Lecture Week 6

Question 1

Sensitivity to Diagnosis Labels

Answer 1

• Sometimes labels are helpful in understanding and treating individuals
• Sometimes labels are confronting and restrictive to individual’s self esteem
• Never refer to a person by their diagnosis alone as this is stigmatising and demeaning.

Question 2

Danger in using a label alone

Answer 2

• Some people do not experience mental distress in the same way.
• e.g. schizophrenia has 9 symptoms but a person need only present with 5.
• There is a massive difference in the experience of separate individuals who express 5 different symptoms but still have the same diagnosis

Question 3

The Five P’s of Case Formulation

Answer 3

1. Presenting problem
2. Predisposing factors
3. Precipitants
4. Perpetuating factors
5. Protective/positive

Question 4

The Five P’s of Case Formulation - Presenting problem

Answer 4

• What is the client’s problem list?
• What are DSM diagnoses?

Question 5

The Five P’s of Case Formulation - Predisposing factors

Answer 5

• Over the person’s lifetime, what factors contributed to the development of the problem?
• Think biopsychosocial

Question 6

The Five P’s of Case Formulation - Precipitants

Answer 6

• Why now?
• What are triggers or events that exacerbated the problem?

Question 7

The Five P’s of Case Formulation - Perpetuating factors

Answer 7

• What factors are likely to maintain the problem?
• Are there issues that the problem will worsen, if not addressed

Question 8

The Five P’s of Case Formulation - Protective/positive factors

Answer 8

• What are client strengths that can be drawn upon?
• Are there any social supports or community resources?

Question 9

The language of diagnosis

Answer 9

• Words like o Suffering from
  
  • o He has “x”
  • o Has been diagnosed with . . .

Can be powerful and negative and can disempower the person.

• • I prefer to used
    
    • Is living/has lived with
    • Has experienced or is experiencing

Because they are less inflammatory

• but some people prefer terms like Suffering because that is the experience for them.

Try to use your clients language to reflect

Question 10

Comorbidity

Answer 10

• When a client presents with multiple diagnoses of mental health
• The comorbidity rate of multiple diagnoses in clients is 80%

Question 11

Highest types of comorbidities are . . .

Answer 11

• Anxiety and Depression
• Addiction and Mental Distress

Question 12

What classifies abnormal psychology

Answer 12

• Emotions on their own do not classify mental illness
• It is really a question of severity and duration
• It is also important to note if the emotions interferes with Activities of Daily Living

Question 13

Define Deviance in Psychology

Answer 13

Thoughts and behaviours that deviate from the current norms

Question 14

What can be considered abnormal or psychopathology?

Answer 14

• Difficult to draw a line between normal and abnormal
• Diagnoses require judgement about where behaviour falls on a spectrum of behaviours
• Of note we look at
  
  • Deviance
  • Personal Distress
  • Maladaptive Behaviours
• All three do not have to be met to diagnose psychological disorder
• Psychopathology is often defined socially

Question 15

Is evil inherently diagnosable Mental Illness

Answer 15

• This is subjective, Evil is a concept of morality that is subjective
• Sometimes people commit crimes and morally offensive acts regardless of right and wrong

Question 16

Dialectics

Answer 16

The idea that there is no absolute right and wrong

Question 17

Percentage of prevalence of mental illness in Australia

Answer 17

• 20% or one in 5 people will be diagnosed or experienced mental illness in the last 12 months
• The lifetime prevalence is just under 50%; 49.2%

It turns out that Mental Illness is actually NOT abnormal

Question 18

Diathesis Stress Model

Answer 18

• Life events + genetic vulnerability determines the level of severity of the Mental disturbance
• Studies of 911 found that PTSD occurred in people who did not have support network to come home to and who already had high stress before the event.

Question 19

Diathesis treatment options

Answer 19

Look at improving psychosocial stress factors in an individual to improve outcomes

Question 20

Australian Cultural factors for mental distress

Answer 20

• Around cognition and negative thought
• Life is meaningless
• Things wont change or get better
• Considered higher order symptoms because they required a lot of thinking

Question 21

African Cultural factors for mental distress

Answer 21

• Report more symptoms like catatonia
• Mental distress presents in a more physical way
• Stressors around safety or nutrition and basic physical needs are more prevalent

Question 22

DSM-5

Answer 22

Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders v5

Question 23

ICD-10

Answer 23

• International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Health Related Problems
• Kind of like European equivalent to DSM-5
• Includes physical disease as well as mental disorders
• less focused on checklists than DSM-5

Question 24

Bipolar Disorder

Answer 24

• Both Bipolar 1 & 2 have depressive lows
• Osscilate between Mania and Depression highs and lows
  *

Question 25

Bipolar 1

Answer 25

• Manic Highs that are quite marked in intensity
• often accompanied by sleep loss for several days
• far and extreme forms of happy
• often engage in risky behaviours
• Mania lasts for around 7 days

Question 26

Bipolar 2

Answer 26

• Hyper manic phases
• mania is not quite as high in intensity
• doesn’t last as long as BPD 1
• Lasts around 4 days
  *