MENTAL ILLNESS

MENTAL ILLNESS fascinates yet bewilders most people. We are eager consumers of books, motion pictures, magazine stories, and articles about the subject. Psychological terms have entered everyday language. We talk freely of guilt complexes, neurotics, fixations, and phobias. Yet such is the basic bewilderment that when one investigator not long ago tested 3,500 people on their ability simply to recognize mental illness when they saw it,' as demonstrated in six short case histories, most failed to recognize five out of the six as mentally ill.

Many if not most of us need only try to define or distinguish among psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, psychologist, and psychotherapist to realize how tenuous a grip we have on the subject of mental illness. Adding somewhat to the confusion, too, have been conflicting reports -in the public media and from friends and acquaintances-about people who have 'spent months or even years in treatment and seem no better and, on the other hand, about people who, as a result of treatment, seem clearly healthier and happier in marriage, in business, and in general.

Because a knowledge of what is mental illness and what is not, of how to recognize early indications, and of what can be done, can be vitally important for preventive medicine and healthful living, let us examine the subject.