Community Mental Health - terminology
The language used when referring to mental health problems and to people who experience them can be confusing because of the diversity of terms used. In accordance with CBM´s Disability and Development Policy (2006) and the UN Convention on Rights of People with Disability (2008), we choose the term ‘psychosocial disability’ when referring to people with mental illness or neurological conditions such as epilepsy. Psychosocial disability is the preferred term of users of mental health services and is based upon the social model of disability that focuses on barriers hindering the full participation of people with psychosocial disabilities in society.
Only when referring to the underlying disorder or to epidemiological findings do we speak of neuropsychiatric disorders, which is a collective name for mental and neurological illnesses.
The term ‘mental illness’ refers to disorders that affect an individual’s cognition, emotion and/or behavioural control, and interferes with his or her ability to learn and function in the family, at work and in society, such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, dementia and others. The term ‘neurological illness’ refers to conditions that affect the brain and nerves, the most common being epilepsy. Since most neurological disorders are surrounded by similar myths, misconceptions and prejudice as mental illness, they are considered together. The psychosocial disability resulting from neurological illness is often more disabling than the seizures themselves.
Intellectual impairment, on the other hand, has its onset in childhood; children can be born with an intellectual impairment or can acquire it in early childhood, for example through meningitis. It is a life-long condition and characterized by an impairment of the skills related to intelligence such as language, memory, motor and social abilities. The needs of people with ‘intellectual disability’ (also called learning disability, formerly called mental retardation) and services needed are generally different from those of people with psychosocial disabilities.Similarly people with Developmental disorders (who have problems with social communication) such as Autism have needs that are mainly related to education.
Just like anybody else, people with intellectual disability or developmental disorders can develop an additional psychosocial disability. Epilepsy is more common in people with intellectual disability and autism than the general population.
Only when referring to the underlying disorder or to epidemiological findings do we speak of neuropsychiatric disorders, which is a collective name for mental and neurological illnesses.
The term ‘mental illness’ refers to disorders that affect an individual’s cognition, emotion and/or behavioural control, and interferes with his or her ability to learn and function in the family, at work and in society, such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, dementia and others. The term ‘neurological illness’ refers to conditions that affect the brain and nerves, the most common being epilepsy. Since most neurological disorders are surrounded by similar myths, misconceptions and prejudice as mental illness, they are considered together. The psychosocial disability resulting from neurological illness is often more disabling than the seizures themselves.
Intellectual impairment, on the other hand, has its onset in childhood; children can be born with an intellectual impairment or can acquire it in early childhood, for example through meningitis. It is a life-long condition and characterized by an impairment of the skills related to intelligence such as language, memory, motor and social abilities. The needs of people with ‘intellectual disability’ (also called learning disability, formerly called mental retardation) and services needed are generally different from those of people with psychosocial disabilities.Similarly people with Developmental disorders (who have problems with social communication) such as Autism have needs that are mainly related to education.
Just like anybody else, people with intellectual disability or developmental disorders can develop an additional psychosocial disability. Epilepsy is more common in people with intellectual disability and autism than the general population.
