The other day I caught the tail end of an NPR piece about mental illness. Yesterday, on a break from work, I took a stroll to a retail center nearby my workplace. As I neared an intersection I noticed a woman at one of the intersection's corners. She was swaying left and right and sort of bobbing up and down (she was not listening to music). She then proceeded to walk into the middle of the intersection (luckily for her there was no traffic from either direction).

The thought that popped into my head was that something was off in the woman's mind. I hope using the term off is not offensive but I'd be lying if I said mental illness popped into my head.

The thread dealing with sex with animals brought into the discussion the idea of consent with regards to animals. I'd never wondered whether animals could have a mental illness. My initial thought was no because I kinda figured mental illness was born out of consciousness. But the idea of consent leans in the direction of sentiency and consciousness. So I quickly dialed back my initial thought.

Usually when presented with a thought like this I can say yea or nea fairly quickly but this one has been steadfast to remain in neutral.

Any thoughts?

P.S. She could have just been high.

Hey Teayser, I’ll give that some thought. I had seen this just this morning:

In fact, he concludes, "Metacognition rivals language and tool use in its potential to establish important continuities or discontinuities between human and animal minds."

I have met plenty of dogs and some of them were clearly neurotic, often from past trauma/abuse.

So, I think animals can have mental illness.

I visited a private zoo in Belgium years ago, it was one of the most disturbing days of my life.I cannot bring myself to describe the horror of it and worst of all the people laughing .......... It has since been closed down, not for the poor poor animals sake but because one bit a child. It was the Chimps more than any others that were totally trumatised and driven quite, quite mad. I am still bought to tears when I think of them. Yes animals can have the same sort of mental problems as we do and for the same sort of reasons that we do.

A dog who is left for more than four hours alone is permanently phsycologically damaged, I have it on good authority, they are pack animals, we become their pack. There are definatly loners, always male but for the most lonliness is extremely disturbing and damaging for any pack, herd or flock animal as with most of us

In my e-mails today, from WASP

Dear Miss --------------

Lailah faces trauma and horrific injury as she is forced into the bear baiting arena for ‘sport.’

Set upon by dogs, Lailah’s pain would have been excruciating. Her last bear baiting event left her bloodied with her muzzle severely pierced. She was close to death.

Will you help bears like Lailah?

Seriously injured, bleeding badly and struggling to breathe, Lailah had to endure fight after fight. Lailah is blind, probably as a result of an injury gained during a bear baiting fight.

Thanks to supporters like you, Lailah’s horrific ordeal is now in the past. Last year she was rescued by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and our member society, the Bioresource Research Centre (BRC) and taken to the Kund Park sanctuary where she lives a life free of fear and violent attack.

70 bears still in bear baiting

Theycan most of thembe somewhat repaired. Little woundered healers all.

oops wounded healers :)

Hi E, when I was a child I had a white cat that had periodic epileptic seizures. I think if a creature has a neurological system it probably can suffer from a neurological disorder. If we use the term mental disorder instead of mental illness, which might be appropriate, the same may apply, order to disorder. “Mental disorder” covers a broad range of “disorders”. This was an interesting jump link.

Were they neurotic only around people? I have two cats, brother and sister. The sister is a completely normal cat. The brother spends all of its time hiding in the house if there are people in it with one exception. However if he doesn't think there people in the house he can be observed to act just like his sister. Its only his interaction with people that brings out his 'fraidycatness.

One became dangerously vicious around lawn mowers....

Friggin lawnmowers. Yeah, I can see that. They're like vacuum cleaners on steroids. And I've never seen a animal not freakout over a vacuum cleaner.

I have personally known some dogs that were mentally ill. It's only anecdotal evidence, but I'm convinced.

Yeah, but freaking out is one thing. Trying to kill the operator is something different.

The woman swaying to a fro. Could have been a dopamine imbalance?

What makes you think it's only about the mind in your head? What about the mind in you gut? The gut makes all the same neurotransmitters as your brain. Plus 2/3 of the vagal nerves run from gut to brain, while only 1/3 run from brain to gut. So it's primarily the gut influencing the mind, esp. with all the neurotransmitters. Fact, the gut makes 95% of serotonin, implicated in depression. So if you want answers, don't just look at the head-mind. That paradigm is incorrect and demonstrates another problem with our health care system, full of dogmas and motives for profit.

So animals need not necessarily be effected through the mind but through the gut! Plus animals with mental disorders probably wouldn't survive very long anyways.

Could have been a dopamine imbalance?

I s'pose. So now we've got mental, high or dopamine imbalance.

What makes you think it's only about the mind in your head? What about the mind in you gut?

Well, I watched a show on the History channel yesterday about rats. One segment was about a university out west that had managed to hook some electrodes on/in to a rat and could actually control the direction that the rat went. Wanna know where the electrodes weren't hooked up to? The gut.

While the bulk of the brain resides within the cranium, it's tentacles penetrate the farthest regions of the body. So yes, it is inappropriate to think of the mind as being confined to the head.

That's sweet info. Let me know if you have a reference for the study.