clinical psychology Flashcards
define mental health
state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realise their abilities, learn and work well, contribute to their community
define mental illness
a clinically diagnosable disorder that significantly interferes with an individual’s cognitive, emotional or social abilities
mental disorder
clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotional regulation, or behaviour that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or development processes underlying mental functioning.
Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress or disability in social, occupational, or other important activities
what’s not a mental disorder
→ “an expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved one”
→ socially deviant behaviour between individual and society
Catergorical vs Dimensional Classification
Categorical
- Better clinical and administrative utility
- Easier communication
Dimensional
- Closely model lack sharp boundaries between disorders, between disorders and normality
- Have greater capacity to detect change, facilitate monitoring
- Can develop treatment-relevant symptom targets - not simply aiming at resolution of disorder
What is the DSM-5-TR diagnostic groupings
Hybrid system, primarily categorical with some dimensional components
Diagnosis of DSM-5-TR
Diagnosis
- Clinical interviews - clinician and client semi/structured
- Text descriptions - how disorders present
- Diagnostic criteria - does presentation match checklist
- Currently presenting symptoms and severity
- Rule out disorder due to general medical condition or effects of a substance
Approach of DSM-5-TR
Approach
- Establish boundary with no mental disorder - cultural norms/clinical significance
- Determine specific primary disorder - multiple diagnoses possible
- Add subtypes - severity/treatment/longitudinal course
define public stigma
(plural of personal stigma) refers to stigma exhibited by the public towards those with a mental disorder
how does public stigma manifest?
- Stereotyped attitudes and beliefs - devaluing language
- Prejudicial affective responses - fear
- Discriminatory behaviours - avoidance of interaction/social exclusion
This is thought to be particularly harmful, and the driving force behind other aspects of stigma
define structural stigma
refers to ingrained stigma manifest at the societal level
what are the ways of structural stigma?
- Is maintained by social institutions (both government, religious, and private) through policy, law, and prescribed ideologies that restrict opportunities for particular groups
- Varies considerably across societies, time and topics
how does Multiple stigmas affect persons living with mental ill-health
- Individuals living with mental ill-health are affected by numerous mechanisms of stigma
- The Mental Illness Stigma Framework outlines that they include perceived stigma, experienced stigma, anticipated stigma, and self stigma
Perceived stigma
- Is experienced by people living either with or without mental ill-health
- An individuals’ perception of public stigmatised stereotypes, prejudicial emotions, discriminatory behaviour or practices, and/or stigmatised structural practices. Distinct from one’s own beliefs
- Higher levels in people with lived experience
- Shares a positive relationship with symptom severity for those living with mental ill-health
- Fundamental substrate of the anticipation and internalisation of public and structural stigma
Experienced stigma
- Refers to the experience of having been the target of expressed negative stereotypes, prejudices and manifest discrimination related to one’s mental ill-health
- May occur in subtle and insidious terms such as chronic exposure to commonplace stigmatising representations of people with mental ill-health in mass media, or in more acute ways such as the experience of being denied significant employment
- Can contribute to withdrawal from future opportunities and shares a relationship with the anticipation of stigma
Anticipated stigma
- The extent to which individuals living with mental ill-health expect to experience stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination in the future because of their mental health status
- Central to the experience of anticipated stigma is an awareness of public and structural stigma, and how this affects people living with mental ill-health in contexts that are relevant to the self
- Commonly results in withdrawal from opportunities for people living with mental ill-health
Effective approaches to stigma reduction
- Contact: being in contact with someone with mental illness. Positive for both parties and particulary effective for addressing stigma in adulthood. Challenges stereotypes and builds empathy
- Education: being educated about mental illness. This makes sense as familiarity with mental illness is well-established to be associated with decreased stigmatised attitudes and beliefs
define mood
refers to a person’s sustained experience of emotion
define affect
refers to the immediate experience and expression of emotion
define mood disorders
(according to the DSM-5-TR) involve a depression or elevation of mood as the primary disturbance
Can have other abnormalities (psychosis, anxiety, etc)
DSM-5 Major Depressive Episode Criteria
Five or more symptoms present for 2 or more weeks
- Depressed mood
- Anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities)
- Decrease/increase in appetite, significant weight gain/loss
- Persistently increased or decreased sleep
- Agitation or retardation
Fatigue/low energy
DSM-5 Major Depressive Episode Specifiers
- Psychotic features (mood congruent/mood incongruent)
- Melancholic features
- Catatonic features
- Postpartum onset
- Anxious distress
- Seasonal pattern
DSM-5 Major Depressive Disorder Criteria
- Presence of a major depressive episode
- Episode not better explained by another diagnosis
- NO HISTORY of mania, hypomania, or mixed episode (unless substance/medical illness related)