Mental illness

A mental illness is an illness of the mind. The term includes psychiatric disorder, psychological disorder, mental disease, mental breakdown, nervous breakdown, mental health conditions.^[2] People with a mental illness may behave in strange ways or have strange thoughts. Mental illnesses can affect the day-to-day functioning of a person.

Mental illnesses develop during the life of a person. This may be linked to genes and experience. What is considered as a mental illness has changed over time. What is considered to be a mental illness may not be one in a different culture. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) by the American Psychiatric Association is used around the world.

People with a mental illness sometimes have problems dealing with other people, or struggle with daily functioning. Treatment and certain medications can help people with daily functioning.

In some cases, mental illnesses change the way the brain works. Many conditions which affect the brain are not mental illnesses, as they do not change the way in which people think: Neither epilepsy nor Parkinson's disease is a mental illness, yet both affect the brain.

1. ↑ "Green Ribbon". Mental Health Foundation. Retrieved 2020-01-14.
2. ↑ "Mental illness – Symptoms and causes". Mayo Clinic. 8 June 2019. Retrieved 3 May 2020.