FE (4) Psychological Disorders II Flashcards
What Is Mental Illness?
- Often seen as a failure of adaptation to the environment
1) Failure analysis approach: Trying to understand mental illness by
examining breakdowns in functioning
a) Clinically significant disturbance in cognition, emotion regulation, or
behaviour
b) Dysfunction in the biological, psychological, or developmental
processes underlying mental functioning
Criteria for defining mental illness,
1) Statistical rarity
2) Subjective distress
3) Impairment
4) Societal disapproval
5) Biological dysfunction
Whats Statistical rarity
first criteria in defining mental inllness
- Many mental disorders such as schizophrenia are uncommon. Yet we can’t rely on statistical rarity to define mental disorder because not all infrequent conditions—such as extraordinary creativity—are pathological or indicative of mental illness, and many mental disorders—such as mild depression—are quite common
Whats SUBJECTIVE DISTRESS.
2nd criteria in defining mental illness
- Most mental disorders produce emotional pain for individuals afflicted with them, but not all of them do. For example, during the manic phases of bipo- lar disorder, people frequently feel better than normal and perceive nothing wrong with their behaviors. Similarly, many adults with antisocial personality disorder experience less distress than the typical person.
WHats IMPAIRMENT.
3rd criteria in defining a mental illness Most mental disorders interfere with people’s ability to function in every- day life. These disorders can destroy marriages, friendships, and jobs. Yet the presence of impairment by itself can’t define mental illness because some conditions, such as laziness, can produce impairment but aren’t mental disorders.
Whats SOCIETAL DISAPPROVAL
4th criteria in defining mental illlness
- Nearly 50 years ago, Thomas Szasz (1960) argued famously that “mental illness is a myth” and that “mental disorders” are nothing more than condi- tions that society dislikes. He even proposed that psychologists and psychiatrists use diag- noses as weapons of control; by attaching negative labels to people whose behaviors they find objectionable, they’re putting these people “in their place.” Szasz was both right and wrong. He was right that our negative attitudes toward those with serious mental illnesses are often deep-seated and widespread. Szasz was also right that societal attitudes shape our views of abnormality.
Indeed, psychiatric diagnoses have often mirrored the views of the times. For centuries, some psychiatrists invoked the diagnosis of masturbational insanity to describe individuals whose compulsive masturbation supposedly drove them mad (Hare, 1962). Homosexuality was classified as a mental illness until members of the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove it from their list of disorders in 1973 (Bayer, 1981; see Chapter 11). As society became more accepting of homosexuality, mental health professionals came to reject the view that such behavior is pathological.
But Szasz was wrong that society regards all disapproved conditions as mental disor- ders (Wakefield, 1992). For example, racism is justifiably deplored by society, but isn’t con- sidered a mental disorder (Yamey & Shaw, 2002). Neither is messiness nor rudeness, even
though they’re both considered undesirable by society.
Whats BIOLOGICAL DYSFUNCTION.
last and 5th criteria in defining mental illness
- Many mental disorders probably result from break- downs or failures of physiological systems. For example, we’ll learn that schizophrenia is often marked by an underactivity in the brain’s frontal lobes. In contrast, some men- tal disorders, such as specific phobias, which are intense and irrational fears, appear to be acquired largely through learning experiences and often require only a weak genetic predisposition to trigger them.
WHat are the three main Historical Conceptions of mental illness
1) Middle ages:
Demonic model
- Mental illness was
due to evil spirits
infesting the body
- Trephination,
exorcism
2) Renaissance:
Medical model
- Mental illness was
due to physical disease
that can be cured
- Moral treatment
3) Modern era
- Medication (1950s:
Chlorpromazine for
schizophrenia)
- Deinstitutionalization
(1960-70s): mixed results
Historical Diagnosis of Psychological Disorders
The Rosenhan Experiment: Are psychiatric diagnoses in
1970s reliable and valid?
* Healthy individuals faked auditory hallucinations to gain admission
to a psychiatric hospital…
* Pseudo-patients..
Whats The DSM-5
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM)
* Currently on 5th edition, with text revision: DSM-5-TR
- Diagnostic criteria and decision rules for each condition
- Thinking organic
- Information on prevalence
What does The DSM-5 help to do
- make treatment decisions
- communicate among clinicians
- inform research
What are some critisms of The DSM-5
- Not all disorders have criteria
validity - High level of the possibilty of having one or more mental illness/disorders at once
- Reliance on categorical model
of psychopathology - Tendency to “medicalize
normalcy”
In terms of Mental Illness how does it afftect the Law
1) Insanity / mental disorder defense
* aka not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder
- Not aware of what they were doing at time of crime
- Did not know what they were doing was wrong
* Less than 1% of criminal cases use this ground successfully.
2) Incompetence to stand trial
What Is Anxiety?
Unpleasant feeling of fear and apprehension
* Most anxieties are transient and can be adaptive.
* They can also become excessive and impair normal functioning
What are the four componnets of anxiety
1) Psycholgical ( includes physical symptoms and sensations)
2) Cognitive ( involves what if questions like “what if I fail”
3) Emotional ( emotions associated with stress such as fear, dread and panic
4) Behavioural ( examples include reduced performance, avoidance)
What are Anxiety Disorders
- The most prevalent psychological disorders
- DSM-5: 11 anxiety disorders (~7.3% globally with one of
these disorders)
- e.g., specific phobia, social anxiety disorder (social phobia), panic
disorder, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, other specified
disorders (e.g., somatic symptom and related disorders) - Explanations
What is What Is a Phobia?
Intense fear of an object or situation that is greatly out of
proportion to its actual threat
* Most common anxiety disorder (11%)
* Comes in 3 different forms
