Intro to psychiatry Flashcards
What is Cartesian dualism?
Conceptualised 2 types of foundation - mind cannot exist without body, and vice versa is true
What are critiques of dualism?
Mind and brain - what is mind? There is no evidence for a non-physical substance that is not brain
Not great when dealing with patients with inexplicable symptoms - starts with perspective and idea of not understanding - won’t try to arrive at understanding for the patient
What are consequence of dualistic thinking?
why does it persist not only in doctors?
Materialism - we are biologial beings
Reductionism - understood by examining their constituent parts
Consequently health becomes ‘absence of disease’
Familiar
Economics - private enterprises rely on it
Power - health is traditionally doctor business (being challenged)
Convenience - ability to design experimetns to test
Read for my own understanding on dualism
Dualism makes it easier for doctors - easier to brush aside ‘disorders of the mind’ because they are doctors of the ‘body’. So when something unexplained comes along in the brain, they call it ‘mind business’ and brush it aside
Patients can also accept this way of thinking (?) and diagnoses of the ‘mind’ aren’t as acceptable, treatments for the ‘mind’ such as counselling aren’t seen as valid medical treatments
What are classifications?
Why are they helpful?
grouped disorders into categories that people understand
Good - aid understanding/communication
- knowing how many ppl in each category informs public health issues, allocation of resources
- understood feeling
- framework for research
- evidence for treatment options
Issues with using classification and diagnosis?
improved scientific understanding makes a mockery of previous attempts to classify
- defines thresholds which are arbitrary
- categoristation can lead to stigma and prejudice
- may lead to oversimplification so reductionism and ultimately inhumane action
What are the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
Delusions
Thought disorder
Hallucinations
May become withdrawn, appear unemotional, lose interest, lose hygeine, spend a lot of alone time
Not able to carry on with normal activities, difficult to concentrate on work or study
What are the biological components of schizophrenia?
Genetic factors
Smaller brain volume in twins more likely to gain psychosis (independent of medication, early environment, iq … )
Functional imaging - dysfunction in prefrontal premotor, cingulate, subcortical and cerebellar regions are associated with hallucinatory experiences
dopamine pathway - dopamine blockers are mainstay of treatment, dopamine medications affect psychosis
Non-biological evidence for schizophrenia?
Urbanicity correlation - increased prevelance in densely populated areas worldwide
More common in urban areas
More common in some ethnic minority groups (only some tho)
More common in association with trauma
Schizophrenic relapse associated with: life events, high expressed emotion esp in family, loss
not sure WHY just scientifically proved correlations
Genetics influences environment e.g. personality influences parenting
‘heritability’ is not genetics e.g. language you speak
Individuals have variable resilience to adversity
Environment influences genetics
e.g. epigenetics
