Illness or problem?

Without "depression" and the idea of mental illness to excuse the human condition life would be very difficult for many people. The labour force should be as much like robots as possible and as time goes on the human being is replaced by robots such as in the car manufacturing industry. Without this way of explaining  and excusing the human condition those that are depressed are seen without compassion.

The fundamental idea of depression as a mental illness is based on a neurological deficit however this is not really how the word is used. "misery" is perhaps more appropriate or "intense unhappiness" for what it really means, so patients with terminal cancer are very miserable when they are facing the end of their life. The truth is that this misery may or may not present as a 'chemical imbalance' (a term and concept I disagree with). Treatments such as LSD for depression don't aim to recitify any chemical imbalance in hallucinogeons but work on the psychological and spiritual aspects of an individual.

The depression criteria excludes grief so if a supposed chemical imbalance happens following a bereavement it is not a mental illness. This is another example of how the fundamental idea of mental illness (Kraeplinian ostensive definition) is disregarded. If mental illness were really mental illnesses then there wouldn't be this exclusion.

There are classic mental illness such as organic dementia. This is genuinely an illness. As far as I am aware based on current medical science dementia is irreversible. It used to be treated by psychopharmaceuticals and probably still is however these drugs, as far as I am aware, are unable to regenerate grey or white matter.

This example is useful to see where the terms "mental health problem" is useful. People with dementia are problematic. Their problematic nature can be 'treated' by doctors. The treatment does not resolve the problem nor does it correct any chemical imbalance in dopamine. Antipsychotics were used as the "chemical cosh" to treat the problematicness rather than the genuine illness.

In the example of dementia people put up with the elderly until the change towards the nuclear family where the third generation were moved out of the household. The elders lived on their own or were put into homes. As they dtetriorated their sons and daughters went to seek help from doctors who had seen the power of antipsychtoics in 'treating' schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses/problems. The knowledge that when people get old some become demented seemed to disappear from the common consciousness and the option of something that took away the external problematicness so their dying parent became docile was what the desired outcome became rather than accepting this currently untreatable but problematic behaviour (problematic because people don't have time to look after their elders as they used to).

There is a large body of work that indicates a biological cause for mental illness however the entire body of evidence has not created a scientific fact. Interpretation is they key in my opinion. A guy called Meehl came up with an idea called schizotaxia. It is a hypothesis that is yet unproven but it says that there's a genetic type that places a person on the schizophrenia spectrum. Through environmental factors they may recieve a diagnosis of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorder (and current evidence points to bipolar being included in this), schizotypal personality disorder or schizotypy (a non-pathological state that may become pathologised through the new psychosis risk syndrome classifications that may be seen in DSM-V and ICD-11).

This may be established one day and it could be interpreted to show that schizophrenia and its ilk is really a mental illness, however it could also be used to say that this is a type of human being. The arguments used by genetic arguments used by homosexuality campaigners in the 1970s explained that homosexuality was natural because of the genetic evidence rather than seeing it as a genetic illness. The problematicness or undesireability (which I am ardently against) of homosexuality changed in the latter 20th century as society grew to accept difference and psychiatrists chose to see those who have a different sexual preference as normal rather than ill.

The illness or problem debate is moot to psychiatrists because they use another language all together. Emotional and behavioural disorders.