Chapter 15 Flashcards
(51 cards)
What is mental illness
-failure of adaptation to the environment
-mental disorder does not have an exact definition
-psychologist and psychiatrics have proposed a host of criteria of what mental disorder is
-statistical rarity: some mental disorders are uncommon, but not all rare conditions are disorders for example, being extremely creative is rare, but not a mental illness and some mental disorders like mild depression are actually quite common
-subjective distress: many mental disorders, cause emotional pain, but not all do
-Impairment: mental disorders often interfere with daily life however, impairment alone does not define a disorder because things like laziness can also cause impairment without being a mental illness
-social disapproval: some behaviours are labelled as disorders because society disproves of them, example rudeness is not liked by society, but it’s not considered a disorder
-biological disfunction: some mental disorders are linked to biological issues like schizophrenia, which is associated with brain disfunction however, some disorders like specific phobias are learned behaviours rather than purely biological conditions
Demonic model
-during Middle Ages: View of mental illness in which behaving oddly hearing voices or talking to oneself, was attributed to evil spirits inhabiting the body
Medical model
-during the rennisance: View of mental illness as a result of a physical disorder requiring medical treatment
-people began housing. These individuals in asylums: institutions for those with mental illness
Moral treatment
-approach to mental illness, calling for dignity, kindness, and respect for those with mental illness
— still no effective treatment treatments, so many continue to suffer with no relief
Thorazine
-modern era: a drug was developed called thorazine
-moderately decrease symptoms of schizophrenia and similar problems
Deinstitutionalization
By the 1960s-1970s: government policy that focussed on the release of hospitalized, psychiatric patients into the community and contributed to the closure of many mental hospitals
-had mixed results: some patients returned to almost normal lives, but tens of thousands had no follow up care and went off medication’s
-community mental health centres and halfway houses attempt to help with this problem
Misconceptions
-psychiatric diagnosis is nothing more than sorting people into boxes
-psychiatric diagnosis are unreliable
-psychiatric diagnosis are invalid
-psychiatric diagnosis, stigmatize people
-According to labelling theorist, psychiatric diagnosis can exert powerful negative effects on people’s perceptions and behaviours
Robins and Guze criteria for a valid diagnosis
- A valid diagnosis should be specific and different from other psychiatric conditions. Ex: schizophrenia should be clearly different from bipolar disorder.
- Predict laboratory test results: a diagnosis should be associated with measurable, biological or psychological markers, such as differences in brain, activity, neurotransmitter levels or personality traits. Ex: child is likely to perform poorly on laboratory measures of concentration.
- Predict family history: if a disorder is genetic individuals with a diagnosis should have a higher likelihood of having relatives with the same or similar disorder
- Predict natural history what: tends to happen to them overtime
Ex: the child is likely to show continued difficulties with inattention in adulthood, but improve improvements in impulsivity and over reactivity in adulthood - Predict diagnosed individuals response to treatment: a diagnosis should help determine what treatments will be most effective for a person with that disorder. Ex: antidepressants might work well for some mood disorders, but not for anxiety disorders.
DSM-5
-diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders
-a diagnostic system containing the American psychiatric Association criteria for mental disorders
-has 18 different classes of disorders and is currently on fifth edition
-Contains diagnostic criteria and decision rules for each condition
-uses a biopsychosocial perspective
-contains information on prevalence, which is the percentage of people with a population who have a specific mental disorder
-rules out physical causes of a symptom first
Labelling theorists
-scholars who argue that psychiatric diagnosis, exert, powerful negative effects on people’s perceptions and behaviours
Criticisms of DSM
-not all criteria and decision rules are based on scientific evidence
-The DSM-5 contains over 300 diagnosis, but not all meet Robins and Guze’s criteria for validity. Ex: mathematics disorder (difficulty with math) seems more like a learning issue than a true psychiatric disorder
-High comorbidity: many people with one diagnosis also meet the criteria for other disorders. Ex: major depression is often accompanied by anxiety disorders.
-reliance on categorical model (a disorder is either present or absent) rather than dimensional model (mental disorders exist on a spectrum varying in degree rather than being an all or no condition)
Mental illness and the law
-mental disorder defence: legal defense, proposing that people shouldn’t be held legally responsible for their actions if they weren’t “sound mind” when committing them
-insanity defence requires people to not know
-What they were doing at the time of the crime
-What they were doing was wrong
-less than 1% successful
Involuntary commitment
-Procedure of placing some people with mental illnesses in a psychiatric hospital or another facility based on their potential danger to themselves or others or they’re inability to care for themselves
-people can only be committed against their will if they
-Pose a clear and present threat to themselves or others
-are so impaired they can’t care for themselves
Obsessive compulsive disorder
-condition marked by repeated and lengthy (at least one hour per day) immersion in obsession, compulsions or both
-obsessions: persistent ideas, thoughts, or impulses that are unwanted and inappropriate, and caused marked distress
-Distress is relieved by compulsions: repetitive behaviour or mental act performed to reduce or prevent stress
Ex: repeatedly checking door locks, performing tasks in a set ways, repeatedly arranging and rearranging objects, washing, and cleaning repeatedly and unnecessarily
Ex: a woman has an intense fear of germs and contamination. She constantly worries that she might catch a deadly disease from touching every object, objects like doors and handles.
-Obsession: persistent unwanted thoughts of a bacteria covering her hands she imagined herself getting severely ill from invisible germs
-Compulsions: to relieve her anxiety and washes her hands exactly 20 times after touching anything outside if she doesn’t wash her hands properly, she feels intense distress and believe something terrible will happen
Explanation for anxiety disorders
-learning models focussed on acquiring fears via classical conditioning, then maintaining them through operant conditioning
-Can also learn fears by observing others or by hearing misinformation from others
-anxious people tend to think about the world in different ways from non-anxious people
-catastrophic thinking, predicting terrible events despite low probability
Anxiety sensitivity
-fear of anxiety related symptoms
Mood disorders
-MDD (major depressive disorder) is the most common at 16%
-features of a major depressive episode:
-depressed mood or diminished interest in pleasurable activities along with symptoms that include weight loss and sleep difficulties
-most prevalent in females most likely to develop in 30s
-depressive symptoms can develop gradually or suddenly but are often recurrent
-average episode last six months to one year most people experience 5 to 6 episode episodes
-can cause extreme functional impairment across all areas
Manic episode
-greatly decreased need for sleep much more talkative than usual racing thoughts, distractibility increased activity level of agitation and excessive involvement in pleasurable activity that can cause problems like excessive spending reckless driving
Bipolar disorder 1
-presence of one or more manic episodes
Persistent depressive disorder
-Low level of depression of at least two years duration; feelings of inadequacy, sadness, low energy, poor appetite, decrease pleasure, and productivity and hopelessness
Hypomanic episode
-a less intense and disruptive version of a manic; feelings of grouchiness, irritability, distractibility, and talkativeness
Bipolar disorder 2
-patients must experience at least one episode of major depression and one hypomanic episode
Explanations for MDD
-major life events
-interpersonal model: depression isn’t just an internal struggle. It also creates social problems, depressed individual seek excessive reassurance from others. This constant need for validation can become overwhelming for those around them as a result, friends and loved one start to feel frustrated or drained, leading them to pull away this rejection persons, the depression, making them seeking even more reassurance and the cycle repeats.
-behavior model: depression results from a low rate of positive reinforcement in the environment. A person with depression tries to engage in activities, but does not get any reward since nothing seems enjoyable or rewarding. They stopped trying altogether avoiding activities means they miss out on potential reinforcement from others making them feel even worse. Sometimes people around them respond with sympathy, which accidentally reinforces avoidance (it’s OK. You don’t have to get out of bed.)
-Since depression feeds on inactivity LewinSon‘s model suggest that the best way to fight it is to push yourself to engage in pleasant activities
-Becks cognitive model: depression is caused by negative beliefs and expectations
-negative view of themselves, the world, and the future skied ways of thinking that makes things seem worse than they are Ex: if I embarrass myself, everyone will hate me forever
Learned helplessness
-tendency to feel helpless in the face of events we can’t control
