Decoding the Riddle of Mental Illness through an overall communicational dynamic.
The communicational factors underlying mental illness remain...
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Decoding the Riddle of Mental Illness through an overall communicational dynamic.
The communicational factors underlying mental illness remain one of mankind's most enduring mysteries. Mental illness is primarily regarded as a physical disorder or a chemical imbalance, although clear-cut signs within the brain have eluded convincing documentation. Indeed, the most obvious outward signpost is a disturbance in the ability to communicate in an interpersonal sense, often in an exaggerated or bizarre fashion. The emotions are similarly affected to extreme degree, as witnessed in profound nature of the mood disorders such as mania or melancholy.
An overall communicational model of mental illness has conspicuously been lacking due to the daunting conceptual challenges at issue. As with many other such great enigmas, the solution often emerges from advances in a parallel field of inquiry – such as in Communications Theory. Indeed, a breakthrough in the understanding of affective (or emotionally charged) language has recently been proposed: wherein incorporating the communicational factors underlying mental illness within a general eight-part schematic depicted. This diagram actually represents a radical expansion upon Aristotle's enduring Theory of the Mean (originally defined as a more basic three-part model). When the six additional affective categories are further added into the mix, the grand total jumps to 408 individual terms (including 56 individual forms of mental illness). This total breaks down into the eight forms of the personality disorders, eight forms of the neuroses, and twenty forms each for the mood disorders and schizophrenia: as partially depicted.
Here, mental illness is functionally consistent with an emotional style of communicational dynamic: one that encompasses certain other forms of human communication. Indeed, the extreme symptomology associated with mental illness effectively distorts or exaggerates the overall conceptual framework, generally obscuring the cognitive aspects being communicated. Consequently, the key to understanding these elusive factors ultimately resides in the context of more routine communication, where the various emotional parameters can be more accurately ascertained. When this virtuous realm is further contrasted with the parallel realm of the vices, the resultant master format expands to a grand total of 80 individual terms, offering a fitting contextual background towards resolving the enigma of mental illness – with considerable applications in terms of treatment and diagnosis.
