood and is irreversible. It is not curable, though education and training can improve the life skills of many of those with this disability.

Organic brain syndrome

Organic brain syndrome (also known as organic mental disorder, chronic organic brain syndrome). Organic brain syndrome is a general term referring to physical disorders of the brain arising from disease or trauma that cause decreased mental function such as problems with attention, concentration and memory, confusion, anxiety and depression.

This information is adapted from that provided by the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, and MedicineNet.com

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can occur after someone experiences a traumatic event that caused intense fear, helplessness, or horror. The traumatic events can include war, childhood abuse, rape, natural disasters, accidents and captivity. Symptoms include re-experiencing (e.g. nightmares, flashbacks, hallucinations); avoidance (e.g. lack of recall of the traumatic event, limited range of emotion, feelings of detachment from others, feelings of hopelessness about the future); and increased arousal (e.g. inability to sleep, irritability, outbursts of anger, inability to concentrate, watchfulness, jumpiness).

Schizoaffective disorder

This illness is characterized by a combination of symptoms of schizophrenia and an affective (mood) disorder. Today, most clinicians and researchers agree that it is primarily a form of schizophrenia. For a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, a person must have primary symptoms of schizophrenia (such as delusions, hallucinations or disorganized speech or behaviour) as well as prolonged symptoms of major depression or a manic episode.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a devastating brain disorder that affects approximately 2.2 million adults in the USA. Schizophrenia interferes with a person's ability to think clearly, to distinguish reality from fantasy, to manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. The first signs of schizophrenia typically emerge in the teenage years or early 20s. Most people with schizophrenia suffer chronically or episodically throughout their lives, and are often stigmatized by a lack of public understanding about the disease. A person with schizophrenia does not have a "split personality", and almost all people with schizophrenia are not dangerous or violent towards others when they are receiving treatment. The World Health Organization has identified schizophrenia as one of the 10 most debilitating diseases affecting humans. Symptoms of schizophrenia include hallucinations – hearing or seeing voices or things that are not there – and delusions such as believing that people are reading their mind, controlling their thoughts or plotting against them.