Mental Illness: Concept of

Abstract

At the global level, sufferers of mental illness encounter discrimination and bias, are devalued as persons, and are often disregarded by medical and scientific communities, especially when the illness is unidentifiable within a classification system or diagnostic category. Although there are shared experiences and stories among persons with mental illness, the concept of mental illness is defined and interpreted differently across cultures and contexts. Thus, a singly understood concept may not be fully achievable despite ongoing philosophical and scientific debates about the nature of mind and its relation to the body. However, the divide between eastern and western cultures may begin to shorten with a more holistic understanding of the subject of mental illness – the embodied person. The gap between east and west is not simply filled with a universal medical model or a definition of mental illness, but a common understanding of the human condition and an appreciation of the illness narrative of the embodied person. This is but a brief examination into the complex concept of mental illness and the proposed need for a shared, holistic view of the subject of mental illness within and external to the medical milieu.