"Mental Illness" - too spicy a term?

I was listening to NPR the other day, and Robert Siegel was interviewing author Ralph Keyes about his book, Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms. They discussed how words change over time and that we constantly (and creatively) come up with new words to tiptoe around things that make us uneasy. Robert Siegel said:

“In his new book about euphemisms, Ralph Keyes takes me back to browsing through a book on my parents' bookshelf about 50 years ago. It was a psychology text, probably written sometime before the Second World War, probably for some education course my father took. And it described the precise ranges of IQ that defined an idiot, a moron and an imbecile.

“My father instructed me that those terms and the broad category that included them all, the feeble-minded, were old ways of saying what we now said more properly. Such people were not to be called feeble-minded, idiotic, imbecilic or moronic. They were to be called retarded, mentally retarded. It was only deep into adulthood that I realized after using that word, that phrase, that it had become completely unacceptable.

“So it goes with euphemisms. One generation's version of polite and scientific is the next generation's standard for ham-fisted and defamatory.”

Describing people with mental illness is no different. Words like “lunatic,” “insane,” and “mad” have evolved from time to time trying to make it easier to describe people who experience symptoms of depression, mania, psychosis, shifting moods, and strange thoughts. So, right now maybe it’s easier or more politically correct to call people who experience these symptoms “mentally ill”, but even that is beginning to shift.

At a recent conference, Charlie Morse, who runs the suicide prevention program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, stated, "I think we have to stop calling everything 'mental illness.' It stigmatizes people who have depression or anxiety, the ubiquity of suffering that we all experience. Mental illness, describing depression, is the same word used to describe schizophrenia. It drives people underground."

My problem with Morse’s quote is this: it is basically saying that schizophrenia gives depression a bad name. Many people think of schizophrenia or bipolar as the really "bad" mental illnesses - the true "crazies." This quote is basically saying that by calling everything "mental illness," we aren't distinguishing the crazies from the mix. Has the term "mental illness" gotten too spicy?   

Ralph Keyes writes: “As we’ll see throughout this book, euphemisms are created in a wide variety of ways and for a multitude of reasons. This usually involves reducing the temperature of overheated rooms. The hotter the topic, the cooler the words we rely on to discuss them…Therapists, self-helpers, and recovery groups have given us a bonanza of mild euphemistic terms to take the place of spicier ones.” 

With events like the Tucson shooting and shootings at Virginia Tech, the room is getting hotter. People are starting to feel the spice of the words “mental illness.” And people are calling for a change in the words we use. No one wants to be associated with people who experience symptoms of depression, mania, psychosis, shifting moods, and strange thoughts. “Mental illness” is the politically correct way to talk about people who experience this range of symptoms, but surely with time, this name will change.

I’ve heard that there are hundreds of words for describing snow. I don’t care if we come up with hundreds of more ways to describe “mental illness.” Call it the “blues” or depression, “madness” or bipolar and schizophrenia. As far as name calling goes, I have no problem with creativity, new words, new definitions, or more distinguishing definitions.

Ralph Keyes stated on NPR: “You know, when Shakespeare called the sex act, making the beast with two backs, we had a very creative mind at work.” I don’t have a problem with “fucking” or making the beast with two backs. In fact, I find it quite pleasurable. Call it what you will. To Charlie Morse I will say this: As far as the ubiquity of suffering goes, I have great compassion. Of course we don’t want to stigmatize those with depression or anxiety. Of course! What I have a problem with is the stigma, the vitriol and fear, surrounding mental illness in general (and around schizophrenia specifically). Changing the name will not take this away. We must find another way.