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Mental Disorder and Mental Illness, and Serious Mental Illness

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Mental disorder and mental illness are used interchangeably here; serious mental illness, or SMI, names the subset causing substantial functional impairment.

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A diagnosed anxiety disorder may need only outpatient care, while an SMI diagnosis disrupts a person's work and daily functioning severely.

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The genuine severity distinction is mental illness versus SMI, not mental disorder versus mental illness.

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