Mental illness is one of the most complicated disorders about which very little is known. No one likes to be labelled as mentally sick. In India, mental illness is a stigma, and the relatives of usually try to keep the patient isolated.
Few patients are subjected to medical treatment. In some cases, it is considered that the illness has resulted from am evil spirit having taken posession of the body, and to get rid of it, prayers are offered. Recent findings have shown that there are definite biochemical aberrations in the brain which cause mental illness. There are several drugs have been introduced which can effectively control the symptoms in most cases. These drugs allow a patient to live a fairly normal life and also prevent further deterioration of mental state. Types of Mental Disorders: Depending on the symptoms, mental disorders have been broadly divided into three groups: major mental illnesses (psychosis, schizophrenia, mania); mini mental illness (neurosis, anxiety reaction); and mental depression (affective disorder). Each kind of disease requires a specific type of treatment. Therefore, it is important to recognize the disease. However, in some cases the patient has symptoms of more than one type of disease and such patients pose a different type of problem to the physician. In this chapter we shall consider the drugs used for the treatment of major mental illnesses. The drugs used in the treatment of anxiety reaction and mental depression are described in separate chapters.Several terms such as psychosis, schizophrenia (literally 'split mind') and mania have been used for major mental illnesses. In general, a major mental illness is characterized by such mental symptoms which cannot be reconciled with. The patient may have violent and uncontrollable instances of destructive behaviour; or he may suffer from illusion which is a false perception of reality: for example, a rope lying on the floor may appear to be a crawling snake; or delusion; which is a false sense of interpretation: for example, he may feel that he is a rich person and people around him are trying to conspire to cheat him and drive him to poverty; or hallucination; which is a false perception not accounted for by any external stimulus: for example, a person may imagine he is sitting in a garden full of trees and flowers with a kaleidoscopic play of colours, or walking around a lake, or that he can hear melodious music when none of these really exists. Such symptoms have been reported to be cause by psychomimetic drugs, hallucinogens like LSD, mescaline, and cannabis (bhang, charas or ganja), which have been widely abused by the younger generation. There is a disorganised thinking and abnormal behaviour. The most important negative manifestations include, flattening of emotions, poor verbalization, little interest in surroundings and relationships.
