Losing Our Minds: The Challenge of Defining Mental Illness

“The absence of knowledge about mental health creates a vacuum that is filled by inaccuracies and half-truths,” writes psychologist Foulkes in her compassionate debut. While mental illness has become part of the mainstream conversation over the past decade thanks to destigmatization campaigns, celebrity memoirs, and global efforts such as an official World Mental Health Day, Foulkes writes, “this message to speak about our mental illness is only useful if... the person listening actually understands what the problem is.” To that end, she endeavors to fill in the gaps. Destigmatization efforts, though well-intended, have made people more comfortable using mental health terms, she notes, but they’ve also led to a conflation between normal discomfort and disorders: people often use the term OCD flippantly, for example, without understanding what the disorder actually entails. She covers the complicated nature of diagnoses and the biological and environmental factors behind conditions, and tactfully examines reasons that mental illness rates are rising (notably because young people are more willing to talk about their problems and diagnostic criteria have expanded). Foulkes’s research is thorough, and her explanations of mental health are accessible: “This topic defies any simple explanation. To recognize its complexity puts us in a far better position than pretending any of this is easy.” There’s plenty of insight on offer in this comprehensive survey. (Jan.)