Mental health: Diagnosis of mental illness Qs Flashcards
Explain how psychiatrists diagnose mental illness in one sentence.
Psychiatrists use a DSM-2 (diagnostic and statistical manual) to search patient’s symptoms to find the disorder / mental illness that best suits them before using the information provided to give treatment / potentially prescribe drugs.
Why do you think some people criticise this (diagnosis of mental illness through DSM) as being unscientific?
The DSM and ICD are both not based completely off of scientific-based facts / studies.
Instead a majority of the information about mental illness and its treatments are based solely off of the most popular opinion (from personal experience) between psychiatrists (most often added in / taken off as a result of voting).
This means the method of using a DSM / ICD is often unscientific and subjective.
(Not falsifiable (opinions based), not replicable (different manuals in use, different people interpret diagnosis differently)).
Explain the positive effects of being given a mental health label.
1- May make it clearer as to what the required treatment is (for the mental disorder).
2- The labels can act as ‘passports’ to accessing public services and help create communities of individuals with the same label so that they are less isolated and find it easier to ask for help / get treatment.
3- Label validates their symptoms (gives them an explanation).
Explain the negative effects of being given a mental health label.
1- Once people are given the label they are unable to lose it.
2- Make people victims of stigma & discrimination.
3- May find their behaviour judged by their label - others may interpret everything they do in light of this label (which cannot be changed / removed). E.g., Rosenhan’s pseudo patients - ‘schizophrenia in remission’.
4- May lead to a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’.
Give an example of a symptom / behaviour which may occur in more than 1 disorder (diagnosis) and explain why this might cause difficulties for diagnosis.
Symptom = Being worried about the meaning of life
Applies to both = Manic depressive & schizophrenia.
Cause difficulties = If only those types of symptoms are displayed, it may be hard to determine which disorder the person has.
Means psychiatrist is at risk of prescribing the wrong diagnosis and thus treatment.
This is especially an issue if both disorders have differing treatment plans.
