Identifying disorders - Characteristics of disorders

Question 1

Issues

Answer 1

• Subjective vs. objective
• Gender bias (Ford & Widiger)
• Ethnocentrism
• Validity
• Reliability
• Extreme ends of debate of classification

Question 2

Reliability

Answer 2

• There is room for disagreement, failure of clinicians to reliably agree on diagnoses based on presenting characteristics
• Hard to diagnose reliably due to individual differences and bias.
• There is room for misdiagnosis = some people may not show all of the characteristics, may show some to greater or lesser degree.
• DSM/ICD
• Lack of consistent characteristics in any particular disorder: Significant overlap of symptoms and co-morbidity can affect reliability.
  > loss of pleasure = depression and schizophrenia,
  > delusions and disordered actions = bipolar disorders and schizophrenia
  > Anxiety is also somewhat common amongst people who are depressed, due to feelings of worthlessness and pessimistic depressive thought patterns.

Question 3

Validity

Answer 3

• Requires self-report from individuals who may not perceive their behaviour as abnormal or dysfunctional, or who may be prone to lying/disordered thoughts and social desirability.
• Ignores biological symptoms as it only focuses on behavioural symptoms.
• Are the characteristics well defined?
• Not simply a checklist of disorders to be ticked against a patients symptoms.
• Is there agreement about what constitutes that disorder?
• Mental disorder is not just organic, therefore validity is much more problematic.
• Behaviourists suggests symptoms are the disorder, therefore high validity, where as other approaches eg. psychodynamic speculates on route cause therefore questions validity.
• Cross cultural validity

Question 4

Positive aspects of identifying disorders:

Answer 4

• Helps to establish as reliable way to categorise and diagnose behaviours.
• Helps to direct the most appropriate treatment for the individual.
• Helps the individual come to terms with and understand why they are different. It is almost a relief to take the weight off their mind. The fear of the unknown is now reduced. Now they can get help.

Question 5

Ethnocentrism

Answer 5

It depends on the culture to how behaviour is perceived, some cultures may see behaviours as the norm where others would not.

Question 6

Validity Anxiety

Answer 6

(Phobia): How do you measure a how much a fear really disrupts someones life? Small or large scale eg. not enter a room or not leave house due to fear or spiders.

Question 7

Validity Psychotic

Answer 7

• A different group of characteristics leads to the same label, therefore leads us to question try label.
• Characteristics common to a range of disorders making diagnosis precarious eg. DSM classification of schizophrenia include disorganised speech, disorganised behaviour and negative thoughts, however clearly these could be an entirely different disorder, therefore reducing validity.
• Schizoid personality disorder = has similar characteristics but may not actually be schizophrenia
• Now there is general agreement over main characteristics of schizophrenia that identify it as a condition separate from other dysfunctions, however no universal agreement over precise definition. Therefore implicates validity as there is not 100% agreement over characteristics, therefore how can one be certain it is measuring what you aimed to.

Question 8

Validity Affective

Answer 8

• Incapability to measure the degree of symptoms accurately.
• These can only be judged via self report, therefore patients may give inaccurate representation of symptoms which are subjectively interrupted, therefore decreasing validity.
• How do you evaluate the balance of symptoms to measure degree of depression?

Question 9

Extreme ends…

Answer 9

Medical model claims to be valid in that a classification system defines the disorder.. though we can debate the validity of classifications.
Anti-psychiatry model of Szasz & Laing suggests there is no valid label as mental disorders do not exist other than as social constructs of a particular time and place.

Question 10

Subjective vs. Objective

Answer 10

• Persisted for 6 months… objective measure, therefore valid.
• Affective disorder.. depression = 5% change in body weight in a month. Where as ‘lack of sleep’ = open to subjectivity.
• Science = useful

is it open to interpretation?