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What is Mental Illness?

Mental illness is a term that refers to all the different types of mental disorders, including disorders of thought, mood or behaviour. To be classified as a mental illness, the condition must cause distress and result in a reduced ability to function philologically, socially, occupationally or interpersonally.

This means that someone who has mental illness may have trouble coping with their emotions, stress and angry, trouble handling such things as daily activities, family responsibilities, relationships or work and school responsibilities. They may experience difficulty, to a greater or lesser degree, with one area or all of them. People can have more than one type of mental illness at the same time.

What is a psychiatric disability?

“Psychiatric Disability” is the term used when a mental illness is debilitating enough to result in severe disruptions to daily life. Not everyone who experiences mental illness is disabled by their illness. The distinction is a question of how severe the effect of the mental illness is, not what the mental illness is.

What are the classes of mental illness?

The more common forms of mental illness are described as:

• Mood disorders: These include disorders that change how you feel, such as persistent sadness or feelings of euphoria. They include major depression and bipolar disorder.
• Anxiety disorders: Anxiety is an emotion characterised by the anticipation of future danger or misfortune accompanied by a feeling of being ill at ease. Examples include panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and specific phobias and generalised anxiety disorder.
• Substance-related disorders: These include problems associated with the misuse of alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and prescribed and illicit drugs.
• Psychotic disorders: These disorders impair a person's sense of reality. The most notable example of this is schizophrenia, although other classes of disorders can be associated with psychosis at times.
• Cognitive disorders: These disorders influence the ability to think and reason. They include delirium, dementia and memory problems. Perhaps the most well-known of these disorders is Alzheimer’s disease.
• Developmental disorders. This category covers a wide range of problems that usually first begin to make themselves known in infancy, childhood or adolescence. They include autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and learning disabilities. But just because they’re all grouped in this category doesn’t necessarily mean they share a common cause or that there’s a relationship among the disorders.
• Personality disorders. A personality disorder is an enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that is dysfunctional and leads to distress or impairment. Examples include borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder.
• Other disorders. These include disorders of impulse control, sleep, sexual functioning and eating. Also included are dissociative disorders, in which a person’s sense of self is disrupted, and somatoform disorders, in which there are physical symptoms in the absence of a clear physical cause, such as hypochondriacs.

What is Recovery?
Although there are many perceptions and definitions of recovery, William Anthony, Director of the Boston Centre for Psychiatric Rehabilitation seems to have developed the cornerstone definition of mental health recovery.

Anthony (1993) identifies recovery as:
“Recovery is a deeply personal, unique process of changing one’s attitudes, values, feelings, goals, skills and/or roles. It is a way of living a satisfying, hopeful, and contributing life even with limitations caused by the illness. Recovery involves the development of new meaning and purpose in one’s life as one grows beyond the catastrophic effects of mental illness.”

Ultimately, because recovery is a personal and unique process, everyone with a psychiatric illness develops his or her own definition of recovery. However, certain concepts or factors are common to recovery.  Some of these are listed below.

HOPE
Hope is a desire accompanied by confident expectation. Having a sense of hope is the foundation for ongoing recovery from mental illness. Even the smallest belief that we can get better, as others have, can fuel the recovery process.

MEDICATION / TREATMENT
Sullivan (1997) While many people are frustrated by either the process of finding the right medications or in managing the side effects of such, most people with a psychiatric disorder indicate that medications are critical to their success. For many, the goal is not to be medication-free, but to take the least amount necessary.
Likewise, mental health consumers often report that mental health professionals and treatment programs are valuable to their recovery. This is especially so when consumers feel they are engaged in a partnership with their treatment provider and are involved in their treatment planning.

EMPOWERMENT
Empowerment is the belief that one has power and control in their life, including the power over their illness. Empowerment also involves taking responsibility for yourself and advocating for yourself and others. As consumers grow in their recovery journeys, they gain a greater sense of empowerment in their lives.

SUPPORT
Support from peers, family, friends and mental health professionals are essential to recovery from mental illness. It is especially beneficial to have multiple sources of support. This not only reduces a consumer’s sense of isolation, but also increases their activity in the community, allowing them to obtain an integral role in society.
In addition to support from individuals, participation in support groups is an important tool for recovery. Consumers frequently report that being able to interact with others who understand their feelings and experiences is the most important ingredient for their recovery.

EDUCATION / KNOWLEDGE
In order to maximise recovery, it is important to learn as much as possible about our illnesses, medications, best treatment practices and available resources. It’s also important to learn about ourselves, including our symptoms so that we can gain better control over our illnesses.
Consumers can educate themselves by speaking with health care professionals, attending workshops and support groups, reading books, articles and newsletters, browsing the internet and participating in discussion groups.

SELF-HELP
While most consumers recognise the value of professional treatment, self-help is often viewed as the conduit to growth in recovery. Self-help can take many forms including learning to identify symptoms and take actions to counteract them, reading and learning about an illness and its treatment, learning and applying coping skills, attending support groups and developing a support system to rely on when necessary.

SPIRITUALITY
A broad definition of spirituality is that it’s a partnership with one’s higher power. For many consumers spirituality provides hope, solace during their illness, peace and understanding and a source of social support.

EMPLOYMENT/MEANINGFUL ACTIVITY
Frequently, when we meet new people, they ask “what do you do?”  Whether it is fair or not, what we do shapes others’ opinions of who we are.  As a result, it is common for a person’s identity to be significantly impacted by what they do.  Likewise, what a person does influences his/her confidence, esteem, social role, values, etc.  Simply put employment/meaningful activity affords most consumers the opportunity to regain a positive identity, including a sense of purpose and value.

References
Anthony, W. A. (1993). Recovery from mental illness: The guiding vision of the mental health service system in the 1990’s. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 16(4), 11-23.)
Sullivan, W.P. (1997).  A long and winding road: The process of recovery from severe mental illness.  In L. Spaniol, C. Gagne and M. Koehler (Ed.), Psychological and social aspects of psychiatric disability (pp. 14-24).  Boston: Centre for Psychiatric Rehabilitation.