Distinguishing Between Suicidality and Mental Illness

This paper utilizes various different cultural and historical contexts to investigate the modern Western perception of the relationship between mental illness and suicidality. The author first breaks down the nuances and assumptions inherent to the “mental illness” concept, and then uses these complexities to demonstrate that conceptions of suicidality are unjustifiably narrow. Through the examination of modern and historical Japanese, Chinese, Indigenous, and other worldviews, the author demonstrates the plethora of interpretations of human suicidality, and then regards these in light of the previously established fluid idea of mental illness. The paper concludes that suicidality is not inherent or automatic evidence of mental illness, but rather, a nuanced phenomenon that can be indicative of a variety of mental states. As a result, the author encourages a stronger basis in lived experience for suicidality prevention measures.

Illness concepts among patients with benign and malignant mammary tumors

The paper reports variants of subjective illness perception in patients with benign and malignant mammary tumors. The study included 100 patients followed-up in the Vladimirsky Moscow Regional Research Cinical Institute (MONIKI) (50 patients with stage II–III breast cancer and 50 patients with fibrocystic breast changes). The study provided data on subjective illness concept variants for patients of both groups which defined the illness behavior of patients, including the non-compliant behavior. The results obtained may be used for development of disease prevention programs (primary and secondary prevention).

Mental illness, concept of

The mad were once thought to be wicked or possessed, whereas now they are generally thought to be sick, or mentally ill. Usually, this is regarded as a benign decision by a more enlightened age, but some see it as a double-edged sword – one that simultaneously relieved and robbed the mad of responsibility for their actions, eventually delivering more compassionate treatment, but also disguising value-laden judgments as objective science. The issue is made more difficult by the diversity of conditions classified as psychiatric disorders, and by the extent to which their causes are still ill understood. But the difficulty is also conceptual: what, after all, is physical illness? People usually agree that it involves abnormal body functioning, but how do we decide what is normal functioning? And even supposing that we know what we mean by a sick body, is there a parallel notion of a sick mind that is more than metaphor?

Causal Thinking for Objective Psychiatric Diagnostic Criteria: A Programmatic Approach in Therapeutic Context

Terms such as disorder, illness, disease, dysfunction, and deviance embody the preconceptions of historical development (Klein, 1999). That individuals become ill for no apparent reason, suffering from pain, dizziness, malaise, rash, wasting, etc., has been known since prehistoric days. The recognition of illness led to the social definition of the patient and the development of various treatment institutions (e.g., nursing, medicine, surgery, quacks, and faith healers). Illness is an involuntary affliction that justifies the sick, dependent role (Parsons, 1951). That is, because the sick have involuntarily impaired functioning, it is a reasonable social investment to exempt them (at least temporarily) from normal responsibilities. Illness implies that something has gone wrong. However, gaining exemption from civil or criminal responsibilities is often desired. Therefore, if no objective criteria are available, an illness claim can be viewed skeptically. By affirming involuntary affliction, diagnosis immunizes the patient against charges of exploitative parasitism. Therefore, illness may be considered a hybrid concept, with two components: (1) the necessary inference that something has actually, involuntarily, gone wrong (disease) and (2) the qualification that the result (illness) must be sufficiently major, according to current social values, to ratify the sickness exemption role. The latter component is related to the particular historical stage, cultural traditions, and values. This concept has been exemplified by the phrase ‘‘harmful dysfunction’’ (Wakefield, 1992). However, this does not mean that the illness concept is arbitrary since the inference that something has gone wrong is necessary. Beliefs as to just what has gone wrong (e.g., demon possession, bad air, bacterial infection) as well as the degree of manifested dysfunction that warrants the sick role reflect the somewhat independent levels of scientific and social development (for further reference, see Lewis, 1967). How can we affirm that something has gone wrong if there is no objective evidence? The common statistical definition of abnormality simply is ‘‘unusual.’’ Something is abnormal if it is rare. Although biological variability ensures that someone is at an extreme, there is a strong presumption that something has gone wrong if sufficiently extreme.