1 Intro and conceptual issues

Question 1

What four things does abnormal psychology study?

Answer 1

1. Description (classification, diagnosis)
2. Causation
3. Maintenance
4. Treatment…
   of psychological/mental disorders

Question 2

What was classified as mental illness before the 19th century?

Answer 2

There was really only one category –insanity. So what would generally rank as psychosis today.

Question 3

How many categories of mental illness are there today?

Answer 3

400+

Question 4

What discipline studies the prevalence of mental disorder?

Answer 4

Psychiatric epidemiology

Question 5

What is prevalence of a disorder?

Answer 5

What proportion of population has a diagnosable disorder within specified time period.

Question 6

What are the three types of prevalence?

Answer 6

Point-prevalence (e.g. right now)

One-year prevalence (e.g. in 2007)

Lifetime prevalence

Question 7

What is incidence of a disorder?

Answer 7

What proportion of healthy individuals will develop the disorder within a specified time period.

Question 8

How do psychiatric epidemiologists go about determining incidence/prevalence?

Answer 8

They use very large normative samples of 10,000+ pps. Cold-calling, interviews etc.

Question 9

What is the lifetime prevalence of mental disorders in adults?

Answer 9

32-48%

Question 10

What is the lifetime prevalence of mental disorders in those under 21?

Answer 10

35-49%

Question 11

What is the lifetime prevalence of any mental disorder among Australians?

Answer 11

45%
or
7.3 million Australians aged 16-85 experience an anxiety, affective or substance use disorder in their lifetime.

Question 12

What percentage of those with mental disorder receive help?

Answer 12

Approximately 1/3

Question 13

Sufferers of which mental disorder are most likely to seek help –and what percent of them do?

Answer 13

Schizophrenia –48%

Question 14

How does the DSM define a disorder?

Answer 14

“A clinically significant behavioural or psychological syndrome or pattern
… associated with present distress or disability or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom.”

Question 15

When are symptoms NOT a disorder according to the DSM?

Answer 15

When they are “an expectable and culturally sanctioned response to a particular event, for example, the death of a loved one.”

Question 16

According to Wakefield, what must a disorder be a manifestation of?

Answer 16

A manifestation of a behavioural, psychological, or biological dysfunction in the individual.

Question 17

What term does Wakefield use to define mental disorder?

Answer 17

Harmful dysfunction

Question 18

What are Wakefield’s two criteria for mental disorder?

Answer 18

1) It must arise from dysfunction of some internal mechanism.
2) It must be socially unexpected/inappropriate/unvalued

Question 19

What does Wakefield call the single most serious flaw in current psychological thinking?

Answer 19

The failure to consider whether symptoms are actually harmful internal dysfunctions.

Question 20

Symptoms of what are often erroneously (according to Wakefield) labelled as mental disorders?

Answer 20

Symptoms that are expectable reactions to environmental stressors – and those that are forms of social deviance.

Question 21

What is the result of treating all symptoms as disorders, regardless of internal dysfunction?

Answer 21

Overdiagnosis of disorders.

Question 22

How does Wakefield define dysfunction?

Answer 22

As “the failure of a mental mechanism to perform a natural function for which it was designed by evolution.”