What is Mental Illness?
Published January 25th, 2024
10.5 min read
Facts about the most common types of mental illness and how to treat them.
Written by Simon Spichak
A mental illness is a disease or health condition affecting feelings, behaviours, and thoughts. Mental illness has a negative impact on mental health, social life, and other relationships. Mental illnesses are extremely common — one in three Canadians will experience some form over their lifetime. While some of these illnesses are hard to treat, many people cope with their disease or recover with the help of a doctor, therapist or psychiatrist.
Defining mental illness
Mental illness refers to a specific condition that can affect someone’s thinking, emotions, and behaviours.
The difference between mental health and mental illness
Mental health is a term that refers to your overall social and emotional well-being. It can even fluctuate day by day. One day, you might not feel so well because you’re stressed out studying for a test at the last minute. But after the test, you might feel happy and relieved, especially if it is easier than expected.
Some people with a mental illness might have it under control and experience good overall mental health.
Mental disorders and mental health disorders
Some doctors, research publications, and websites might use the terms mental illness, mental disorder, and mental health disorder interchangeably.
What are the different types of mental illness?
Different types of mental illnesses are split up into several categories.
Anxiety disorders
Anxiety is one way that the body reacts to stress and anticipates potentially harmful situations. However, some people might develop an anxiety disorder where they experience an extreme reaction to relatively harmless situations.
Anxiety disorders are the most common type of mental illness, affecting roughly one in four people worldwide. Women are more likely to be diagnosed with one of these disorders than men. With therapy and other treatments, anxiety is readily managed.
The most common types of anxiety disorders include:
Generalized anxiety disorder. People with this condition constantly feel worried, on edge, or overwhelmed.
Social anxiety disorder. This condition causes anxiety, worry, and tension in situations where someone might feel that others are scrutinizing or judging them — making it hard to speak in social situations or make new friends.
Panic disorder. This is characterized by attacks of sudden overwhelming fear or anxiety and can sometimes feel like a heart attack.
Fears and phobias. These are specific fears of various animals, events, or social situations like spiders or public speaking.
Eating disorders
Eating disorders are conditions that often develop early in life and lead to unhealthy or disordered eating habits, as well as an unhealthy obsession or concern over one’s body weight or body image. These conditions affect one in eight kids and teenagers.
Treatment of these disorders involves working with a therapist, nutritionist, and doctor to develop healthy coping strategies and treat malnutrition.
The most common types of eating disorders include:
Anorexia nervosa. Causes fear and anxiety over eating and gaining weight, and can lead to malnutrition and dangerously low weight.
Bulimia nervosa. A fear and anxiety over gaining weight causes people to engage in dangerous behaviours to compensate after eating a meal. This can include throwing the food back up or lead to a dangerous amount of exercise.
Binge eating disorder. This disorder could cause someone to overeat, especially when they’re stressed or anxious, and it is tough to stop eating during the binge, even when they feel full.
Mood disorders
Mood disorders are a common mental illness that can cause extreme sadness, hopelessness, fatigue, and even cognitive impairment. The most prevalent mood disorder is depression, which affects one in 15 people at any given point in time. Women are more likely to develop mood disorders, like depression, than men.
Treatment can involve a combination of therapy and antidepressant medications.
Common mood disorders include:
Depression. The most common form of mood disorder which is characterized by a persistent low mood or affect.
Bipolar disorder. Causes significant mood changes that can make someone feel energetic and manic one week and depressed the next.
Seasonal affective disorder. A seasonal form of depression most commonly occurs in winter when there are lower levels of natural light.
Trauma-induced disorders
Some mental illnesses develop in response to intense forms of trauma — like natural disasters, domestic abuse, serious accidents, or sexual assault. Symptoms start about three months after the initial trauma and can cause flashbacks, dissociation, distressing thoughts, and anxiety.
These are the most common types of trauma-induced disorders:
Post-traumatic stress disorder. People with this condition can re-experience traumatic events through flashbacks, may start avoiding situations that could act as triggers, and experience memory problems and irritability.
Dissociative disorders. These disorders can lead to temporary amnesia, the feeling of depersonalization — making you feel like you’re not in control of your body — or zoning out throughout the day.
Other common disorders
There are plenty of other mental illnesses that don’t fall into one of these different categories, including:
Addiction and substance use disorders. These disorders cause people to repeatedly use drugs even when they hurt their overall well-being and relationships. Importantly, not everyone who takes drugs becomes addicted.
ADHD. This condition makes it difficult to get organized, focus, and plan ahead. It also causes problems with emotional regulation and impulsivity.
Borderline personality disorder. This disorder impacts the way a person sees themselves and makes it difficult for them to manage emotions and form healthy relationships.
OCD. People with OCD experience fear, anxiety, and shame over certain situations or objects. To prevent fears or anxieties from “coming true,” they perform compulsive behaviours like cleaning, checking, or ruminating.
Schizophrenia. This disease causes people to hear voices or see things that aren’t there. Without treatment, schizophrenia can make it difficult for someone to function day-to-day.
How to treat mental illness
Many different mental healthcare practitioners may be involved in treating your mental illness.
Should I go to see a psychologist, psychiatrist, or psychotherapist?
There are three different types of mental health practitioners you might need to speak with:
Psychologist. Psychologists study how we feel, think and behave, then use therapy to help people understand and change their behaviours. They are not covered by provincial insurance and cannot prescribe drugs, but they can provide you with a diagnosis.
Psychiatrist. A medical specialist who can diagnose your illness and prescribe drugs like antidepressants or antipsychotics to help you manage your symptoms. They are covered by provincial health insurance. You may need to wait several months to see a psychiatrist because of long wait times in Canada.
Psychotherapist. Psychotherapists (and social workers) are mental health professionals who are trained in delivering different types of therapy to help people manage their mental illness. They are not covered by provincial insurance and cannot diagnose or prescribe drugs.
What exactly is therapy?
Therapy helps people work through their emotions, understand their behaviours, and learn to change how they think or behave to be more aligned with their values. There are many different forms of therapy, each with its own focus and strengths:
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This form of treatment helps improve our mental health by changing some of the ways we think and behave. This involves learning strategies to help you manage your emotions and impulsivity and techniques to reduce the frequency of intrusive thoughts.
Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT). This form of therapy teaches you to accept your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. Rather than teaching you to change your thoughts, DBT teaches you how to change how you respond to them.
Exposure and response prevention (ERP). This is a form of therapy used to help people with OCD reduce their symptoms by assisting them to prevent compulsive behaviours and reduce their overall anxiety, shame, and fear.
Family therapy. A form of therapy that focuses on changing the way that family members interact with each other to improve mental health and treat mental illness.
Individual peer support. Sometimes, having an informal conversation with other people who have also gone through a similar mental health struggle can also be therapeutic.
Art therapy. Some forms of therapy integrate the arts — creative writing, drawing, music, and just about anything else you can think of — to help you work through your thoughts, emotions, and trauma.
How do I find the right treatment for me?
Everyone’s mental health journey is different. You will need to speak with your family doctor to figure out what treatments are available for your specific symptoms and mental illness.
If you find that you might benefit from seeing a therapist to manage anxiety, ADHD, depression, OCD, or other concerns related to school and relationships, you can find a therapist who can help at Resolvve. Your first 15-minute consultation is always free.
Please note that this post is written for educational purposes; it is not therapy. If you need to talk to a professional, please book a consultation with a psychotherapist through Resolvve.
