It has been a decade since scientists last fanned out across the country to assess the rates of mental illness. The latest census, just completed, indicates that a whopping 46 percent of Americans will suffer from a mental disorder during their lifetime. Tens of thousands of people answered questions about their deepest thoughts and behaviors for the study, the most extensive ever conducted.

In any given year, 18 percent of respondents suffered from a serious anxiety disorder, 10 percent from depression or bipolar illness, 9 percent from an impulse disorder, and 4 percent from alcohol or drug addiction. "This is depressing," says Harvard University epidemiologist Ronald C. Kessler, who directed the huge study, which was published as a series of papers in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The findings also speak volumes about treatment. Only 40 percent of those who researchers deemed would have qualified as mentally ill said they had received some kind of treatment, and often that was from someone other than a mental health provider. "We have to figure out how to improve the quality of the care these patients receive," Kessler says.

The prevalence of problems is much greater than that reported 20 years ago, when the first survey of this scope was carried out. Those results prompted an overhaul of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), a massive tome of criteria that psychiatrists use to determine whether an individual's symptoms qualify as a clinical illness. The updated fourth edition, known as DSM-IV, has been the bible since, but it may need to be revised again in light of the new data.

In total, more than 15,000 Americans have participated in the two National Comorbidity Survey Replication studies, which Kessler also led in 1994. Perhaps the only good news is that most clinical cases are mild and that only a small proportion are severe. But most people said that the first signs of their illness appeared before age 18, arguing for more extensive treatment of young people. Kessler's small research army is now analyzing an additional 10,000 adolescents and performing separate studies of African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans to look for more specific trends.

6 Comments

1. 1. kimber.1911 11:41 AM 7/31/08

   I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, so I don't know what exactly constitutes the different "mental illnesses" mentioned in the article. I do however have a sneaking suspiscion that, although there are people that indeed need help, the vast majority of the 40% are experiencing something called life. We have been educated by corporations that happiness is a new car, or dress, and the way to get it is stepping on others on your way up the food chain. Maybe that's why we Americans are saying that they're depressed, bi-polar, etc.; material wealth was never happiness.

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2. 2. judynz 06:18 PM 9/7/08

   There is no such thing as MENTAL ILLNESS. This was coined to deprive individuals from helping themselves....for political reasons first...& for medical superiority.
   There are only degrees of emotional imbalances that grow because of practised thought patterns, many are unaware they can change.
   There are many causes for these imbalances & most planted in the brain by outside influences.

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3. 3. JeffreyCharlesArcher 06:36 PM 10/25/08

   Mental illness is a construct that is only a bit over a century old. Though perhaps useful in some guises, all too often said t of constructs are found wanting in describing and dealing with the human condition. The discourse and self-refering jargon of modern psychology has shallow roots, and is not less guilty of barbarity than previous ways of describing and endeavring to "heal" maladies of the human mind. Other ways of knowing and seeing (sciences) consider more than mere material factors in assessments of what might be wrong with a person experiencing difficulties in the realms of thought and action. Certainly sometimes there were cruelties inflicted by these modes, yet again, no moreso than the injustices and violences prescribed by many PhD psychologists. And indeed, often as not a true medicine man or woman, shaman or traditional healer can prove as or more effective in dealing with maladjustments and seeming delusions and other mental afflictions as the most rigorous psychiatric treatments.
   Similarly, it is also of note that the very make-up of modern life, disconnected from nature and natural modes of interacting with fellow humans and the earth are themselves a large part of the causes of psychlogical afflictions. Many who cannot adjust to these unnatural modes of existence, noise from electrical and internal combustion devices where once was the sound of wind and water flowing and birds singing, etc., display signs of "mental illness" as a result, responding more "naturally" to these unnatural things than the average, "well adjusted" and desensitized folk who act as if everything's just fine.
   Jeffrey C. Archer
   Laramie, Wyoming

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4. 4. Al Kaholic 04:21 PM 1/22/09

   This is the problem as I see it: "Doctor, I have been brutally raped and beaten and my family says I asked for it. I lost my job. I am being evicted from my apartment..." "Stop right there! You have a chemical imbalance in your brain. You are mentally ill. I am going to prescribe an antidepressant and something to help you sleep." "Doctor, I hate my life. I am unemployed, have no money, no love life, live with my parents at age 40 and don't know what to do. I was teased in school and had a miserable childhood..." "O.k., o.k. You are mentally ill due to a chemical imbalance. Here's a prescription for some medication." "Doc, my classmates tease and bully me, I have three to four hours of homework per day after being at school from 7:00 to 3:00 and not getting home until 4:00, my parents nag me even though I have a 3.5 GPA. I have almost no friends..." "Stop! You are mentally ill, obviously! You have a chemical imbalance. Here's a prescription." Think I'm joking? Hardly. Our cold, materialistic society has made pathological anything but mindless, pseudo-contented adherence to the status quo. If you aren't "happy" and mindlessly working, consuming, watching t.v., following sports, politics and the latest reality show, no matter what your life situation, you are mentally ill. You need medication.

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5. 5. mikecimerian 03:52 AM 1/18/10

   There is no "unified theory" yet to provide scientific explanation where cognitive and neurological interact.
   
   I do agree that it is convenient to tag individuals as having diseases where environment is responsible.
   
   Otherwise we would have to tackle the primary source of mental problems which is mostly stress related.

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6. 6. drlizmiller in reply to Al Kaholic 04:20 PM 1/19/10

   Mood - where the mind meets the body. Mood describes how you feel in response to how you are. Mood Mapping is a new approach to understanding how our surroundings; physical health; relationships, knowledge, skills and strategies; and autonomy relate
   
   And until we understand and use simple approaches to manage mental health and wellbeing we remain at the mercy of drug companies peddling snake oil.
   

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