Defining Mental Illness Flashcards
What is mental illness?
- Changes in thinking, emotion or behaviour (or combinations)
- Associated with distress and or problems in functioning and social, work or family activities
- Syndromes (constellations of symptoms) with distress and/or impairment
What is the percentage that a US adults are currently experiencing some form of mental illness?
20% of US adults
What are the odds that a person will have a mental health disorder in their lifetime?
- 50.8% in US population
- >50% New Zeland
What is the difference between illness and disease?
- Disease has an underlying biological/ pathological process
- Illness = feeling, an experience of unhealthy which is personal, interior to the person
What is psychiatry based on?
- Medical model which emphasises verifiable disease processes
Although some biological changes have been identified for mental illness, what are some problems with it?
- Variability + lack of consistence
- No single cause had been identified
- Not clear is cause or effect
What are the consequences of the medical models?
- Biological treatment + research are valued
- Medical profession becomes very important
= psychiatry the common view of mental illness
- Medical profession becomes very important
Anti-psychiatry movement
- By saying mental illnesses are diseases = distortion of truth since not concert evidence
- Thomas Szasz - we define depression, Sz because we don’t understand them + don’t want to
○ They will never be diseases because they are inherently subjective
○ Suffering is real but we have created these labels
§ Sadness, loneliness, they experience but calling them depression removes them from the underlying truth - Focus on psychiatry is obscuring cause as we are looking for causes for things that don’t exist eg SZ - the suffering is real tho
○ Need a more holistic approach where psychological factors are addressed
○ Biosocialpsychology
- Thomas Szasz - we define depression, Sz because we don’t understand them + don’t want to
What evidence is there suggesting that spirit possession is more of a symptom than a cause of psychopathology?
- Spirit possession is more common among trauma sufferers
○ Higher prevalence in child soldiers who were forces to kill than in children who has not been abducted
What did plato think was the origin of mental illness?
- Not living a moral life + not understanding what a moral life means
- Morality = psychological maturity + wellbeing
What does it meant to live a moral life?
- Addressing the 3 different layers of the soul
- Appetite - food, sex, money
- Spirit - ambition, honour
- Reason - wisdom, knowledge, truth
- Let reason govern - allow expression but not let to dominate/ fixate
- Fixation at 1/2 = immorality = mental illness
How does immorality result in mental illness according to Plato?
- Produces pleasure but self-interest leads to deprivation and prevents person form living well
What does it mean by self-deception is the root of emotional distress and mental illness according to Plato?
Lack of knowledge about self/ own nature(reason)
What is the focus of therapy according to Plato and why?
- Help people become more moral by aiming to improve their character and virtue
- Engage in deep self-reflection to achieve psychological freedom, modesty + wisdom
- Therapist help question client’s responsibility
= Socratic Questioning (origin of talking therapy)
Why is the focus of therapy according to Plato based on improving morality?
- Because it is through immorality that the person become mentally ill
- Which was their responsibility
How is the view of mental health today different from Plato’s understanding?
- Psychological disorders are not seen as variations of the same condition
- Patient’s responsibility is seen as minimal
- Places more emphasis on the quality of action than the state of character that produces it eg not concerned with why a person is donating money
- We think we have the right for self-fulfilment
What were some important developments during the 19th century?
- Systematic study of social explanations of mental illness began in American Asylums
- Somatogenic hypothesis
= rise to medical/ disease model
- Somatogenic hypothesis
What is the somatogenic hypothesis and how did it affect our understanding of mental illness?
- Suggests that psychological problems come about as a result of biological changes
○ Involvement of syphilis bacteria and dementia shifted focus on biological origins
How did a more systematic study of social explanation of mental illness began in American Asylums?
- Consideration of family + societal factors
- Treatment that targeted social variables = improved recovery rates
Why are most people offered medication rather than psychological therapy?
- Medical model is the basis of modern psychiatry + treatment
- Widely held belief that mental illness is a disease - a biological cause
- Psychology is an epiphenomenon
Although the medical model emphasises scientific research and treatment, what are some problems with the medical model?
- Not all psychopathologies have a physical cause eg ADHD vs diabetes
- Pathologies uncommon behaviour + deprioritise personal behaviour?
- Exacerbate stigma?
- Our psychological experience has not advanced as fast as technology?
What is the alternative view to the medical model?
- Biopsychosocial paradigm
○ Humans have levels - each functioning autonomously but relate to each other
○ Cause of illness understood at multiple levels + number of contributory factors
§ Bio, psycho, social
What are the advantages to the biopsychosocial model?
- Integrative
- More flexible - can be disease if bio is main factor as well
Patient-centred
- More flexible - can be disease if bio is main factor as well
What are the disadvantages to the biopsychosocial model?
Complicates practise as you would need a more holistic overview
Why are mental illness based on symptoms and not causes?
- Not clear of cause
DSM
What is the DSM?
- Descriptive classification to guide research and clinical work
○ Essential features of the disorder
○ Diagnostic criteria
○ Info on deferential diagnosis
What is abnormal functioning?
- Behaviour/ experience = 4 D’s
- deviance, distressing, dysfunctional and dangerous
What are the advantages of classification?
- Pattern of patient symptoms enables recognition + treatment
- Can be liberating - not their fault
- Increases accessibility to evidence-based treatments
What are the disadvantages of classification?
- Not all disorder distinct from each other
- What if a person doesn’t fit category?
- Implies homogeneity of sufferers + treatment
- Ignores context
- Pathologies normal xp?
What are alternative to the DSM - categories?
- Symptom-based approach
○ Research + treat the worry, rumination, paranoia etc- Case formulation
○ Psychologist identify nature + cause of symptoms and treatment on an individual basis without putting label
- Case formulation
