Since mental illness is largely defined as any sort of behavior or thoughts that make it difficult for one to be a productive member of society, however that society defines ‘productive’, if the structure of society changes such that previously normal and healthy behaviors and beliefs become destructive and difficult for people, that will lead to an increase in so-called mental illness even if people as individuals haven’t changed at all.
This is definitely worth recognizing. Some conditions like ADHD are understood to be the extreme of "normal" variation rather than a specific change in functionality, and many conditions are explicitly defined as being diagnosable only when they interfere with everyday life. We should absolutely expect the rates of such illnesses to vary as the meaning of 'everyday life' changes - I mention ADHD because changes to education and job structure have made focus and executive function increasingly important. And of course, there's the entire debate around increased access to diagnosis and broadened diagnostic standards over the last few decades.
That said, it's also worth talking about which things aren't derived from changing standards, or at least recent ones. The perception of something like schizophrenia or suicide may differ between cultures, but both have been pathologized in the US and Europe since pre-industrial times. Less dramatically, any psychological condition which leaves a person largely housebound (e.g. extreme depression or some presentations of OCD) has been pathological since at least the end of the Victorian Era.
To the extent that we see a rise in suicide rates, debilitating depression and anxiety, and patterns like hikikomori and its international analogues, it really does seem like something has changed about behavior as well as society.
ADHD exists on a continuum, much like many other behavioral/mental disorders. The near side is probably what you describe--something that would be normal in the right circumstances, but is maladaptive in the real ones. That phenomenon probably partially explains people whose ADHD "disappears" in adulthood. As an adult you can choose your environment better. However, that's by no means the whole of it, and the farther sides are potentially quite disabling. Executive function covers an awful lot of your everyday behavior, and it's all potentially affected.
The diagnosis for ADHD specifies multiple areas impaired. Just flunking class or getting fired won't do it. Unless we think maintaining basic friendships or relationships, suppressing destructive impulses, defeating procrastination, avoiding chronic disorganization (extreme clutter), staying away from addictive substances, etc., has also become significantly more sophisticated, I'd think the aspects that affect those types of activities would stand alone as an indicator.
There have been epithets/cliches for many, many years that come down to pathologically spaced out, lazy, foolish to the point of not being "normal"; and we've had "minimal brain damage" and other pre-ADHD executive function impairment diagnoses for a long time as well. It's not just a modern thing.
Social impacts can be associated with mental illness, but they do not define it.
From the American Psychiatric Association:
"Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking or behavior (or a combination of these). Mental illnesses are associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities."
> distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities
For some mental illnesses, this pretty much does amount to society defining the condition. That doesn't mean they aren't real, just that diagnostic standards including "interferes with functioning" will necessarily shift as the meaning of everyday functioning varies.
The classic example is someone with poor cognitive control meeting the ADHD standard of "difficulty in at least two settings". Trouble maintaining a home, but not socially or professionally, doesn't suffice, but trouble in home and education does. So the same person could be mentally ill in a place with compulsory education through 18, but not mentally ill in a place where they drop out of school earlier and find a job that works for them.
The more society becomes increasingly oriented around thought-work the more these problems will manifest. Humans evolved to cooperate, but we didn't evolve to spend all day thinking about long-term work-related stressors that are only indirectly related to our own well-being. Once it became trivially easy to obtain food, water, and shelter, a good portion of our biological imperative was left without anything to be concerned with.
For an interesting tangentially-related thought, try asking people what the definition of "healthy" is for a human. Mental health is the hardest part to define out of all health.
> Once it became trivially easy to obtain food, water, and shelter
I would argue that the average human being doesn't consider these things easy to acquire. For society it COULD be easy to distribute these things if we decided that was a goal of ours, but we haven't gotten there yet.
I would be very interested in seeing the ideas (or problems?) invented by children born into a world where this was true, but unless things get very interesting very quickly, I doubt we'll get the chance.
Most mental illness is definitely society's product.
Without the immense pressure to conform to insane, abusive and destructive standards in combination with living in a harmful environment with poisonous "food" and "medicine" in competition with others who are likewise fighting to keep their head above water; I suspect most mental illness would disappear by itself.
Treating mental illness like some kind of natural law which can't be avoided, only stops us from finding the real causes and progressing towards a more humane society.
I think you're right that there are social, societal, and stress-related causes of many of these conditions that are under-explored. And certainly the cultural attitudes need to be adjusted more towards compassionate acceptance and helping others than they are today.
However, when it comes to an individual person being stuck in one of those states... What you are saying winds up feeling a tad ridiculous. For example, if presented with someone who has a delusional belief in something objectively, demonstrably false on a factual basis, to the point where acting on their belief makes them a danger to themselves or others ... It is not the case that a different society will make those delusions into true facts. What they need in that moment is probably medication. I have seen people for whom that has definitely been the case, and they show improvement with treatment.
I'm not saying a more humane society would cure existing mental illness, though I'm sure it would help.
The point is that most mental illness is a product of the society we live in, and the long term solution is fixing that rather than medicating the symptoms.
Genetics is not the only factor, but it is a huge one, not to be ignored. I suppose you think people talk about terms like "family history of mental illness" just for fun?
I mean most, that's about as specific as it makes sense to be since the definition keeps morphing to hook an ever growing part of the population into the profit-machine.
When I said that the sufferers of mental illness objectively do suffer, you did not seem to have a problem and you said that society is the primary cause. (And explicitly not a hereditary disposition, as is generally believed to be a factor.)
Now you seem to be suggesting the conditions are expanding, as if invented, to serve a profit machine.
This all suggests to me that your real opinion is that the illnesses don't exist.
All I ever said was that most mental illness is a product of society. Anything beyond that is a product of your imagination. If you're going to actively avoid truth by taking every chance to derail the discussion, why even bother?
Right. A mass delusion by society (which is culture, the shared beliefs of a group that are not true) can create the appearance of sickness in ones not deluded by defining sickness as being what is different from the norm.
