In Brief
- More than one in four Americans suffer from a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at any given time, according to estimates from the National Institute of Mental Health. Unfortunately, nearly two thirds of our behavioral and emotional problems are never diagnosed or treated.
- A user-friendly test, the Epstein Mental Health Inventory (EMHI), screens people for 18 common psychiatric problems, based on criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, the guidebook most therapists use for making diagnoses. The test does not diagnose illness but urges those at risk to see a qualified mental health professional.
- In a recent study of 3,403 individuals who took the EMHI, scores on the test predicted seven important factors related to psychological well-being.
More than one in four Americans suffer from a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at any given time, according to estimates from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Over our lifetime nearly one half of us suffer from such disorders. Unfortunately, nearly two thirds of our behavioral and emotional problems are never diagnosed or treated, even though in many cases effective treatment is available. More than 80 percent of people with major depression, for example, benefit substantially from a combination of medication and counseling.
When I served as editor in chief of Psychology Today, readers often asked me to direct them to screening tests for mental health problems. I looked for such tests on the Internet, which seemed the ideal tool for helping people find answers to questions about their mental health: Is this down feeling I’m experiencing normal? Why do I shout at my wife and kids all the time? Is my drinking out of control? Should I be seeing a therapist? I found the Internet riddled with thousands of homemade tests, but none had been scientifically validated. Worse, many of them served as marketing vehicles for videos, books or services—sending the test taker straight to a sales pitch. No broad, reliable, consumer-friendly test seemed to exist.
This article was originally published with the title Are You Mentally Healthy?.
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13 Comments
Add CommentAlternatively, if one third of the population is considered ill by the psychiatric community, perhaps its definition of illness should be more carefully examined.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is not the existence of microbes in a person's body that indicates a bacterial infection - treatment is required when that person's ability to function normally is impaired.
If my medical doctor continuously treated infections that created no disability, I'd eventually seek a second opinion.
are they crazy!?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey must have included the mild condition which can be treated by ourselves or our frirends.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI made use of some psychological books I bought and cured my minor depression years ago, and offerd one of these books to my mom and she's resolved her lesser mental problem all by herself.
I read the introduction to this article online. Apparently this test was developed due to the many people writing in, questioning their mental well being. The author of this author describes researching the many "homemade" and other types of test, which did not seem to be appropriate. And then goes on to say that the worst of all were those that were "marketing vehicles" of some kind or another.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn order to continue reading any further, I would have had to purchase a copy of the magazine.
What was that about the "worst of the tests being marketing vehicles?"
I think it is pretty clear that the APA is a group of pseudo-scientists about as savvy as creationists or spiritualists when it comes to any assertion their views are "scientifically valid".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe DSM-IV is a publication of that self-serving trade organization that never stops trying to gain undeserved socio-political influence. This article uses definition in the DSM-IV to determine that one-quarter of humanity is in need of APA members' services....for never-ending fees.
The APA is a self-serving trade organization that has invented it's own version of "science" since so little of what they assert is acceptable as "real science". The product they actually traffic in is amusing philosophical speculations.
It is long overdue for the rest of society to recognize that it is the APA that has the "mental health issues" more than do most people who the APA membership imagines are in dire need of their usually pointless services.
What is the standard against which someone is considered mentally sick? There is no absolute measure. It all depends on moral values that continously evolve (change) just like the human race. What is moral ("normal") now, was not 200 years ago and will not be 200 years from now. Therefore psychiatrists should first have themselves checked and then their science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsidering that DSM-IV has no established scientific validity or reliability calls into question the validity of all research based on DSM-IV criteria. Are they truly measuring what they are trying to measure? is my understanding of validity. Reliability pertains to the results being reliably reproducable. Validity itself is dependent on reliability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is not for want of trying. The APA has attempted to establish validity and reliability for the DSM-IV but has been unable to. Basically, people can get ten different diagnoses from ten different practioners. Moreover, once an accurate diagnosis (which is often characterized as an all important goal to proper treatment) there is no empirically based treatment model for these categorized constellation of symptoms equating to a a particular mental disorder, (five symptoms, yes, four no) which have no correspondence to anything in nature. The unverse just doesn't work this way.
As a mental health practioner DSM-IV diagnostic categories are useless in helping to understand the etiology of an individual's psychological problems or treatment. Indeed, more often, the medical model causes narrow symptom based thinking and treatment that excludes learning the underlying source of the problem. Like fevers, psychological maladies have many different sources but the similar presentations. One can take ibuprofin to treat a fever. However, I would suggest that if the fever lingers, treating the underlying source would be better course of action.
In my experience, the only efficacy obtained by the DSM-IV is insurance reimbursement.
I wonder if the number of mental illnesses diagnosis are driven by the pharmaceutical companies to patent and sell drugs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismust be！！
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll "they" want to do is push the pills..And , did you all know that if one gets any government assistance getting a job with a disability it is a requirement that you take psycho pills? It's no wonder why people are getting crazier and going on rampages..There is no help period!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPoor people participating in the drug frenzy are dropping dead at an early age nowadays..
I do not doubt that psychiatry, like other fields in medicine, may be influenced by drug companies, insurance companies, and the like. I will also ackowledge that mental illness may not be diagnosed with the precision of something like heart disease.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever,I am saddened and disheartened to see the kind of ignorance about mental illness expressed in some of these posts. There IS such a thing as legitimate mental illness. If you doubt that there is a biological component to mental illness read about how surgery (albeit an extreme solution) can "cure" severe cases of depression
Maybe as a society we could stop disparaging those who suffer from and those who treat mental illness, and instead put our financial and emotional support behind research that advances our understanding of the brain and the mind.
I do not doubt that psychiatry, like other fields in medicine, may be influenced by drug companies, insurance companies, and the like. I will also ackowledge that mental illness may not be diagnosed with the precision of something like heart disease.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever,I am saddened and disheartened to see the kind of ignorance about mental illness expressed in some of these posts. There IS such a thing as legitimate mental illness. If you doubt that there is a biological component to mental illness read about how surgery (albeit an extreme solution) can "cure" severe cases of depression
Maybe as a society we could stop disparaging those who suffer from and those who treat mental illness, and instead put our financial and emotional support behind research that advances our understanding of the brain and the mind.
I do not doubt that psychiatry, like other fields in medicine, may be influenced by drug companies, insurance companies, and the like. I will also ackowledge that mental illness may not be diagnosed with the precision of something like heart disease.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever,I am saddened and disheartened to see the kind of ignorance about mental illness expressed in some of these posts. There IS such a thing as legitimate mental illness. If you doubt that there is a biological component to mental illness read about how surgery (albeit an extreme solution) can "cure" severe cases of depression
Maybe as a society we could stop disparaging those who suffer from and those who treat mental illness, and instead put our financial and emotional support behind research that advances our understanding of the brain and the mind.