Mental Health Information

Getting a diagnosis for depression -- or any mental illness -- is no easy task, but getting validation and treatment can be a great relief.

The hard part for many people is telling family, friends, and other loved ones about the diagnosis, given the prevalence of stigma and ignorance in regards to mental illness. It's important that you take the disclosure process seriously, and protect yourself. The good news is you have control over who you tell. The following advice will also help you if you're the caregiver, partner, parent, or friend of someone with a mental illness

 

Mental Health Tips & Questions

Types of mental health problems
Despite the controversy surrounding the definitions and usefulness of the term 'mental illness', mental health problems today still remain largely in the province of psychiatry, and hence are usually discussed in medical terms.

Psychiatrists sub-divide the different kinds of mental health disorders in several different ways.

Organic (identifiable brain malfunction) versus Functional (not due to simple structural abnormalities of the brain).
Neurosis (severe forms of normal experiences) versus Psychosis (severe distortion of a person's perception of reality).
ICD-10 Classification, which lists major groups of disorders in related families e.g. mood disorders, which includes depression and manic depression.