Mental Illnesses, Their Causes and Treatments

Mental illness is composed of many separate illnesses concerning the brain's function grouped together. With as many mental illnesses known to have a cause, the causes for many others go unknown and incurable because of this unknown status. Nevertheless, many doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists believe that a chemical imbalance of the brain is the major cause of most mental illnesses.

Anxiety and Mood Disorders

The most common of all forms of mental illnesses include the many anxiety and mood disorders. The various anxiety disorders include such illnesses as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, individual phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD) and social anxiety disorders, among others. The mood disorders include all the depressive illnesses such as Major Depressive Disorder (clinical depression), Atypical Depression, Psychotic Depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), Chronic Depression (Dysthymia) and Bi-polar disorder (known as manic-depressive disorder).

Mania and bi-polar disorder are separately occurring mood disorders, however, the commonly manifest within one individual, causing bi-polar disorder. Many anxiety and mood disorders co-exist within one individual. For example, a common co-existence of illnesses includes social anxiety, PTSD and clinical depression. Some doctors classify bi-polar disorder as a depressive illness and anxiety as a mood disorder because most are thought to have the same chemical cause, although treatment can vary.

Causes of Common Mental Illnesses

 While each of these mental illnesses is classified distinct disorders, each is thought to be caused by an imbalance of a certain chemical in the brain. Clinical depression is the most commonly diagnosed of all depressive illnesses with SAD as the second most common. Each chemical imbalance is thought to disrupt the brain in a different way, this causing the different types of depression. Because the exact chemical affected in each person is different, each patient responds to a different medication during treatment. Currently, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are the most common form of depression medication given during treatment. These medications act to restore the balance of chemicals in the brain, thus treating the depression symptoms. Other mental illnesses are caused by specific biological factors such as a virus or infection. For example, Syphilis, a common sexually transmitted disease can cause psychosis in some individuals during its later stages and doctors often misdiagnose these patients with schizophrenia, thus prescribing the most logical course of treatment, which include antipsychotics. However, the STD, if caught early, is treated with antibiotics.

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Drug overdoses, such as with LSD, crack-cocaine and meth-amphetamines can also cause some mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and others. While these drug-induced mental illnesses have no real medical treatment or cure, the symptoms can be treated with antipsychotics and other medications. Mental illness is a large world of psychiatric medicine that encompasses hundreds of thousands of separate disorders manifesting themselves in a person’s mood and feelings, all having to do with the brain and its specific chemistry. According to many doctors in the profession, the best treatment for any mental illness is individual or group therapy combined with medication in most cases, but the only cure is found when a biological factor is the cause.