mental illness
mental disorder. "Mental illness" is acceptable but "mental disorder" is often preferred to describe any of the recognized forms of mental illness or several emotional disorders that interfere with a person's functioning in daily life. The most acceptable construction is "people with mental disorders" or "a person with mental illness" or, best yet, the precise disorder: "someone with anorexia." Avoid nouns like paranoiac, schizophrenic, manic-depressive, and anorexic that label the whole person by the disorder. Mental illness and intellectual disability are separate conditions; one does not imply the other. "Mental institution" is almost never used and "insane/lunatic asylum" is unacceptable; the correct term is "hospital/psychiatric hospital." No one is a "mental patient" unless they are in the hospital, and then they are simply a "patient." Terms such as mentally deranged, mentally unbalanced, mentally diseased, deviant, and demented are not appropriate; neurotic, psychotic, and psychopathic are reserved for technical and medical writing. Insane and incompetent are legal rather than diagnostic terms. Avoid using a mental illness metaphorically ("this government's schizophrenic attitude to alcohol isn't helping"). "Mental illness as metaphor is a major complication of living with mental illness as well as of treating mental illness" (Asmus Finzen and Ulrike Hoffmann-Richter, Mental Illness As Metaphor). One report showed that up to 31% of the use of the word schizophrenia in newspapers was metaphorical. (Arun K. Chopra and Gillian A. Doody, "Schizophrenia, an illness and a metaphor," JRSM). In addition, our everyday language is rife with words that reflect on mental illness: batty, certifiable, cracked, crazy, fruitcake, lunatic, loony, maniac, nuts, psycho, sicko, wacko, weirdo, off the wall, off one's rocker, around the bend, a few apples short of a picnic, the funny farm, men in white coats. Few people actually use these terms to refer to those with a mental disorder; the problem is that the derision and ridicule they convey is carried over to our attitudes toward mental illness. Kay Redfield Jamison (An Unquiet Mind) writes that "allowing such language to go unchecked or uncorrected leads not only to personal pain, but contributes both directly and indirectly to discrimination in jobs, insurance, and society at large. On the other hand, the assumption that rigidly rejected words and phrases that have existed for centuries will have much impact on public attitudes is rather dubious. It gives an illusion of easy answers to impossibly difficult situations." Redfield thinks aggressive public education is the answer. The California Mental Health Services Authority says to always question your need to mention a mental disorder if it is not intrinsic to your material; if it is important, you need a reliable source for the particular mental condition; use "living with" or "has" the condition.See also disabilities, idiot/idiocy, insane/insanity, patient, people-first language, retard, schizophrenic.
