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Hlthage 1CC3 Final Exam Notes
Introduction to mental health and illness (McMaster University)
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Hlthage 1CC3 Exam Notes
Intro To Mental Illness
Why “Mental” Illness?
• Use “mental disorder” but there’s much “physical” in mental disorder, just as there’s much “mentaL’ in
physical disorder
• Medical model, division isn’t cause (etiology), but rather symptom (expression)
But Mental Disorders are Different
• Agency, blame, stigma; if you want to change behaviour — DO something about it, meaning there’s an
assumption there’s control over how you behave (ex— Depression; “Just get up”)
• Think about cancer, why is it considered (when affected) “brave” but when mentally ill, it is own’s
fault?
• It affects the whole self, not just one part of the body. It defines the whole person
• Not always seen negative; some ppl are fond of the disorder
• Ex — Bipolar Disorder; when “manic” you feel amazing, love how you feel, don’t want it to go
away
• Power of Psychiatry; they decide what’s abnormal and what’s normal, feels like they can label a person
and “remove” them from society (Ex— an insane person must be in asylum)
• Psychiatrists have a lot of power, kinda like a judge. To determine if they’re mentally unstable when
committing a crime
• Non-absolute; value judgement involved in diagnosis of mental disorder. Ex— Wheezing versus
anxiety
• In theory, psychiatrists rarely directly examine the organ they treat.
Classification of Mental Disorders
• DSM (Guidebook): it’s kind of like a dictionary of what defines a mental illness, the symptoms that are
shown and what to diagnose.
• No one really knows the actual cause of mental illness, we just evolved and learn new theories as years
go by
• DSM definition of Mental Disorder: characterized by disturbance in cognitions, emotion regulation, or
behaviour that reflects dysfunction in psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying
mental functioning. Usually associated with great distress/disability in social & occupational activities
• Criticism of DSM
• Lack of science, mostly relies on symptoms
• Ignores context of person being diagnosed; context shapes how we behave, DSM only looks at
what’s presented there and now; focus on symptoms rather than experience
• Refer to Freud and the “cause” behind behaviour, whereas DSM is more objective
• Doesn’t provide treatments/therapy
• How “real” are these illnesses? Can pressure also change what counts as disease? Can people
put pressure on Psychiatrists that something can count as a mental disorder?
• DISORDERS CHANGE CONTINUALLY
• Reliability (consistency) isn’t the same as validity; some diagnoses aren’t acc valid
The Difficulty w/Diagnosis
• Disorder formation done by committee, a clash or personalities contribute to DSM
• Biases based on race/gender/class/obesity — sometimes change the diagnosis
• Culture; British Vs. Americans diagnosis on diff disorders
• Are diagnoses way of circumventing other judgments? Ex — that behaviour is immoral or evil?
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Hlthage 1CC3 Exam Notes
• Ex: Psychopathy — Is it bc you’re a criminal or actually mentally ill
• How can we verify them? There’s no test (blood, urine, etc) to confirm diagnosis
Alternative Definitions of Mental Disorder
• Significant and involuntary deviations from what’s considered “normal” behaviour in a certain group/
culture/society
• Deviance; any act/behaviour that violates social norms w/given social system & interferes w/a person’s
ability to function in society
Disorder or Distress?
• Where’s the line drawn between distress & a disorder? — Often impossible to draw the line
• Subjective; depends on if it’s clinically significant, itself something that’s not objectively measurable
• Greenberg (A psychologist); “there’s no conflict of interest, if I don’t determine clinical significance, I
don’t get paid” — He’s pushed to diagnosis a person
How Common are Mental Disorders?
• 1/3 - 1/2 of ppl report symptoms of mental disorder at one point in life
• An epidemic of psychopathology?
• Recent increases in various disorders, including depression, ADHD, DID, anorexia, OCD,
PTSD, and anxiety
• More astute diagnosis and greater public awareness?
• Less stigma? Real rise? Medicalization?
Psychotic Disorders
Psychosis vs Schizophrenia
• Psychosis: “losing touch with reality” (talks in “psychotic episodes”)
• 2 Diff definitions:
• Schizo is a disease of the brain, involves loss of contact w/reality
• Schizo is a severe mental disorder affecting language, perception, and sense of self
• Symptoms of Schizo:
• Positive (added, it is “acute"):
• Hallucinations (auditory, visual, etc..)
• Delusions (thinking on a mission from God, someone is spying on them, etc…)
• Negative (what’s absent, it’s “chronic”)
• Emotions
• Appetite
• Blunted Affect
• Anhedonia (loss of interest)
• Asociality (isolation)
• Avolition (loss of motivation)
• Alogia (not wanting to talk very much)
• There’s a lot of misdiagnosis w/bipolar disorder in adults & autism in children
• But how separate are they?
• The problem with the word “misdiagnosis” is that we don’t truly know what’s right and wrong
• The “correct” diagnosis is whatever the last diagnosis u got
• Sometimes there might be brain differences, looking at neurotransmitters (more serotonin)
• Globally, more than 5% of pop. hears voices, the Hearing Voices Network is saying to not look at it as a
negative thing, can be projections of unconscious mind or variation of “normal” internal monologue
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Hlthage 1CC3 Exam Notes
• Stress the many positive aspects of hearing voices — creativity, encouragement, etc. And taking
antipsychotics can sometimes take away these “benefits”
• Diff types of delusions
• Paranoia (someone out to get you)
• Being “controlled” by an external force
• Reference (think the news is coded and only meant for them)
• Grandiosity (have powers, on a mission from God)
• Delusions are “fixed false beliefs”, not a very good definition bc…
• Ppl can have false beliefs and not be psychotic (Ex — the earth is flat)
• Fixed beliefs aren’t provable (Ex — religious beliefs)
• Not all problematic beliefs are false (Ex — sometimes the CIA really is watching, or your
partner is cheating on u)
• Cognitive/Disorganize Symptoms
• Shifting topics
• resigning with irrelevant responses
• repeating themselves
• “word salad”
• neologisms
• Bizarre behaviour
• Sometimes motor behaviour
• Inappropriate affect (Ex — Catatonia)
• Classification of Schizo
• How long it existed?
• Reason we don’t have long prehistoric records of schizo is because it’s a new disease
Emil Kraepelin & Eugen Blueler
• Kraepelin: various symptoms been distinct disorder should be grouped together (dementia praecox,
schizo a brain disorder)
• When schizo is diagnosed, usually in ppl in adolescence
• Blueler: didn’t always start in adolescence nor result in dementia, schizo (split mental associations)
• Considered negative symptoms for more important than positive
• Europeans stayed closer to K’s view, Americans drifted more to B’s view
Schizo Epidemiology
• Basically, how often does an illness and its symptoms appear in a certain pop.
• Schizo reportedly found in all cultures across the world, both genders likely to be diagnosed, mostly
between the ages 15-35
• 1% of pop? — Debatable though…
• Hearing voices doesn’t always mean it’s a sign of mental illness, can SOMETIMES be seen as a good/
beneficial thing
• The outcome of schizo in developing countries much better than developed, why?
• Less stigma?
• More fam support?
• More employment?
• Diff approach to care?
Etiology of Schizo
• Lots of stakeholders in this debate:
• Whose fault is it?
• Who can fix it?
• What caused schizo? — the big question
Downloaded by Answerdone ()
Hlthage 1CC3 Final Exam Notes
Introduction to mental health and illness (McMaster University)
StuDocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university
Downloaded by Answerdone ()
, lOMoARcPSD|11700591
Hlthage 1CC3 Exam Notes
Intro To Mental Illness
Why “Mental” Illness?
• Use “mental disorder” but there’s much “physical” in mental disorder, just as there’s much “mentaL’ in
physical disorder
• Medical model, division isn’t cause (etiology), but rather symptom (expression)
But Mental Disorders are Different
• Agency, blame, stigma; if you want to change behaviour — DO something about it, meaning there’s an
assumption there’s control over how you behave (ex— Depression; “Just get up”)
• Think about cancer, why is it considered (when affected) “brave” but when mentally ill, it is own’s
fault?
• It affects the whole self, not just one part of the body. It defines the whole person
• Not always seen negative; some ppl are fond of the disorder
• Ex — Bipolar Disorder; when “manic” you feel amazing, love how you feel, don’t want it to go
away
• Power of Psychiatry; they decide what’s abnormal and what’s normal, feels like they can label a person
and “remove” them from society (Ex— an insane person must be in asylum)
• Psychiatrists have a lot of power, kinda like a judge. To determine if they’re mentally unstable when
committing a crime
• Non-absolute; value judgement involved in diagnosis of mental disorder. Ex— Wheezing versus
anxiety
• In theory, psychiatrists rarely directly examine the organ they treat.
Classification of Mental Disorders
• DSM (Guidebook): it’s kind of like a dictionary of what defines a mental illness, the symptoms that are
shown and what to diagnose.
• No one really knows the actual cause of mental illness, we just evolved and learn new theories as years
go by
• DSM definition of Mental Disorder: characterized by disturbance in cognitions, emotion regulation, or
behaviour that reflects dysfunction in psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying
mental functioning. Usually associated with great distress/disability in social & occupational activities
• Criticism of DSM
• Lack of science, mostly relies on symptoms
• Ignores context of person being diagnosed; context shapes how we behave, DSM only looks at
what’s presented there and now; focus on symptoms rather than experience
• Refer to Freud and the “cause” behind behaviour, whereas DSM is more objective
• Doesn’t provide treatments/therapy
• How “real” are these illnesses? Can pressure also change what counts as disease? Can people
put pressure on Psychiatrists that something can count as a mental disorder?
• DISORDERS CHANGE CONTINUALLY
• Reliability (consistency) isn’t the same as validity; some diagnoses aren’t acc valid
The Difficulty w/Diagnosis
• Disorder formation done by committee, a clash or personalities contribute to DSM
• Biases based on race/gender/class/obesity — sometimes change the diagnosis
• Culture; British Vs. Americans diagnosis on diff disorders
• Are diagnoses way of circumventing other judgments? Ex — that behaviour is immoral or evil?
Downloaded by Answerdone ()
, lOMoARcPSD|11700591
Hlthage 1CC3 Exam Notes
• Ex: Psychopathy — Is it bc you’re a criminal or actually mentally ill
• How can we verify them? There’s no test (blood, urine, etc) to confirm diagnosis
Alternative Definitions of Mental Disorder
• Significant and involuntary deviations from what’s considered “normal” behaviour in a certain group/
culture/society
• Deviance; any act/behaviour that violates social norms w/given social system & interferes w/a person’s
ability to function in society
Disorder or Distress?
• Where’s the line drawn between distress & a disorder? — Often impossible to draw the line
• Subjective; depends on if it’s clinically significant, itself something that’s not objectively measurable
• Greenberg (A psychologist); “there’s no conflict of interest, if I don’t determine clinical significance, I
don’t get paid” — He’s pushed to diagnosis a person
How Common are Mental Disorders?
• 1/3 - 1/2 of ppl report symptoms of mental disorder at one point in life
• An epidemic of psychopathology?
• Recent increases in various disorders, including depression, ADHD, DID, anorexia, OCD,
PTSD, and anxiety
• More astute diagnosis and greater public awareness?
• Less stigma? Real rise? Medicalization?
Psychotic Disorders
Psychosis vs Schizophrenia
• Psychosis: “losing touch with reality” (talks in “psychotic episodes”)
• 2 Diff definitions:
• Schizo is a disease of the brain, involves loss of contact w/reality
• Schizo is a severe mental disorder affecting language, perception, and sense of self
• Symptoms of Schizo:
• Positive (added, it is “acute"):
• Hallucinations (auditory, visual, etc..)
• Delusions (thinking on a mission from God, someone is spying on them, etc…)
• Negative (what’s absent, it’s “chronic”)
• Emotions
• Appetite
• Blunted Affect
• Anhedonia (loss of interest)
• Asociality (isolation)
• Avolition (loss of motivation)
• Alogia (not wanting to talk very much)
• There’s a lot of misdiagnosis w/bipolar disorder in adults & autism in children
• But how separate are they?
• The problem with the word “misdiagnosis” is that we don’t truly know what’s right and wrong
• The “correct” diagnosis is whatever the last diagnosis u got
• Sometimes there might be brain differences, looking at neurotransmitters (more serotonin)
• Globally, more than 5% of pop. hears voices, the Hearing Voices Network is saying to not look at it as a
negative thing, can be projections of unconscious mind or variation of “normal” internal monologue
Downloaded by Answerdone ()
, lOMoARcPSD|11700591
Hlthage 1CC3 Exam Notes
• Stress the many positive aspects of hearing voices — creativity, encouragement, etc. And taking
antipsychotics can sometimes take away these “benefits”
• Diff types of delusions
• Paranoia (someone out to get you)
• Being “controlled” by an external force
• Reference (think the news is coded and only meant for them)
• Grandiosity (have powers, on a mission from God)
• Delusions are “fixed false beliefs”, not a very good definition bc…
• Ppl can have false beliefs and not be psychotic (Ex — the earth is flat)
• Fixed beliefs aren’t provable (Ex — religious beliefs)
• Not all problematic beliefs are false (Ex — sometimes the CIA really is watching, or your
partner is cheating on u)
• Cognitive/Disorganize Symptoms
• Shifting topics
• resigning with irrelevant responses
• repeating themselves
• “word salad”
• neologisms
• Bizarre behaviour
• Sometimes motor behaviour
• Inappropriate affect (Ex — Catatonia)
• Classification of Schizo
• How long it existed?
• Reason we don’t have long prehistoric records of schizo is because it’s a new disease
Emil Kraepelin & Eugen Blueler
• Kraepelin: various symptoms been distinct disorder should be grouped together (dementia praecox,
schizo a brain disorder)
• When schizo is diagnosed, usually in ppl in adolescence
• Blueler: didn’t always start in adolescence nor result in dementia, schizo (split mental associations)
• Considered negative symptoms for more important than positive
• Europeans stayed closer to K’s view, Americans drifted more to B’s view
Schizo Epidemiology
• Basically, how often does an illness and its symptoms appear in a certain pop.
• Schizo reportedly found in all cultures across the world, both genders likely to be diagnosed, mostly
between the ages 15-35
• 1% of pop? — Debatable though…
• Hearing voices doesn’t always mean it’s a sign of mental illness, can SOMETIMES be seen as a good/
beneficial thing
• The outcome of schizo in developing countries much better than developed, why?
• Less stigma?
• More fam support?
• More employment?
• Diff approach to care?
Etiology of Schizo
• Lots of stakeholders in this debate:
• Whose fault is it?
• Who can fix it?
• What caused schizo? — the big question
Downloaded by Answerdone ()
