Chapter 8 Mental Disorder. Introduction About 50% of American adults suffer from a mental disorder during their lifetime Depression is "the common cold.

Chapter 8

Mental Disorder

Introduction

• About 50% of American adults suffer from a mental disorder during their lifetime

• Depression is "the common cold of mental illness"

• Stigma makes getting help difficult for many people

Popular Beliefs

• Myths:– mentally ill individuals are extremely weird– mental illness is hopeless– there is a sharp, clear distinction between

"mentally ill" and "mentally healthy" – mentally ill individuals are crazed, violent

people– people get more depressed in the winter

Types of Mental Disorder

• Biomedical view of mental illness: mental illness is similar to a physical disease– Accepted by American Psychiatric Association

• Psychological view: mental illness signals emotional problems of psychological origin

• Psychosis: loss of touch with reality

Types of Mental Disorder

– Manic-depressive disorder (or bipolar disorder): Fluctuating between 2 opposite extremes of mood - mania,

• Great elation, exuberance, and excitement), and depression (overwhelming despair)

– Schizophrenia: • Characterized by thinking and talking in

unconventional, illogical, or ambiguous ways; – Hallucinations (hearing and/or seeing things that do not

exist)

Types of Mental Disorder

• Neurosis: less severe than psychosis; little distortion of reality; – Ability to behave in normal way; – Neurotic symptoms prevent the sufferers

from being as happy as they want to be– Anxiety reaction:

• Generalized apprehension; becomes phobia when a specific object (or objects) causes anxiety

Types of Mental Disorder

–Obsessive compulsive disorder:

•Thoughts that interrupt train of thought; ritualistic action

Types of Mental Disorder

–Depression: feeling of sadness, dejection, and self-deprecation

–Psychophysiologic disorders:

• Includes hysteria, psychosomatic illness and conversion reaction

Types of Mental Disorder

• Personality disorder:

– General category of deviant behavior that cannot be diagnosed as psychotic or neurotic

– Blatant disregard for society's rules; thought to be linked to a lack of moral development –• Failure to develop a conscience, acquire true

compassion, learn to form meaningful relationships

Types of Mental Disorder

• The DSM-IV classification: lists over 300 mental disorders; by symptoms;

–Help practitioners prescribe appropriate medications

• Criticism of manual:

–Merely descriptive

Types of Mental Disorder

– Arbitrarily defines disorders in terms of a specific number of symptoms

– Encourages psychiatrists to eliminate symptoms, not causes

– Promotes biological causes over environmental problems

– Defines too many ordinary problems as mental disorders

Social Factors in Mental Disorder

• Many social factors have been studied as they relate to mental illness:–class differences–gender differences–age–race and ethnicity –urban/rural environment

A Global Perspective on Mental Disorder

• Types of mental illness varies from culture to culture, e.g.: –Latin America: people experience a

fear that their souls have left their bodies

–Malaysia: people suffer from prolonged screaming and swearing when startled

Societal Responses to Mental Illness

• Historically, mentally ill individuals were treated badly –Suffering for example, primitive

lobotomies• Phillippe Pinel: 1793

–Instituted moral treatment of the mentally ill; development of asylums

Societal Responses to Mental Illness

• Asylums later became dumping grounds for persons with mental problems

• Since 1955, new strategies have emerged

• Mentally ill persons are often viewed by the general public as: –Dangerous, dirty, unpredictable,

worthless, and the brunt of jokes

Societal Responses to Mental Illness

• Courts often put them away in mental institutions or prisons

– involuntary hospitalization

– incompetent to stand trial

– insanity defense

Societal Responses to Mental Illness

• Mental hospitals are total institutions, where persons are cut off from: • The larger society and lead enclosed, regimented

lives that dehumanize patients

• Mental hospitals routinely use tranquilizing and other drugs to alleviate symptoms – Rather than eliminate the cause of mental

disorder

• Community mental health centers

Perspectives on Mental Disorder

• Medical model: interprets mental illness as similar to a physical disease; – Identifiable/diagnosable causes; treatment

similar to physical disease

Perspectives on Mental Disorder

• Psychosocial model:

– Psychoanalytic theory: Pioneered by Freud; resulting from conflicts in personality

– Social stress theory: Interprets stress as a major contributor to the development of mental disorder

• Followers of the labeling model believe that a mental disorder is not a sickness

–But only a label imposed upon some disturbing behaviors