Are Mental Illnesses and Personality Disorders Actually Real?

Question by Wülfenstein: Are mental illnesses and personality disorders actually real?
Or are they just big misunderstandings?

I mean mental illnesses (i.e. Bipolar disorder, Schizophrenia) and personality disorders.

What about animals? What’s the story behind them? We’ve never seen animals with mental illnesses before, have we? Amphibians, Dinosaurs, Insects, Mammals, Reptiles etc…not one of them has been demonstrated to have a mental illness or “personality disorder”.

Do animals HAVE personality disorders? Mental illnesses? Or are they just complete fabrications or misunderstandings?

So why are humans among the few species on Earth that have mental illnesses?

I know that disorders like Autism and Down’s Syndrome etc. are real, but they are usually caused by accidents during birth. Brain damage also exists, and can exist among animals as well.

Technically, anyone who is considered “unusual” or “weird” or “crazy” by society supposedly has a mental illness.

Are there proof that these disorders are real?
@captain

This is a real question. And yes, I do believe that they are “unusual” or “weird”, and I believe they are responsible for their own actions, and are not “mentally ill”.

By saying that serial rapists and child molesters are “predetermined” to do these actions because of “mental illnesses” is completely illogical and makes no sense.

Best answer:

Answer by M S
Mental illnesses are described in detail in the DSM. It has less to do with being labeled “unusual” than being unable to function normally.

Humans have very complex brains, and in some of the animals with similarly complex brains there have been cases of unusual behavior, but because of the nature of psychological illness it is impossible to diagnose an animal with a disorder without talking to it. Humans have unique abilities to communicate, feel, interact, and form social structures. Human behavior and emotion has a biological basis in the brain. Humans are predisposed to act a certain way and throughout the lifetime neural connections are either reinforced or removed. Because of the complex nature of the brain, it is difficult to pinpoint specific causes of illnesses. Usually it’s a combination of a lot of things.

Illnesses like depression have been linked pretty strongly to problems either creating or keeping Serotonin in the brain. Other illnesses have other chemicals involved but I won’t go into all of that.

A question for you: If mental illnesses were “fake” and had no biological basis, how could they be treated with medication?

Answer by captain
Well humans are among the few species that display mental illness because humans are among the few that have self-awareness. Is this a real question? Do you think that serial killers, serial rapists, child molesters, are all functioning on mentally stable levels or are just ‘unusual’ or ‘weird’ or ‘misunderstood’?

** nobody said anything about ‘PREDETERMINATION’ it is an effect rather than a cause.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

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