ABSTRACT
In the latest edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association defines mental disorder as a syndrome or condition that is associated with distress, disability, or an increased risk of “suffering, death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom.” More than three hundred disorders are listed. Two commonly encountered and frequently studied mental disorders, referred to as “mental illnesses,” are schizophrenia (a thought disorder entailing hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized speech) and mood disorders (particularly depression). Essentialism is the view that mental disorder is a real, concrete phenomenon or “thing” that the observer can identify, locate, and explicate, much as one can pick an apple off a tree. Essentialists examine issues such as etiology (a study of the causes of mental disorder), epidemiology (a study of how mental disorder is distributed in the population), and the effectiveness of treatment. To the essentialist, mental disorder is a materially real condition, like cancer. Constructionism, in contrast, focuses not on the objective nature of the condition and its causes and distribution but on how it is diagnosed, treated, regarded, thought about, talked about, and dealt with. Constructionists emphasize contingency (factors other than condition influence judgments about mental disorder), stigma (judgments of mental disorder are stigmatizing), and the creation of mental disorder through labels. Aside from mental illness, intellectual developmental disorder (formerly called “retardation”) and autism, or the “autism spectrum disorder,” are the most well-known and widespread of the mental disorders.
