ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of historical and contemporary attempts at defining madness. It considers the important role that social context plays in determining the presence of a mental disorder and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of definitions of madness based on single and combined criteria. D. L. Rosenhan and M. E. P. Seligman proposed seven criteria by which the presence of a mental health issue could be determined. The popular term ‘mental health’ was considered for inclusion, but this phrase is borne of Western culture and contains an implicit ‘dualistic’ assumption that the mind and body are separate entities. The individuals with the extreme dislike for spiders might legitimately be referred for some type of mental health intervention. If biological disturbance were to be the key criterion for defining mental disorder, then all disorders would need to be identifiable according to some kind of biological pathology.
