ABSTRACT

Mental illness is a cultural universal. Persons who show recognizable patterns of deviant behavior are found in every culture. A pattern is recognized as a set of behaviors that are deviant with respect to the modal behaviors of the individual’s group and that are repeated in different members of the group. Tremendous progress has been made in the understanding and treatment of mental illness. Perhaps the most significant component of that progress is contained in the improved education of the public, in the broad dissemination of enlightened attitudes. The mental health movement together with psychiatry suffers from imprecision in the definition and delineation of psychopathology. The mental hygiene movement has had a very significant positive impact on the problem of mental illness. The mental hygiene movement has inadvertently added to the problem which it intended to reduce. Medical science and modern technology have added significantly to longevity.