Psych 111 Class 17 - Conceptions of Mental Illness

Conceptualizing Abnormal Behavior

• Not defined in a vacuum

• Defined by the structure of a society that has certain expectations and traditions, and within social relationships with varying levels of tolerance

Defining Mental Illness

• Statistical Rarity

• Impairment

• Subjective Distress

• Biological Dysfunction

• Societal Disapproval

Psychiatric diagnosis today

diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders

• 18 different classes of disorders

• diagnostic criteria

• decision rules

• prevalence

purposes of psychiatric diagnosis

• help us to pinpoint the psychological problem the person is experiencing

• makes it easier for mental health professionals to communicate

Goals of a classification system

Reliability and validity

reliability in classification system

should describe specific subgroups of symptoms or dimensions of behavior that are readily identifiable by independent observers on the basis of operational definitions

validity in classification system

There should be some value in identifying these subgroups or dimensions (e.g. they have different causes, prognosis, or treatments of choice)

Criteria for valid diagnosis

• distinguishes that diagnosis from similar diagnoses

  • symptoms can’t be accounted for by other diagnoses

• predicts diagnosed individuals’ performance on laboratory tests

  • poor performance on measures of concentration

• predicts diagnosed individuals’ family history of psychiatric disorders

  • higher likelihood with other relatives with ADHD

• predicts individuals’ natural history

  • continued difficulties with inattention

• predicts diagnosed individuals’ response to treatment

  • likelihood of responding positively to stimulant medications

Common misconceptions regarding diagnosis

• pigeonholing

• unreliable

• stigmatizing

• invalid

Criticisms of psychiatric diagnosis today

• High level of comorbidity

  • co-occurence of two or more diagnoses within the same person

• medicalizes normality

• reliance of categorical rather than dimensional models

  • categorical: differs in kind rather than degree

  • dimensional: differs in degree rather than kind

• Vulnerable to political and social influence

Historical Conceptions

get notes from someone - info not on slide

• middle ages

• renaissance

• moral treatment

• modern era