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Article: Mental Illness
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
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MENTAL ILLNESS
MENTAL ILLNESS The Seventeenth through the Nineteenth Centuries
The history of mental illness in the United States reflects the ever-changing landscape of mental disorders and the medical specialties responsible for their management and treatment. Mental illness (psychiatric disorders) is a nebulous term that has evolved over time. Insanity, lunacy, madness, mental illness, derangement, or unreason are among the many labels used to describe those individuals who, for various reasons, are psychologically unable to successfully function in society and require some form of intervention or treatment. The underlying causality for mental illness may be either physical (as in ...