Absolutely. One of the things our field is great at is debating language. We debate what we think about the words “mental disorder”. It come from a DSM diagnostic category that physicians are taught, which is to put things into a disorder—substance use disorder, depressive disorder—yet people in my own organization at the Canadian Mental Health Association sometimes bristle when they hear “mental disorder”.
I think the intent of talking about mental disorder is the scientific intent, connected to the diagnostic categories from the diagnostic and statistics manual. There's a debate about mental illness, mental health problems, and mental disorder.
I did hear a little bit of the interchange with Mr. Jowhari. I guess how I would say it is that there are Canadians who are vulnerable to mental health problems and who have not expressed those problems, but they may have greater risk. Then there are people with mild to moderate problems that may not meet the diagnostic criteria for a disorder. Then there are people with disorder. Mental illness and mental disorder, in the professional [Technical difficulty—Editor], but not everyone has a mental disorder or a mental illness.
So the diagnostic distinction between “mental illness” and “mental disorder” doesn't exist in the scientific community. People have different affinities with one term over another, but they're considered the same thing.