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mental illness

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mental illness

any of various disorders in which a person's thoughts, emotions, or behaviour are so abnormal as to cause suffering to himself, herself, or other people
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

mental illness

disease of the mind. Mental illness varies from transitory episodes of anxiety or depression (see NEUROSES) which interfere with normal daily living through the mood changes involved, to the PSYCHOSES which may require in-patient psychiatric treatment to control the severe changes in mood and behaviour associated with them.

A sociology of mental illness has developed as a response to epidemiological studies which have pointed to social causes of mental illness (e.g. depression and bad housing), and from the impetus of the theories of the anti-psychiatrists, such as LAING (1960) and Szasz (1961). See also ANTI-PSYCHIATRY, MADNESS.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

mental illness

[′men·təl ′il·nəs]
(psychology)
Any form of mental aberration; usually refers to a chronic or prolonged disorder in which there are wide deviations from the normal.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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