Accoording a recent study, schizophrenia is considered an illness by nearly all Finns, while grief and homosexuality are not. On the other hand, opinions vary greatly on whether alcoholism, work exhaustion, drug addiction and gambling addiction are illnesses. People's notions of what is and is not a disease are important in the discourse on mental health and human behavior; these notions also influence the allocation of society's resources and the stigmatization of various groups of people.
* This article was originally published here
