Week 1 psychological health and illness introduction

Question 1

The Medical Model

Answer 1

Typically involves diagnosing and treating mental illness based on biological factors ( e.g genetics, physiology and pathology) and often views illness as a deviation from normal functioning

Question 2

The Humanistic Approach

Answer 2

Emphasizes the importance of individual agency, personal growth, and self actualization. Priority is persons subjective experience, self-awareness and potential for change. Therapeutic approaches foster empathy, authenticity and the fulfillment of psychological needs

Question 3

Behaviorism

Answer 3

Suggests mental health can be explained by environmental factors such as conditioning. Behaviour modification, reinforcement and exposure therapy are used to address problematic behaviors and promote adaptive ones.

Question 4

The multi-dimensional model of psychopathology

Answer 4

As we will learn across the course of this subject, understanding psychological illness, how it presents, and its causes is complex and uni-dimensional models alone are too simplistic to explain the etiology of mental disorders fully. Therefore, it is better to subscribe to multi-dimensional models that integrate multiple causes and/or factors of mental illness and how these factors interact with one another.

Question 5

Mental disorders:

Answer 5

Mental disorders are characterized by psychological dysfunction, which causes physical and/or psychological distress or impaired functioning, and is not an expected behavior according to societal or cultural standards.

Question 6

Dysfunction:

Answer 6

Includes “clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning” (pg. 14). Abnormal behavior, therefore, has the capacity to make well-being difficult to obtain and can be assessed by looking at an individual’s current performance and comparing it to what is expected in general or how the person has performed in the past. As such, a good employee who suddenly demonstrates poor performance may be experiencing an environmental demand leading to stress and ineffective coping mechanisms. Once the demand resolves itself, the person’s performance should return to normal according to this principle.

Question 7

Distress

Answer 7

When the person experiences a disabling condition “in social, occupational, or other important activities” (pg. 14). Distress can take the form of psychological or physical pain, or both concurrently. Alone though, distress is not sufficient enough to describe behaviour as abnormal. Why is that? The loss of a loved one would cause even the most “normally” functioning individual pain. An athlete who experiences a career-ending injury would display distress as well. Suffering is part of life and cannot be avoided. And some people who exhibit abnormal behaviour are generally positive while doing so.

Question 8

Deviance:

Answer 8

Closer examination of the word abnormal indicates a move away from what is normal, or the mean (i.e., what would be considered average and in this case in relation to behavior), and so is behavior that infrequently occurs (sort of an outlier in our data). Our culture, or the totality of socially transmitted behaviors, customs, values, technology, attitudes, beliefs, art, and other products that are particular to a group, determines what is normal. Thus, a person is said to be deviant when he or she fails to follow the stated and unstated rules of society, called social norms. Social norms change over time due to shifts in accepted values and expectations. For instance, homosexuality was taboo in the U.S. just a few decades ago, but today, it is generally accepted. Likewise, PDAs, or public displays of affection, do not cause a second look by most people unlike the past when these outward expressions of love were restricted to the privacy of one’s own house or bedroom. In the U.S., crying is generally seen as a weakness for males. However, if the behavior occurs in the context of a tragedy such as the Vegas mass shooting on October 1, 2017, in which 58 people were killed and about 500 were wounded while attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival, then it is appropriate and understandable. Finally, consider that statistically deviant behavior is not necessarily negative. Genius is an example of behavior that is not the norm.

Question 9

Key Takeaways
You should have learned the following in this section:

Answer 9

Abnormal behavior is a combination of personal distress, psychological dysfunction, deviance from social norms, dangerousness to self and others, and costliness to society.
Abnormal psychology is the scientific study of abnormal behavior, with the intent to be able to predict reliably, explain, diagnose, identify the causes of, and treat maladaptive behavior.
The study of psychological disorders is called psychopathology.
Mental disorders are characterized by psychological dysfunction, which causes physical and/or psychological distress or impaired functioning, and is not an expected behavior according to societal or cultural standards

Question 10

Uni-Dimensional

Answer 10

Uni-Dimensional

To effectively treat a mental disorder, we must understand its cause. This could be a single factor such as a chemical imbalance in the brain, relationship with a parent, socioeconomic status (SES), a fearful event encountered during middle childhood, or the way in which the individual copes with life’s stressors. This single factor explanation is called a uni-dimensional model. The problem with this approach is that mental disorders are not typically caused by a solitary factor, but multiple causes. Admittedly, single factors do emerge during a person’s life, but as they arise, the factors become part of the individual. In time, the cause of the person’s psychopathology is due to all these individual factors.

Question 11

Multi-Dimensional

Answer 11

So, it is better to subscribe to a multi-dimensional model that integrates multiple causes of psychopathology and affirms that each cause comes to affect other causes over time. Uni-dimensional models alone are too simplistic to explain the etiology of mental disorders fully.

Before introducing the current main models, it is crucial to understand what a model is. In a general sense, a model is defined as a representation or imitation of an object (dictionary.com). For mental health professionals, models help us to understand mental illness since diseases such as depression cannot be touched or experienced firsthand. To be considered distinct from other conditions, a mental illness must have its own set of symptoms. But as you will see, the individual does not have to present with the entire range of symptoms. For example, to be diagnosed with separation anxiety disorder, you must present with three of eight symptoms for criteria A whereas for a major depressive episode as part of Bipolar II disorder, you have to display five (or more) symptoms for criteria A. There will be some variability in terms of what symptoms are displayed, but in general, all people with a specific psychopathology have symptoms from that group.

Question 12

Key Takeaways
You should have learned the following in this section:

Answer 12

Key Takeaways
You should have learned the following in this section:

The uni-dimensional model proposes a single factor as the cause of psychopathology while the multi-dimensional model integrates multiple causes of psychopathology and affirms that each cause comes to affect other causes over time.
There is no individual model that completely explains human behavior and so each model contributes in its own way.

Question 13

Mental illness

Answer 13

• A clinically diagnosable illness which:
• affects a person’s thinking, emotional state, and behaviour, and disrupts the person’s ability to: work * carry out daily activities, and * engage in satisfying relationships
• Also interferes with how a person thinks, feels, and behaves, but to a lesser extent than a mental illness.

Question 14

Mental health problems/poor mental health

Answer 14

• More common than mental illness and includes the mental ill health that can be experienced temporarily as a reaction to the stresses of life.
• Mental health problems are less severe than mental illnesses, but may develop into a mental illness if they are not effectively dealt with
• More common than mental illness
• What people experience during Covid 19 is an example of this.

Question 15

Psychological distress:

Answer 15

• Psychological distress is one measure of poor mental health.
• Can be described as feelings of tiredness, anxiety, nervousness, hopelessness, depression, and sadness.
• A person experiencing high levels of psychological distress may not meet the criteria for a mental illness, but their distress may still have a negative impact on their life.
• Subclinical symptoms: Subclinical diseases are conditions where the disease is identifiable with laboratory testing or imaging, but have no outward signs or symptoms
• Australian statistics demonstrate that over time women have consistently experienced/reported high and very high levels of psychological distress more commonly than men across all age groups