Dr. Rebecca Weintraub Brendel, associate director of the Center for Bioethics, director of the Master of Bioethics Degree Program, and president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association comments on “high-functioning depression”. The phrase highlights “a really important point that people can be suffering with mental illness and still appear outwardly to be able to function or not appear mentally ill to an outside observer.” But, Brendel added,the term could exacerbate shame and misunderstanding about mental health and depression. “Saying that somebody is high-functioning even though they have a mental illness in and of itself raises the stigma associated with mental illness.”
