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Katie, I agree ... I think that is part of why I felt like our discussion in class almost devolved into semantics. Because whatever we call it, I feel like there can be a very qualitative difference between periods of mental wellness and mental unrest. I can believe that there are people who feel differently minded -- but I also think a lot of people who suffer revel in being diagnosed, in being told that their unhappiness/anxiety/loss of control is not an inherent part of their personality or life or mind, that there are varieties of methods available to work towards alleviating what might reasonably be called symptoms. 

As Laura very accurately pointed out above, the brain is an organ, if a complicated one. Yes, all brain illnesses lie on a continuum. And maybe there is no clear demarcation between mental health and mental illness ... But many people who hit "emotional bumps" in the road can say that their outlook on life is *totally* different at some points than it is at others. I am very willing to agree that diagnoses, as they stand, can be as harmful as helpful, but I also completely feel that times of emotional aberration are much like periods of illness. Certainly many people don't feel more emotionally able during those periods of time ... 

I hate to personalise this discussion, and at the end of the day I think most of us have gone through periods during which, for whatever reason, we feel less emotionally well.  At the same time, I would feel remiss in not acknowledging that at points I have felt very emotionally different -- and that at these points I feel significantly less, and not more, myself. In fact, I feel kind of ... sick. 

 If someone undergoes a transient period of intense mental pain, different than anything they have experienced prior, is prescribed medication, and after 2-3 months feels markedly better in *every* way, I don't know that simply an emotional evolution has taken place. To me, it still sounds like they were episodically ill ...