LEC 1 - What is Mental Health/Illness Flashcards
What is the DSM?
List of every mental illness and the symptoms associated to be diagnosed with the illness
Criticisms of the DSM
Issues with Validity: No one can actually prove that disorders exist
- Cant scan a brain to give definitive answers
There are no explanation about the way people actually feel when they have to live with an illness
Defining mentally ill creates a definition about what is mentally healthy
Qualities of Mental Health
- Not fixed in place
- ever changeable and flexible
- definition changes with society
Contentious Topics
Diseases: Mental illness viewed as disease, meaning it must be dealt by doctors (psychiatrists view this as harnmful and oppressive because there is no set cause and fix to each ‘disease’)
What Qualifies as good mental health: There is no set list that determines good/bad mental health
DSM Definition of Mental health
A clinically significant disturbance, an individuals cognition, emotional regulation, or behaviour, dysfunction in psychological, biological or developmental process, significant distress or disability associated with it
Mental Illness Definition
disruption in domains (something about their thoughts, moods or behaviours is not desirable/correct)
Mental Disorder Definition
Specific types of mental illness (anxiety disorder, panic disorder, etc.)
- Is diagnosed
Differentiation between mental and physical health
Mental disorders aren’t diagnosed to a physical organ (it is diagnosed to the whole human)
Assumptions and stigma made by being diagnosed with a mental disorder
Mental illness isn’t always negative
History of Uncertainty
Never a consensus about what causes mental illness
Psychological/Behavioural Model
Disorders are in the mind
First Version (Social Model)
Accepts the existence of mental disorders
Assumes that social structures act as determinants and causes
People with fewer resources, will develop mental illness easier
People with a higher rank in society are less likely to be mentally ill
Second Version (Social Model)
Mental illness is a social construct
They are inventions of humans to label people as sick
Skeptical about existence of disorders
Behaviours, thoughts and feelings are more likely to be labelled as illness
What we label as mentally ill is a reflection of society
- Only labelling people because their behaviours don’t match the desirable actions of societies norms
Why so many models?
One model may work for one situation but not another
- Medical models work better for schizophrenia than eating disorders
People find one model offensive
Some groups benefit from one model more than another
Determining clinical significance
Important because this label changes a persons value (if they need medications, accommodations’, if the person is treated differently from the rest of the population)
Difficulty with Diagnoses
Subjectivity
Co-Morbidity
Heterogeneity
Biases
Culture
Subjectivity (Diagnoses)
where is the line drawn between mentally ill and normal distress
- Gary Greenberg: If I don’t determine the clinical significance, I don’t get paid
- The issue is that they aren’t always sure about their diagnose
Co-Morbidity (Diagnoses)
having multiple illnesses at the same time
- Should we understand that person has multiple illnesses or should we understand that they are all interconnected
Heterogeneity (Diagnoses)
A person must have 5 of the 10 symptoms
- People may get diagnosed with the same thing but they don’t share the same symptoms
Biases (Diagnoses)
Race, gender, class, weight factors determine the way in which someone is diagnosed
Culture (Diagnoses)
Shapes something is judged or if something is reported as a symptoms
- Ex. In some cultures it is okay to hear voices
How common are mental disorders?
- 24%-50% of people report symptoms of mental disorders at some point in their life
Why are people more likely to get diagnosed now
Less stigma: people feel more accepted to come forward
There is something that has changed in our life
- Phones, social media
Medicalization
When something not medical becomes medical
- Something not defined as a mental illness gets redefined as a symptom of a illness
