Joint project with
. This link opens in a new tab.
What is Mental Illness or Mental Disorders?
Reading time: 1 min
Mental illness or mental disorders are medium- to long-term emotional, cognitive and/or behavioural disorders affecting basic psychological processes like emotions, motivation, cognition, awareness, behaviour, perception, sensation, learning, language, etc. These symptoms make it more difficult for the person to adapt to their cultural and social environment and generally produce some type of subjective discomfort.
Mental illnesses, like any other disease, must be diagnosed by specialists and require appropriate treatment.
It is not easy to establish cause and effect in the appearance of mental illness; there are usually multiple factors influencing it, which may be biological (biochemical or metabolical alterations, etc.), psychological (life experiences, learning, etc.) and social (culture, social circle, family, etc.).
Joint project with
. This link opens in a new tab.
Substantiated information by:
Astrid Morer Liñan
Psychiatrist
Eva Varela
Psychiatrist
Iria Méndez
Psychiatrist
Luisa Lázaro García
Psychiatrist
Child and Youth Psychiatry and Psychology Head of Department
Published: 7 October 2019
Updated: 7 October 2019
The donations that can be done through this webpage are exclusively for the benefit of Hospital Clínic of Barcelona through Fundació Clínic per a la Recerca Biomèdica and not for BBVA Foundation, entity that collaborates with the project of PortalClínic.
Subscribe
Receive the latest updates related to this content.
Thank you for subscribing!
If this is the first time you subscribe you will receive a confirmation email, check your inbox
An error occurred and we were unable to send your data, please try again later.
