Is there any actual objective standard for what constitutes a “mental illness”, or is separating the sick from the sane relatively arbitrary? Is there some kind of actual tangible disease behind mental disorders, it all just a scheme to enforce societal norms and make psychiatrists rich?
There is an actual tangible disease behind some mental disorders. Others we don’t know enough about. The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health (1999) does a good job of explaining how mental illness is just as “real” as cancer.
Psychotropics cause symptoms to go away, therefore mental illness is a real disease.
(Sorry, that was facetious.)
I’m a poet, and I work with the chronically mentally ill. The difference between a schizophrenic and a poet is that I CAN TURN IT OFF. They can’t.
It makes it very difficult for them to function, with a constant barrage of distraction bombarding their brain that originates in their brain but they are disassociated from it.
Training helps. Drugs help. Talking helps. Work and gaining independence helps. Even obscenely overpaid psychiatrists have been known to help on occasion.
Objectively, (to return to the OP) I’d say a demostrable lack of ability to function in spheres such as social, economic, housing, life skills, begin to indicate possible mental illness. You can measure how long someone has held a job, been homeless, etc. If someone is disoriented as to time place and space, that would be something you could observe… unless you think they’re all faking it, which would work against the conspiracy theory that it’s all a scheme.
I believe that psychiatry has functioned as an oppresive arm of society; I believe some people invest way too much value in conformity; I believe this is a deeply flawed world. Still, some people can do some good in some instances.
Then we die.
ps I’m not a real doctor i just play one at work
Well, you’ve opened a whole can of worms. I’ve spent much of the last thirty years trying to make sense of this question.
Are you looking at this from an individual point of view (how crazy am I/ my friends / etc) or from a definitional point of view (sociology, psychiatry etc.)
Mental illness is internal experience that may or may not be turned into behaviour. Society then may or may not see it as illness. All is up for discussion and definition,and this is dependent on the culture and time in which you are living.
A thumbnail sketch of my view is:
1/ There is internal experience that may or may not cause distress to the individual. This may or may not be based on some sort of ‘disease’ process (physical difference in the system that is seen as pathological).
2/ This may affect the way the individual interacts with the world, and this may be viewed negatively by the individual or by others.
3/ This behavioural difference may be categorized as mental illness. Equally, however, it may be classed as badness, normal, or just plain odd (among many other options). Such a classification is heavily dependent on the structure of the society in question.
Is this what you’re looking for, or did you want an ‘answer’?