Mental Disorders

Somatogenic Hypothesis: Mental Disorders have physiological causes.

Psychogenic Hypothesis: Symptoms are caused by psychological processes.

Biopsychosocial Model: Holistic perspective taking into account psychological processes

Diathesis-Stress Model

  • Diathesis: the predisposition toward a disorder

  • Stress: the trigger than sparks the disorder

Mental Disorder: Dysfunctional patterns of thoughts, felling, or behaviors that interfere with daily life.

DSM - 5: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders

Anxiety Disorder:

  • panic disorder: unexpected panic attacks

  • agoraphobia: fear of being in situations in which help might not be available

  • social anxiety disorder: intensely afraid of being watched and judged by others

  • generalized anxiety disorder: continuous and pervasive feelings of anxiety

  • phobias: experiences of excessive distressing and persistent fear about a specific object or situation

  • obsessive compulsive disorder: unwanted repetitive thoughts

  • trauma and stress-related disorder: the stress causing the disorder is often obvious

  • pervasive negative changes in emotions and belief: feelings of excessive guilt, fear, or shame

6% of adults in the US experience PTSD

  • Higher Rates:

    • people exposed to mass trauma

    • duty-related trauma exposure

Depression: number one cause of disability

Major depressive disorder: an individual experienced at least five signs of depression

  • appetite loss or gain

  • too much or too little sleep

  • decreased interest

For a diagnosis, these symptoms need to cause the person or others around them prolonged distress

Bipolar disorder: dark lows of depression but also bouts of mania

For both those with depression and those in a depressive phase of bipolar disorder, the extreme emotional pain can feel unendurable

Depression is the main driver behind suicide, which now claims over one million lives every year worldwide.

Schizophrenia spectrum disorders: disorganized thinking, emotions and behaviors that are often incongruent with their situation, and disturbed perceptions

Dissociative identity disorder: rare disorder where a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating identities

Eating disorders have been increasing since the 1950s

An estimated 20 million women and 10 million men experience an eating disorder at some point in their lives

  • Anorexia Nervosa: starts during puberty and is prevalent in adolescent females. Involves having a starving diet that leads to abnormally low body weight.

    • Low body max index: a refusal to maintain a weight at or above what would normally be considered minimally healthy.

  • Bulimia Nervosa: body image disturbance, occur at any body weight, binge eating followed by fasting or purging

  • Binge-Eating Disorders: binge-eating, followed by emotional distress, feelings of lack of control, disgust, or guilt, but without purging or fasting

    • Although binge-eating disorder is not defined by a weight criterion or by a disturbance of body image; many individuals report feeling dissatisfied with their body weight or shape

TREATEMENT

Early forms of treatment arose from the belief that mental disorder were caused by evil spirits

Psychotherapy: treatment that includes talking with a mental health provider

Existential and Humanistic Traditions

  • Rational Choices

  • Self-Acceptance

  • Maximum potential

Behavior Therapists: view negative behaviors as the problem to be solved that all behavior is the result of learning and that the remedy involves new learning

Exposure therapy: is used to treat anxiety by having a person face their fears through gradual exposure to situations that they typically avoid

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: focuses on present issues rather than the past

Mindfulness: process that tries to cultivate a non-judgemental yet attentive mental state is a therapy that focuses on awareness of bodily sensations, thoughts, and the outside environment

Meta-analysis: combining results across multiple trials to see whether the treatment works

It is critical that evidence-based treatment is delivered with integrity

Confirmation bias: the tendency to favor information that confirms our beliefs

Illusory Correlation: the tendency to perceive causal relationships when there are none

Bias Blind Spot: the inclination to perceive biases in others but not ourselves