What is the most difficult and complex mental illness according to scientific studies?

Second World Health Organization (WHO), in 2019, one in eight people suffered from one of the 400 mental illness known.

This implies that almost 970 million people in the world suffered from a disorder of this type.

Although the use of medications and psychotherapy, usually in combination, are effective in combating most mental illnesses, some are more difficult to treat.

Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and severe depression, as well as complicated medical conditions, are risk factors for a less common disease, but much more complex.

What is the most difficult and complex mental illness

He Cotard syndromedepending on the site Psychology and the mind, is “one of the strangest psychological alterations.” First described in 1880 by neurologist Jules Cotard, this disorder presents symptoms that “are not defined by personality changes, nor by sensory or motor alterations, nor are they rooted in very extreme mood changes (like bipolar disorder). Instead, everything is based on a terrible feeling: the feeling of being dead”, they explain.

People interpret reality based on the data provided by their senses, such as sight and hearing. However, “Cotard syndrome is a mental disorder in which the subject perceives himself as something that, in some way, does not exist or is separate from reality”, describes this specialized portal.

Those who suffer from this syndrome, always second Psychology and the mind“they are able to perceive their own body (they can see themselves in a mirror, for example), but they notice it as something strange, as if they didn’t exist”. That is, these patients believe they are dead, literally or figuratively, or in a state of decay.

psychological phenomenon similar to depersonalization (disconnection between the person and their surroundings), also called Cotard syndrome nihilistic delirium. Not because it is a philosophical position towards the world, but because the patient tends to believe “that the plane of reality in which his body is located is not the same as the one in which his conscious mind is located, and acts accordingly” .

The first case, described by Cotard, who called the phenomenon denial syndrome, was that of a woman who She thought she was dead, all her internal organs were devastated and she refused to eat..

Although the causes of the syndrome are still unknown, scientists believe that it occurs when the part of the brain associated with processing emotions functions abnormally (the limbic system, located at the base of the brain).

Another possibility is that its origin is linked to a disconnection between the brain areas that recognize faces and those that associate emotions with said recognition. It is also possible that it is a rare side effect of the antiviral Aciclovirexplains an article on the portal BBC.

This rare mental illness is typically treated with antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and electroconvulsive therapy.