Define mental illness?

What is a disease? 

Obsessive compulsive disorder

·        The patient demands order, perfection, control and rigid routine at all times.

Anti-social disorder

• Irresponsible.
• Lacks guilt or remorse.
• Engage in anti-social behaviour such as aggression, deceit or recklessness.

Narcissistic

·        Think you are wonderful, brilliant, important and worthy of constant admiration. 

Border-line personality disorder

·        Self image, moods and impulses are erratic and the person is extremely sensitive to any hint of criticism, rejection or abandonment of other. 

Panic disorder

• The person is in a chronic state of anxiety.
• Have brief moments of sudden, intense, unexpected panic. 

Post traumatic stress disorder

Agoraphobia

Dissociative fugue

·      

• Sudden travel away from home.
• Confusion about ones identity. 

Dissociative identity disorder

• The presence of two or more distinct personalities.
• Multiple personality. 

Hypochondrias

• A preoccupation with fears of having a serious disease.
• Ordinary physical signs are interpreted as proof the person has a disease, but no physical disorder is found. 

Schizophrenia

• A psychosis, characterised by delusions, hallucinations, apathy, and a “split” between thought and emotion.
• Example: paranoia, catatonic behaviour. 

Depressive disorder

• Emotional disorders primarily involving sadness, despondency and depression.
• Presence of sad, empty and irritable mood. 

Bi-polar disorder

• Emotional disorders involving both depression and mania.
• Unusual shifts in energy, activity level and ability to carry out day to day tasks. 

Anxiety disorder

• Disruptive feelings of fear apprehension or anxiety or distortions in behaviour that are anxiety related. 

What are the 5 characteristics that define mental illness? 

• Psychological dysfunction
• Distressed
• Impaired functioning 
• Atypical behaviour/ uncharacteristic behaviour
• Culturally inappropriate behaviour 

What is psychological dysfunction? 

• A break down in cognitive, emotional and/or behavioural functioning during which a person’s thoughts, feelings or behaviour differ from those that would usually occur or be expected for that individual in that situation.
• Example: going out to a party on a date with someone for the first time. The person is feeling so anxious and distressed during the evening that they were unable to talk to people, felt nauseous, and all they wanted to do was go home. 

What is distressed? 

• When a person is distressed they are extremely upset.
• Example: when a family member dies it would be normal for you to be upset and extremely distressed.
• Misleading because you can be normally distressed and distressed when you have a mental illness. 

What is impaired functioning? 

• The inability to cope with everyday life.
• The person is unable to do the kinds of things most people do in their everyday lives.
• Example: being so shy that it stops you from talking with others, attending school or work and makes you avoid situations where other people would be present. 

What is atypical behaviour/ uncharacteristic behaviour? 

• The person responds in a way(s) that is not normal for them.
• Example: if usually a friendly, outgoing person because withdrawn, does not talk or relate to others and stays in their bedroom alone for extended periods of time. 

What is culturally inappropriate behaviour? 

• Each culture or society has its own set of norms about what is considered to be normal and abnormal behaviour within that culture or society.
• When diagnosing a mental illness it is important not to let the conflict and bias opinion of your own culture or society get in the way of the diagnosis. Because what may be abnormal in your society may be completely normal in his or her own.
• Example: wearing western civilisation clothes when you are a person whose religion and society wear covered up clothes. 

What is normality? 

• A pattern of thoughts, feelings, or behaviours that conforms to a usual, typical or expected standard within a cultural context.
• Example: talking to people and being sociable. 

What are the six approaches to defining normality and abnormality? 

• Socio-cultural approach
• Functional approach 
• Historical approach 
• Situational approach 
• Medical approach 
• Statistical approch 

What is socio-cultural approach? 

• Thoughts, feelings and behaviours that are appropriate or acceptable in a particular society or culture are viewed as normal.
• Those that are inappropriate or unacceptable are considered abnormal.
• Example: in Australia’s society, despite its multicultural mix, it is considered normal behaviour to be married to only one person at one time. There are other societies however, where having more than one husband or wife is considered normal.
• Usefulness: provides a broad understanding of the laws and social norms for appropriate behaviour within a specific society.
• Problems: what is considered normal and abnormal differs from one society to another which can create controversy in multicultural places like Australia. 

What is functional approach? 

• Thoughts, feelings and behaviours, are viewed as normal if the individual is able to cope with living independently (‘function’) in society.
• If individual is unable to function effectively in society they are considered abnormal.
• Example: someone who is so anxious that they cannot leave their house because of a fear of being in an open or public places (agoraphobia) is considered to be abnormal.
• Usefulness: assists clinical psychologists and other mental health professionals to identify individuals who are not functioning effectively or coping with everyday life experiences.
• Problems: mental health professionals, including clinical psychologists, can have different views on what they consider to be effective and ineffective functioning in society. 

What is historical approach? 

• What is considered normal and abnormal in a particular society or culture depends on the era, or period of time, when the judgement is made.
• Example: in 1950 homosexuality was considered a mental illness in the DSM. In society now it is considered normal.
• Problems: because thoughts, feelings and behaviours change overtime this approach is of limited use in describing normality and abnormality in relation to individual behaviour. 

What is situational approach? 

• Within a society or culture, thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that may be considered normal in one situation may be considered abnormal in another. 
• Example: behaviour that is acceptable at a party will not be acceptable at a religious service.
• Problems: it describes normality and abnormality only in terms of each situation. It can be difficult to generalise about what is normal or abnormal from one situation to another. 

What is medical approach? 

• Abnormal thoughts, feelings, or behaviours are viewed as having an underlying biological cause and can usually be diagnosed and treated using many specific drugs.
• Example: using antidepressants to a person with depression.
• Usefulness: provides a systematic and scientific approach, particularly to the diagnosis and classification of abnormal behaviour.
• Problems: sometimes it is difficult to determine the exact physiological cause of abnormal patterns of thinks, feeling and behaving because the symptoms of some mental illnesses are similar. 

What is statistical approach? 

• The statistical approach is based on the idea that any behaviour or characteristic in a large group of individuals is distributed in a particular way; that is, in a normal distribution.
• Example: the relative few people who believe aliens control their thoughts would be abnormal and the many that worry about not having enough money to live the lifestyle they would like are quite normal.
• Problems: it is a theoretical idea and is rarely perfectly achieved in reality. It also means to be a normal person you have to be average in all ways- in thoughts, feelings, mental abilities, physical attributes, interests, size, shape, etc. 

What is neurotic? 

• The mentally ill patient knows what is wrong with them, but is unable to help themself. 

What is psychotic?

• The mentally ill patient is unaware that something is wrong with them.

What is psychotherapy?

• Treatment involving psychological techniques.
• Consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth. 

What is psychodynamic therapy? 

• Therapy deriving from the psychoanalytic tradition that views individuals as responding to unconscious forces and childhood experiences, and that seeks to enhance self-insight.
• Influenced by Freud, tries to help people understand their current symptoms by focussing on themes across important relationships, including childhood experiences.
• It involves a face to face meeting that takes place once a week for only a few weeks or months. 

What are humanistic therapies? 

• Aim to improve psychological functioning by increasing the client’s awareness of underlying motives and defences.
• Referred to as insight therapies because both attempt to help troubled people by reducing inner conflicts and increasing self-understanding.
• Aims to help boost people’s inherent potential for self-fulfilment by helping them grown in self-awareness and self-acceptance. 
• Psychological problems diminish as a self-awareness grows. 

What is client-centred therapy? 

• The therapist listens to the person’s conscious self-perceptions without judging, interrupting, or directing the client towards certain thoughts (1961, 1980).
• Carl Rodgers uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathetic environment to facilitate clients’ growth. 

What is counter conditioning? 

• Uses classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviours.
• Includes: exposure therapies and aversive conditioning.
• The therapist pairs the trigger stimulus with a new response that is incompatible with fear.
• They use two specific counter conditioning techniques- exposure conditioning and aversive conditioning- to replace unwanted responses. 

What is token economy? 

• An operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behaviour and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats. 

What is cognitive therapy? 

• Teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking and acting; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions.
• Cognitive therapies assume that our thinking colours our feelings. 

What is cognitive behavioural theory? 

• Seeks to make people aware of their irrational negative thinking, to replace it with new ways of thinking, and to practice the more positive approach in everyday settings.
• Popular integrated therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behaviour therapy (changing behaviour). 

What is stress inoculation training? 

• Teaching people to restructure their thinking in stressful situations. 

What is family therapy? 

• Therapy that treats the family as a system. Views an individual’s unwanted behaviours as influenced by, or directed at, other family members. 

What are antipsychotic drugs? 

• Drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other forms of severe thought disorder.
• Patients exhibiting the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, such as apathy and withdrawal, often do not respond well to conventional antipsychotic drugs. 

What is electroconvulsice therapy (ECT)?

• A biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient.
• In 1938 wide awake patients were strapped to a table and jolted roughly with 100 volts of electricity to the brain, producing racking convulsions and brief unconsciousness.
• Reduces suicidal thoughts.
• 4 in 10 ECT patients relapse into depression within six months. 

What is psychosurgery?

• Surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behaviour. 

What is a lobomtomy? 

• A now rare psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cuts the nerves connecting the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centres of the inner brain. 

How many people suffer from a mental illness in Australia? 

What is stigma? 

• Three out of four people with a mental illness report that they have experienced stigma.
• Stigma is a mark of disgrace that sets a person apart.
• When a person is labeled by their illness they are seen as part of a stereotyped group. 
• Negative attitudes create prejudice which leads to negative actions and discrimination.
• Nearly 1 in 4 people felt depression was a sign of personal weakness and would not employ a person with depression. 

What are the advantages of the DSM? 

• Gives clinicians and psychologists a common language and standard criteria for classification.
• If followed strictly, can eliminate certain biases.

What are the disadvantaged of the DSM? 

• Doesn’t adapt well to different cultures.
• Creates labels for individuals diagnosed using DSM-IV criteria. Such labels can stigmatize and discriminate.
• Classifications oversimplify psychological phenomenon.
• Diagnostic systems are not linked to treatment.
• Centres the problem within the individual rather than considering situational events or context.
• Lists symptoms but fails to tell diagnosticians how to properly assess whether or not a client exhibits specific symptoms.
• The DSM-IV groups behaviours as constructs.

How do you diagnose a mentally ill patient? 

• If, a mental health professional believes a person has a mental illness they may check the symptoms against a range of classifications to make a diagnosis.
• When people display specific symptoms and patterns of behavior they are assigned to a diagnostic category.
• There are two classification systems: DSM (diagnostic and statistical manual), and ICD (international Classification of Diseases).