Mental illness refers to a range of disorders caused by a person’s predisposition and/or physical, psychological and social factors. These lead to acute or chronic disturbances which are emotional, intellectual and/or behavioural and are accompanied, when the illness is serious, by distortions of personality and social relationships. Such disorders may be classified broadly into three main categories:
These are serious disorders in which impairment of mental functioning has developed to a degree that interferes grossly with insight, ability to meet some ordinary demands of life or to maintain adequate contact with reality.
These are mental disorders without any demonstrable organic basis in which insight and reality testing is intact. Behaviour may be greatly affected although usually remaining within socially acceptable limits and without any disorganisation of personality. The severe cases of neuroses can be fairly disabling and there is considerable distress on the part of the patients. Examples include obsessive-compulsive disorder and phobias.
These include personality disorders, psychophysiological disorder, alcohol dependence, drug dependence, etc.
Students in needs are welcome to meet with our counsellor to discuss their personal concerns. The Counselling and Development Centre of the Office of Student Affairs provides free, confidential counseling to eligible students. To help students explore and understand themselves better so that they can become more self-directing and self-actualizing individual. Programmes on personal development are also available at the Centre.