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I've been thinking about the conversation from Monday, and keep coming back to the same few "thought bytes":

- To perhaps expand on jrlewis' comments (I'm so sorry I don't remember your non-screen name!), the brain is an organ, part of a larger organ system that is the CNS and PNS. Sure, it's complicated, and we don't understand it as well as, say, the kidney (which is pretty amazing, too), but it's comprised of the same stuff. Why, then, is difficult to imagine that this organ can become "diseased"?

Individuals with schizophrenia show dementia, changes in personality, acting out, and progressive loss of brain volume throughout their lives. Individuals with Alzheimer's and Huntington's Disease show the same symptomologies. All three conditions typically show an adult onset, are thought to arise through a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and are currently without cure. Is any one of these more of a "disease state" than the others? Anyone want to make the argument that Alzheimer's is not an illness?

- I don't think that the term "mental illness" can be considered in a vacuum. Rather, it exists in relation to "mental health." "Illness" implies that there was once health, and now there is not. It also implies that the sate of health can be reacquired. The people I know with schizophrenia remember a time when they were "mentally healthy", and they mourn its loss. They also hope for its return, and are eager to learn of advances in research and treatment.

I can certainly see the argument that individuals on the more higher-functioning end of the autism spectrum may not remember a time when their mental state was any different (given the early onset), and thus may understandably take exception with the "illness" label. However, it is my experience that most people with debilitating mental conditions, be it depression or schizophrenia, long to return to their own unique state of mental "health", and have little interest in convincing themselves or others that their condition represents a "different type of normal."

I also have a problem with using words like "growth", "evolve" and even "change" in a definition of mental health.  As a therapist, I try to stay away from these sorts of terms, because I feel them to be somewhat condescending, implying that one is "lacking" something or is not "complete" the way they are. This attitude also stems from my adoption of the Gestalt therapeutic approach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_therapy), which essentially rejects the explicit goal of change (becoming what one is not) and replaces it with the goals of awareness and integration (becoming what one is).

Ok, I'm shutting up now.