A mental illness, as defined in psychiatry and other mental health professions, is an abnormal mental condition or disorder associated with significant distress and/or disfunction. This can involve cognitive, emotional, behavioral and interpersonal impairments. The concept of an 'illness' of the mind is often taken to imply a medical condition with a specific pathology that causes the signs and symptoms, a view that is the subject of much research and debate.
Similar but sometimes alternative concepts include: mental disorder, psychological or psychiatric disorder or syndrome, emotional problems, emotional or psychosocial disability. The term insanity, sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for mental illness or irrationality, is used technically as a legal term.
Specific disorders often described as mental illnesses include major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, to name a few. Mental illnesses have been linked to both biological (e.g. genetics, neurochemistry, brain structure) and psychosocial (e.g. cognitive biases, emotional problems, trauma, socioeconomic disadvantage) causes. Different schools of thought offer different explanations, although current research employing the term 'mental illness' would most probably originate in a biopsychiatry point of view. Mental illnesses have been associated with impaired functioning, for example ability to work or manage socially, and sometimes also to high function, for example creativity. Cross-cultural studies suggest that what is seen as (the symptoms of) a mental illness in one culture may be accepted or valued in another, may manifest differently, or may not appear at all.
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