Psych Health Reading 1

Question 1

diagnostic literalism

Answer 1

mistaking mental health problems for the diagnoses by which they are classified

Question 2

diagnoses

Answer 2

clinically useful categorical idealizations to facilitate treatment selection and prognosis

Question 3

reductionism

Answer 3

isolated study of individual elements of mental disorders

Question 4

psychiatric nosology

Answer 4

the classification and scientific study of mental disorders

Question 5

what forces have shaped the DSM?

Answer 5

sociopolitical forces i.e. minimizing stigma, patient advocacy, adherence to precedent

historical forces

path dependence

Question 6

mental health problems are

Answer 6

complex biopsychosocial processes that unfold in individuals over time

Question 7

for most diagnoses DSM ignores

Answer 7

causes and etiology

Question 8

classification systems differ

Answer 8

considerably in their conceptualization of some diagnoses
there are dozens of diff measurement tools to diagnose same disorder

Question 9

interrater reliability

Answer 9

for some common diagnoses is low

Question 10

comorbidity and transdiagnostic

Answer 10

there is comorbidity between diagnoses
many risk factors are transdiagnostic

Question 11

diagnoses are categorical but

Answer 11

most mental health problems = dimension of severity
from absent to very severe

Question 12

equifinality

Answer 12

different starting points may lead to same diagnosis

Question 13

multifinality

Answer 13

similar starting points may lead to different diagnoses

Question 14

clinical psychology / psychiatry have devoted most resources to X instead of X

Answer 14

diagnostic labels that summarize complex mental health states
rather than
how biopsychosocial processes give rise to mental health problems

Question 15

psychiatric literature is dominated by

Answer 15

case-control studies
healthy control group compared with group diagnosed with specific disorder

Question 16

what is the issue with case-control studies in psychiatry

Answer 16

unlikely that such designs are optimally positioned to inform research
approach is flawed as mental health problems = not the diagnostic idealizations they are summarized as

Question 17

complex systems contain

Answer 17

interdependent elements
properties depend on each other
need the study of system parts + relationship among those parts across levels

Question 18

explanatory reductionism

Answer 18

lower levels i.e. biology offer explanatory power inherently superior to higher levels i.e. psychology, environment

Question 19

explanatory reductionism has constrained

Answer 19

research funds
health-care policy
delivery of clinical services

Question 20

NIMH have stated that mental disorders are X that can be identified with X and understood through X

Answer 20

brain disorders / dysfunctions in neural circuits
identified with tools of clinical neuroscience
understood through neuroscience-based psychiatric classification

Question 21

issues with explanatory reductionism

Answer 21

1. lower levels not superior in explaining higher-level processes
2. biomarkers for mental health problems do not drive their higher-level outcomes i.e. feelings/behaviours
3. complex phenotypes likely differ in brain activation across/within individuals

Question 22

what has biological psychiatry led to

Answer 22

insights into human biology but little about biology of specific diagnoses
genome-wide association studies have resulted in transdiagnostic hits that explain negligible variance

Question 23

why is there a lack of progress in biological psychiatric research

Answer 23

due to focus on study of particular DSM labels that are likely the wrong targets
due to studying biology in isolation

Question 24

the cycle of reification is caused by

Answer 24

after identifying weak correlates we reify diagnoses by essentializing mental disorders
+ flawed inferences from measurement
+ external validation

Question 25

probablistic feature relations allow for

Answer 25

interindividual differences within a DSM diagnosis
equifinality
multifinality

Question 26

what other features are useful markers for identifying specific diagnoses beside symptoms

Answer 26

etiology
personality

Question 27

a systems view casts diagnoses and reductionism as

Answer 27

useful epistemological tools for describing the world
not ontological convictions about how the world dis