This question is inspired by the movie gothika.Halle Berry's character is a Dr.there is a point where she is diagnosing her own mental illness in 1 of the scenes.?
201712
Everyone, including psychiatrists, are allowed to plead insanity.  But, keep in mind that "insanity" is actually a legal term, not a medical term.  Interestingly, a lawyer is probably more qualified to determine insanity than a psychiatrist.  \n\n"Insanity" means that someone is of unsound mind for any legal transaction, including imprisonment.
177299
You're not describing mental illness.  You are describing assholism.\n\nMental illness is disturbed behavior in a specific, recognized pattern that is clearly identifiable and the same from person to person with the same disease.  More importantly, specific treatments tend to make the behavior better when applied to anyone who has been identified as having the specific mental illness.  The most common mental illnesses in society are depression, anxiety and eating disorders.  Clearly identifiable and reliably treatable are what identify mental illnesses.\n\nAssholism, on the other hand, is a moral issue.  The person is normal.  Problems are with attitudes, philosophies and beliefs.  Often, the person takes advantage of our overly cultured and non-violent society to get away with behaviors that 50 years ago would have resulted in him getting an extreme beating.  The best way to deal with this is to ostracize them.
465959
Registered Nurse Here; Well sir, in 24 years working as a nurse, I have seen lots and lots of things.  I strongly believe this woman has a mental illness.  It's apparent she has a strong ad-version to death, it is also very apparent she has a significant mental disorder, evident by the spitting and sucking of fingers.  There is a name for this, but dang it, I cannot think of it. Okay I'm not a Doctor therefore I cannot diagnosis, however I believe this falls under the category of personality disorder, such as when one cuts themselves, or cause some other harmful act to there body, and what you have described is harmful to the body, plus maladaptive coping mechanisms.  Thanks for the opportunity to address such a interesting question.
76293
could also be schizophrenia
658135
They both diagnose an illness.  You should always see both though for effective treatment.  A psychiatrist will more apt to run tests--physical and mental ones.  They go by what you tell them is going on in your life and how you are feeling.  They will both probably encourage you to get some blood work done to check your thyroid and sugar levels, to see if that is possibly a problem. Those cause you to be imbalanced majorly, so they will want to rule that out before going for the medicine.  And yes, only a doctor/psychiatrist can order those tests.
434475
The film's wealthy and charming main character is in a car crash with his psychotic admirer and his face is horribly disfigured.  Consequently, he suffers from some real self-esteem issues, and his newly found romance with the girl of his dreams fades out almost before it began.  However, he takes advantage of new technology which allows his brain and consciousness to continue "living" in a dream-like state while his body is cryogenically frozen.  This advanced program allows the participant forget his/her "death", thus providing a self-guided illusion of reality making the person believe that he is still alive.  After the point where the dream begins (the moment of the splice is indicated in the movie) everything is basically a very realistic dream.  Like in all dreams, what happens is controlled (at least subconsciously) by the person experiencing the dream.  The strange things that happen in the second half of the movie (the two female characters switching back and forth, his face switching back and forth between being disfigured and not, the strange circumstances surrounding his crime) are products of his own mental torment.  Finally, the people who run the dream program make contact with the main character within his dream and inform him of what has been going on.  He realizes the truth and is thus able to come to terms with what has happened.  At the very end, he chooses to end the dream and come back to life.
293593
In 1890 Chocolate King Hershey built the utopian city Hershey in Illinois to prove that very thing. I am sure there was a difference in mental illness rates back then. Remember cultural rates reported in America show that whites have twice as much mental illness as non-whites today. So cultures can make a difference. Would it be cost effective to give patients sex and money and no pills. I am going to say yes but who will say OK.
92180
The word "bipolar" is simply a label used to categorise a list of psychosocial traits that Psychiatry considers to be improper or abnormal in society. Psychiatry defines these traits as a "mental illness", and promotes it as a "disease" that requires "treatment".\n\nIt is not a "disease", despite claims or implications made by certain psychiatric and pharmaceutical organisations. There is NO credible scientific evidence that shows the existence of what constitutes "bipolar" as a biological/neurological disorder, brain abnormality or "chemical imbalance".\n\n"For a disease to exist there must be a tangible, objective physical abnormality that can be determined by a test such as, but not limited to, blood or urine test, X-Ray, brain scan or biopsy. All reputable doctors would agree: No physical abnormality, no disease. In psychiatry, no test or brain scan exists to prove that a 'mental disorder' is a physical disease. Disingenuous comparisons between physical and mental illness and medicine are simply part of psychiatry's orchestrated but fraudulent public relations and marketing campaign." Fred Baughman, MD., Neurologist & Pediatric Neurologist.\n\n"Chemical imbalance…it’s a shorthand term really, it’s probably drug industry derived… We don’t have tests because to do it, you’d probably have to take a chunk of brain out of someone - not a good idea." Dr. Mark Graff, Chair of the Committee of Public Affairs for the American Psychiatric Association. July, 2005.\n\nSymptoms that psychiatry labels as "bipolar" (or it's related disorders), can stem from any number of variable sources. Many people, for example, have overcome "bipolar" through megavitamin therapy and effective nutrition. A growing wealth of evidence supports that underlying nutritional deficiencies can cause even the most severe mental disorders, including symptoms labelled as "schizophrenia" [See source refs]\n\nBottom line? Psychiatry is a belief-system, a "faith", not a science. Despite the huge marketing strategies, the so-called "research" and all the propaganda thrown at the world, there is not one iota of scientific evidence that proves that "schizophrenia" or ANY mental illness, in fact, exists as an actual --medical disease--.\n\nThe U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health states: “The precise causes (etiology) of mental disorders are not known” and that “there is no definitive lesion, laboratory test, or abnormality in brain tissue that can identify the illness.”\n\nIf you have been told differently then know this: You have been lied to.\n\nFor more information, please visit:\n\nhttp://groups.msn.com/psychbusters\nDecoding Psychiatric Propaganda\n\nFor information on non-drug / alternative approaches:\n- http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/default.htm#B\n- http://www.pendulum.org/articles/articles_misc_lisaalt.html\n- http://www.truehope.com/_empowerplus/empowerplus.asp\n- http://www.mentalhealthproject.com/content.asp?id_Content=1575
265476
I don't think it can be categorized as a medical disorder, but it is a definite reality because yesterday when I hit my YA toolbar, the screen came up saying "user suspended" and was talking to myself (another disorder) saying "what did I do?" "what could I have said?" "OMG what am I gonna do without YA?", etc.  Maybe the Yahoo Answer Addiction Disorder is worse than the Suspension Anxiety Disorder.
550504
Yeah, have heard of this before, believe it or not.\n\nThe word you're looking for is co-dependency.\n\nIt isn't an official mental illness, though, it's more of a bastardized mental illness that the psychiatric community gave up researching and studying because they just couldn't find out what caused it, which explains why there is no knowledge of it in our society, and people who have it like this man are instead called "lazy" or "mama's boys".\n\nMy uncles and other people in my own family have had this illness and it is for real.\n\nLike I said, the roots of it are very complex and it is hard to treat, but treatment for it has to start with psychiatric counselling for a long time, and possibly anti-anxiety medications as well.\n\nFor men like this one, it is almost always a result of not having a father or other man in their lives to teach them to be strong and independent for themselves, so they never learn the skills they need to cope and just rely on someone else to take care of them, almost always their mother.\n\nAll I can say as to what help this man should get is to find a good psychiatrist or psychologist, or to find a support group for people with low-grade or unspecific mental illnesses in the phone book or on the web, and more importantly pray for him, and get his brother or mom to find a priest or pastor for him to talk to and confide in as well.
336728
Some Axis 1 illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are very likely to run in families and there have been many studies (identical twins separated at birth have been especially helpful) to support this.  Other illnesses, like PTSD and personality disorders, are mostly due to environment--though a person may have a genetic predispotion to develop them.  Mental illnesses are defined and diagnosed according to symptoms and behaviors; there really aren't many physically discernable/measurable characteristics.  For example, a blood sample can provide evidence of an infection because of the prescence of viral cells or bacteria, but a doctor can't look at the same sample and see a traumatic childhood or wildly fluctuating dopamine levels (at least not yet).  Since a few illnesses so commonly run in families, doctors may use heredity as a guide when they make a diagnosis, but they would still need to see a patient exhibit symptoms.  Genetics may be a key component to some mental illness, but it isn't everything by a long shot.  For example, having a schizophrenic twin doesn't suggest that a person is schizophrenic nearly as much as lining your hat in aluminum foil to keep government sattelites from controlling your brain.
342963
There are four distinct subcategories of mental disorder stipulated in Section 1 of the Act - mental illness, mental impairment, severe mental impairment and psychopathic disorder.\n\nThese categories are not well defined in the Act, indeed, mental illness is not defined at all. Mental impairment is defined as "a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind ... which includes significant impairment of intelligence and social functioning and is associated with abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct on the part of the person concerned". Severe mental impairment has a similar definition but with the word "significant" replaced with "severe". Psychopathic disorder is defined as a "persistent disorder or disability of mind (whether or not including significant impairment of intelligence) resulting in abnormally aggressive or seriously irresponsible conduct".\n\nThese categories do not necessarily correspond to medical categories of mental disorder such as those outlined in ICD-10 or DSM-IV; the type of mental disorder afflicting a particular person is very much left up to the clinical judgement of the individual doctor. However, the category "mental illness" is thought by most psychiatrists to cover schizophrenia, anorexia nervosa, major depression, bipolar disorder and other similar illnesses, "(severe) mental impairment" to cover mental retardation (learning disability) and "psychopathic disorder" to cover the personality disorders.\n\nThere are very few exclusions to these definitions of mental disorder. The Act states that one cannot be suffering from a mental disorder "by reason only of promiscuity or other immoral conduct, sexual deviancy or dependence on alcohol or drugs".
100131
I work with Adults with mental illness. I am also raising 2 of my siblings with it. My father on the other hand is a schizo. I am not and neither are any of my siblings. Though they do have Bi-polar, Mild mental retardation, add, adhd. I told my doctor this before my husband and I first started to try and she told me to take a high dose of Folic Acid. I am 9 weeks pregnant. I feel fine about the decision. \nSchizophrenia can be heridiry. You will not see signs of it until the teenage years. Those of them with it that show signs in the teenage years have a better chance of responding to treatment than those that show symptoms in the 20's.
308700
a doctor comes to mind.
363336
OK, so it's a mood disorder and a serious mental illness. It has a strong genetic component, but appears to be triggered environmentally. There are no diagnostic tests for it, just psychiatric evaluation. Most sufferers are not diagnosed until middle age, and it takes an average of around 8-10 years to get a correct diagnosis. Historically, figures suggested it affects about 0.8% of the population at some point, which makes it about half as common as schizophrenia. In recent years, bipolar disorder has become an 'in' diagnosis, and many more people are being diagnosed at younger and younger ages. As with ADHD, this fad may well pass with time, although for the moment many celebrities appear to be 'popularising' it.\n\nIt is characterised by episodes of severe clinical depression and mania or hypomania (for definitions of those, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_diagnostic_criteria_for_bipolar_disorder ). The extreme end of mania often turns into psychosis, complete with hallucinations and delusions. During manic phases, the person's judgement and perception of reality is severely compromised, leading to risky actions with potentially damaging consequences (financially, sexually and relationship-wise). Untreated, episodes generally worsen over time due to an effect known as kindling. Untreated Bipolar sufferers are at a very high risk of suicide: 20-25% attempt it, and 15% succeed.\n\nThe cycles in bipolar disorder are much longer than people generally believe. Anyone whose mood changes from minute to minute is very unlikely to be bipolar. Bipolar 1 is characterised by mood episodes lasting many months, while Bipolar 2 has episodes in the region of weeks to months. Rapid and ultra-rapid cycling bipolar disorder is rare, and cycles last days to weeks.\n\nThere are many drugs available to treat the symptoms of bipolar (there is no cure). These are either anti-convulsants or anti-psychotics (personally I take both), and the most well known of these is Lithium. Most patients will go through a number of different drugs before finding one that works for them.
71268
Speaking to spirit guides - I believe that.\nWe come from the spirit world - you got me.\nHere to develop ourselves - not sure I believe that's the purpose of life, but I do believe it takes place.\nIs she lying?  I'm not familiar with her, so I don't know if she's lying - she may just be writing what she believes.\nCould she be mentally ill?  Not because she believes what she does.  She may just be whacked, which is not the same thing as mentally ill.  Or maybe she is, but I think her beliefs and her state of mind are not necessarily connected.\n\nWhat would a doctor make of her claims?  Well, he won't order her off to the nuthouse because of them.  It depends on the doctor.  However, I suspect most doctors are left brain, scientific types, so they'd probably just say "poo."
120510
My personal opinion, mental illness.