Week 1 Flashcards
What is the demonic model with mental health?
Belief that mental illness was due to demonic possession. Prevalent in the Middle Ages, but remnants still exist.
What’s the medical model when it comes to mental illness?
mental illness was seen as physical ailment that could be cured. Lead to hospitalisation of individuals in asylums.
This led to institutionalisation - poor treatment efficacy and conditions. Concerns gave rise to the Moral Treatment approach.
Deinstitutionalisation- allowed to live a “normal life”, a more effective treatment BUT resulted in high level of homelessness and poverty.
What is mental health defined?
Capacity of an individual to behave in a way that promotes their emotional and social well being.
What is mental health problem defined?
Wide range of emotional and behavioural abnormalities that affect people throughout their lives.
What’s a mental disorder?
A clinically recognisable set of symptoms and behaviours that cause distress to the individual and impair their ability to function as usual.
Most common reason why people develop mental health disorders?
The Biopsychosocial model - mental health and related disorders are influenced by a number of factors which interlink:
- biological factors: eg. Genetics, hormone and neurotransmitter imbalances
- psychological factors: cognitive biases, coping skills, maladaptive thought patterns
- social factors: social support (or lack thereof), experience trauma or stress.
Another model why people develop mental health issues?
Diathesis- stress model:
Disorders are triggered when people with pre existing vulnerabilities experience some sort of acute or chronic stress or. The greater the diathesis, the less stressors needed to trigger an event (ie a threshold is breached).
Diathesis- individuals possess some sort of internal factor (ie genetic, cognitive), which predisposes them to mental illness.
Stress- an environmental cue which triggers mental illness.
What is “abnormal”?
- Statistical infrequency: the behaviour/disorder in question is statistically rare in the population l.
Limitation: not all rare behaviours are psychological disorders, not all psychological disorders are rare. - Personal distress: the person is experiencing relatively high levels of personal distress.
Limitation: not all distressed people are demonstrating abnormal behaviour (eg grief). - Impairment: there is reduced capacity to perform typical everyday functions. Can be evidenced by relationship, social and or occupational distinction.
Limitation: other non-psychological disorders, and general personality traits (eg laziness) can cause impairment. - Violation of norms: the person is displaying behaviour that is not socially appropriate.
Limitations: not all social inappropriate behaviour is reflective of mental illness. Could be used as social control (Russia diagnosing people against their beliefs as mental and sending them to hospitals), or foster prejudice (eg homosexualality classified as a disorder). - Biological dysfunction: there’s empirical evidence of neurological impairment.
Limitation: some psychological disorder (phobias) are learnt.
What are some diagnostic issues?
Social context: labelling behaviour as psychopathological when socially inconvenient
Eg “drapetomania” - repeated escape attempts by slaves. Treatment was whipping.
Labelling vs. diagnosing: creation of terms that allegedly describe a disorder, but have no or limited empirical support, and provide no explanation of cause of “disorder” eg. Compulsive shopping disorder.
Cultural differences: some disorders are specific to certain cultures.
Eg Windigo - In native Americans, a morbid fear of becoming a cannibal.
Eg Bulimia nervosa - binging and purging to maintain weight. In cultures exposed to Western media vs
Anorexia nervosa which occurs throughout the world.
Are majority of disorders universal?
Yes.
Diagnostic issues with common misconceptions:
- Diagnosis reduces the individual to their disorder
- Diagnosis are too unreliable to be useful
- Diagnosis is only descriptive and therefore meaningless
- Diagnosis stigmatise people.
What are most mental illnesses diagnosed with?
The diagnostic and statistical manual (used for clinical diagnosis) (DSM). Published by the American Psychiatric Association.
It allows consensus between practitioners in different disciplines and in different countries.
Currently in its 5th addition.
Provides evidence based diagnostic criteria, and therefore is regularly revised in like with new research.
Strength of the DSM?
- A theoretical
- Strict criteria for classification
- Allows international consensus
- Provides many factors (biological, psychological and social)
What are some weaknesses of the DSM?
- The validity of some disorders are questionable.
- Comorbidity - (Similar symptoms) does this mean there is really one underlying disorder?
- Categorical vs dimensional model. Strict categories to classify certain disorders.
