Puzzles of Mental Illness

Abstract

This chapter considers the extensive array of answers various groups have provided to questions about the nature of mental illness and its boundaries with sanity. While all societies recognize a class of behaviors they call “madness,” they vary considerably in the content of this category and how it differs from normality. What distinguishes mental illnesses from other sorts of devalued conditions? Should medical, religious, psychological, legal, or no authority at all respond to the mentally ill? Why do some people become mad? What treatments might help them recover? The various responses that diverse societies have provided to these issues are both widely divergent and surprisingly similar to current understandings.