What are Mental Health Problems?

Feelings of depression, anxiety or confusion
are normal responses to the ups and downs of
modern life.

A person is described as
experiencing mental health problems when
such feelings are so extreme s/he has difficulty
carrying on everyday life.

Depression

It is commonplace to talk about ‘being
depressed’. But depression defined by a
doctor, as ‘clinical depression’ is a severe
version of this. Most people who commit
suicide are seriously depressed.

Anxiety states

Doctors describe chronic fear, tension and
panic attacks as ‘anxiety states’. The
condition is defined as an illness when it
becomes an individual’s main experience and
stops them getting on with everyday activities.

Eating disorders

Starving to the extent of severe, sometimes life
threatening slimness is diagnosed as
‘anorexia nervosa’. Compulsive eating and
vomiting is known as ‘bulimia nervosa’. Both
behaviour patterns are often a way of coping
with psychological or emotional problems.

Psychosis

Psychiatrists use the term ‘psychosis’ when
someone is unable to distinguish clearly
between what is real and what is imaginary, or
what is external or internal to their own
thought processes.

Schizophrenia

The popular understanding of the term, as
describing a Jekyll and Hyde split personality,
is not true. Doctors use the term
‘schizophrenia’ to describe a state of mind in
which people’s sense of their own identity,
thoughts and perceptions go beyond the
range of normal experience. People who hear
voices, for example, or believe that they are
being persecuted by other people may be
diagnosed as having schizophrenia.

Bi-Polar disorder/Manic-depressive illness

Some people experience profound changes in
their mood, which can switch from depression
and lethargy to periods of elation and overactivity.
Doctors call this ‘bi-polar’ or ‘manic
depression’. Some people may move from
depression to elation and back in a week while
others may go through this cycle once a year
or less often.

Dementia

Dementia is caused by a slowly advancing form
of brain damage, although the cause of this is
often unknown. A person with dementia may
become forgetful initially and extremely anxious
and confused as the disease progresses. Twenty
per cent of people over 80 suffer from dementia.

Information taken from the NHS National Institute for Mental health in England Directory 2005

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