Museum-goers worldwide throng to see exhibits of the works of Vincent van Gogh. Born in Holland in 1853, van Gogh created extraordinary art and took much joy in painting, but his life is a tale of misery. The son and grandson of Protestant ministers, van Gogh was the second of six children. A memoir by his sister-in-law records, "As a child he was of difficult temper, often troublesome and self-willed" (Roskill, 1963). According to his parents, when punished, Vincent became more "difficult".

When van Gogh was 16, he worked as a clerk in an art gallery, but his long, moody silences and irritability isolated him from his coworkers.

His life continued to be marked by instability. After he left the Borinage, he lived in and out of his parents' home and wandered around the country. Whereas once his interest in religion had been intense, if not obsessional, he now turned his back on religion.

He frequently spoke of feeling sad; still, he clung to the commonality of human feeling, saying, "I prefer feeling my sorrow to forgetting it or becoming indifferent" (Lubin, 1972, p.22). Painting was the one thing that drove away his sadness, and sometimes he painted with a frenzy. He had bouts of irritability, had difficulty concentrating, was often miserable, and was frequently quarrelsome. People described him as odd, argumentative, very sensitive, and unpredictable. He described himself as an alcoholic. He had frequent thoughts of suicide, and in the end, at the age of 37, he died after intentionally shooting himself (Lubin, 1972).

DISTRESS
People with psychological disorders may display or experience distress. One example of distress that is obvious to others is repeatedly bursting into tears and expressing hopelessness about the future, for no apparent reason.

IMPAIRMENT
People with psychological disorders may experience a disability or impairment in some aspect of life. Examples include a police officer who becomes so anxious that he cannot perform his job or an individual (such as van Gogh) whose emotional outbursts drive others away.