Mental Illness

MENTAL ILLNESS is regarded by many as the most important health problem in the United States. The American Hospital Association reports that one of every two hospital beds in the country is occupied by a person who is mentally ill. One out of every four Americans will at some time in his or her life suffer such serious mental illness as to require hospitalization or intensive clinic or office treatment. Case studies in both rural and urban areas disclose that 8 out of 10 of us will some time in our lives be disturbed enough to need psychiatric help or to have benefited from it if it could have been obtained.

It is estimated that 50 to 70 per cent of the patients going to a family doctor suffer from illness of an emotional rather than a physical nature. In addition to the enormous amount of disability caused by this foremost of all crippling diseases, mental illness is also a leading cause of death. Suicide, an obvious result of mental disease, is now stated to be the eighth cause of death in America. The figure would be higher if automobile fatalities were included, for traffic authorities are convinced that about 20 per cent of fatal accidents are actually successful suicides. These, then, are the simple but startling dimensions of the problem of mental illness.

The problem is complicated by other factors. First of all, since the human body can react in only a limited number of ways, mental illness often mimics the symptoms of physical illness. Differentiation between the two is impossible for the medically-untrained person, and it is often difficult for the physician.

Second, it is now an accepted fact that certain kinds of emotional upset can actually bring about physical changes in the body, either in its function or in its anatomical structure. Examples of such physical illnesses deriving from psychological causes are high blood pressure, peptic (stomach or duodenal) ulcers, migraine headache, some 'types of colitis, asthma, and hives. There -are many other illnesses, thought in the past to be purely physical, in which an emotional cause is suspected but not yet proved beyond doubt.

Third, there is some confusion in the use of terms. Some would use the phrase "emotional illness" to refer to those illnesses of a mild nature, caused by purely emotional factors, and the diagnosis "mental illness" to refer to major disease, especially that produced by some physical or chemical change in the brain.