Concepts in psychiatry

Question 1

What is mental illness?

Answer 1

Abnormalities of behaviour
Reports of abnormal or distressing experiences

Question 2

What is grouping of mental illnesses based on?

Answer 2

Grouping based on similar characteristics

Question 3

What are the main systems in the categorisation of mental health illnesses?

Answer 3

ICD-10 and DSM-IV

Question 4

What is the criticism against the systems used for categorisation?

Answer 4

Criticism is that these criteria ‘pathologize’
significant proportions of population.

Question 5

What are methods of diagnosing mental illnesses?

Answer 5

 Phenomenology
 Symptoms
 Syndrome descriptions
 Aetiology – On occasion

Question 6

What are organic mental illnesses attributable to and examples?

Answer 6

Organic
-Attributable to cerebral or systemic disease
-Such as tumour / Physiological disturbance

Question 7

What are functional mental illnesses and when was this concept developed?

Answer 7

-No suspected organic pathology
-Concept developed at time when organic disorders diagnosed by naked eye

Question 8

What happens in psychosis and what are symptoms?

Answer 8

-Psychosis
-Insight impaired
-Inadequate distinction reality / fantasy
-Symptoms such as hallucinations / delusions

Question 9

What happens in neurosis and is it psychotic?

Answer 9

-Anxiety, low mood, obsessions
-Intact insight
-Not Psychotic

Question 10

What is a trait?

Answer 10

a distinguishing quality or characteristic, typically one belonging to a person.

Question 11

What is a state?

Answer 11

State- short term
-May be normal or pathological

Question 12

What is disease(biological) model?

Answer 12

Mental dysfunction a consequence of physical &
chemical changes in the brain, or elsewhere

Question 13

Why is the disease(biological) model taken to one extreme?

Answer 13

all mental illnesses will be shown to be diseases in the medically accepted sense

Question 14

What is the key idea in the psychodynamic model?

Answer 14

mental life continues outside of our
awareness (i.e. it may be unconscious)

Question 15

What does the psychodynamic model suggest about symptoms?

Answer 15

Symptoms have meaning which expresses
unconscious feelings or thought, thus symptoms may give clues to underlying unconscious problem

Question 16

What does the behavioural model state?

Answer 16

Abnormal behaviours exhibited in most mental
illness
These behaviours result of unhelpful learned
responses

Question 17

What is extreme about the behavioural model?

Answer 17

the symptoms are the illnesses

Question 18

What does treatment in the behavioural model involve?

Answer 18

Treatment involves altering these behaviours

Question 19

What is the cognitive model?

Answer 19

Mental illnesses are the consequence of unhelpful errors or biases in thinking

Question 20

What is reactivated during episodes of illness in the cognitive model?

Answer 20

Early dysfunctional assumptions about self or the world are reactivated during episodes of illness

Question 21

What does treatment involve in the cognitive model?

Answer 21

Treatment involves restructuring thoughts which underpin mental illness & maladaptive behaviours

Question 22

What does the social model state?

Answer 22

-Social influences are important causes or
precipitants of mental illness
-Ultimately illness is socially defined

Question 23

What does psychiatry involve?

Answer 23

Clinical diagnosis
Holistic approach
Team approach
Biopsychosocial model