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Originally Posted by pj67coll
Behavior so far out of the ordinary that it compromises the animals ability to live I guess. I know you can't easily define that or compare it to a human but just flat out bizarre behavior that's out of sync with an animals natural state seems unusual if not non-existant to me. Possible exception being Kerrys example of animals in captivity. But that would be something of a behavior induced change resulting from external influences instead of inherent brain defects like seems to be the case in much of human mental illness.
- Peter.
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Fair enough. However, when that happens, happily, that animal usually dies, unlike people who can go on or are supported on by others. So out of captivity, the animal is "Darwined out" and in captivity, you changed the equation so it is harder to say. Only way to know if an animal has mental illness is to examine the brain and compare it to others. If you want to widen the scope of mental illness to define different behavior like we do with people, it becomes a huge mess.
OTOH, maybe we are overthinking things and trying to say "This is a norm. Deviation is mental illness.". At one time, hetrosexuality was the norm and therefore, if you were homosexual you were abnormal and was reflected in the DSM. Hence, IMO, the DSM is most useful for packing shipments or stabilizing a wobbly table.