Look, there is no sure test for mental illness, which opens the door rather wide for two kinds of error (each of which, in given circumstances, migh not be error but deliberate):
(1) Diagnosing just one of the millions of varying human behaviors as a mental illness and getting paid for treating it
(2) Dismissing a serious illness as (in effect) a character defect. It was to combat this that one of the mental health groups (forget its title just now) adopted as its slogan "Mental illness is a brain disease, not a charcter flaw." The slogan is technically misleading, as is the common label of "chemical imbalance," but both should be seen as defensive mechanisms by people who are suffering both from real mental anguishe _and_ from social stigma. "Brain cmenistry" may be medical nonsense, but it does make a lot of people feel better about themselves to use the phrase. (The phrase can perhaps be regarded as a placebo which actually helps some people handle their illness.)
shag] so, how about adhd? add? pstd? eating disorders? autism spectrum disorders (e.g., asperger's disease), borderline personality disorder,
Carrol: Do you actually think discussion on an e-mail list can answer these questions. It has been half-seriously joked that a diagnosis of "Borderline Personality Distorder" is a psychiatrist's way of saying "Fuck you!" to a patient. On the other hand, a member of the local DBSG just a couple meetings ago said the diagnosis had helped her understand and moderate her own manipulative behaviors.
As to PTSD it has been recognized under varying names for over a century (e.g., shell shokc) and while there still remain enormous problems in tracing its variations, symptoms, etc (and of course treatment), it would be almost sadistic to raise a _general_ challenge to its validity among any particular group -- whether radical feminists or Vietnam vets. All illneses, of whatever character, vary in their incidence among various populations.
We don't know what causes mental illness. We don't know whether there is one cause or a few causes or innumerable causes We do know both that 'it' is real and causes immense suffering and 'it' is vague so it can be a source of profit. And I see no general way of differentiating the two.
Carrol