Abstract
Abstract The disease status of mental disorders has been hotly debated and is still highly relevant for ethical and economic considerations regarding the human rights of psychiatric patients. Here we critically discuss traditional evolutionary and degenerative concepts of mental disorders and propose instead the differentiation between independent dimensions of mental health resources on the one hand and mental disorders on the other. We suggest that impairments of a minimal set of mental functions (e. g. concentration and memory) can serve as indicators of exogenous and endogenous psychoses, while other mental disorders (e. g. neuroses and personality disorders) cannot be diagnosed without a reference to setting and culture (Lebenswelt).
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