Am I Mentally Ill?

Many executives and professionals, when a problem develops, ask: “Am I mentally ill?”

It is a hallmark of the reasonable person to question whether or not s/he is being reasonable. That means that if you doubt your sanity you are, most likely, perfectly sane.

Even if you didn’t doubt your sanity, you are still probably sane.

“What? Surely that is a contradiction, or at very least inconsistent?”

It seems that way, however, for someone to be mentally ill we have to be sure that there is such a thing as mental illness. The psychiatrist Prof Thomas Szasz in the book that made him famous (The Myth of Mental Illness, 1961) argued that since there is no pathogen, or virus, or structural abnormality in the brain of people thought to be mentally ill, that it cannot be an “illness” we are observing.  Illness cannot account for the different behaviour; something else must be involved. Szasz believed that in the same way we used to label people, whose different behaviour was unpleasant, but not dangerous, as witches, we now label the same kinds of ‘alternative behaviours’ as “mental illness.”

Executives and professionals have the same kinds of variations in their behaviour as the rest of the population, and some may attract unhelpful labels from others. Does that may them ill? No. In the absence of a known pathogen, chemical imbalance or other “illness causing factor,” there is no “illness.”

If you are asking, “Am I mentally ill?” the answer is almost certainly a strong  NO. Yes, you may be experiencing behaviours (physical and cognitive) different from those  you would wish. Yes, others may not approve of those behaviours, or, wish that you were behaving differently. Yes, others may label those behaviours as demonstrative of “illness,” but someone’s misguided or misinformed choice of words does not make alternative behaviour an “illness.”

What does all of this mean? That it is extremely unlikely that what you are experiencing is an “illness.”

“Am I mentally ill?” Almost certainly not, but you may benefit from some psychological therapy to address the mental behaviour patterns that are causing distress.

Most executives and professionals can recover quickly from any performance impairing problem with the right psychological help.

To start recovering your performance call:

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