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Lectures notes for Mental Health
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Lectures notes for the lecture Mental Health from the first year module Introduction to Psychology
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Introduction to psychology15/11/19 Mental health
Abnormal psychology
“Devoted to the study of mental, emotional, and behavioural aberrations. It is the branch of
psychology concerned with research into the classification, causation, diagnosis, prevention,
and treatment of psychological disorders or psychopathology”.
(Lazarus & Colman, 1995).
When does an emotion, thought or behaviour become ‘abnormal’?
Agitated
Hears voices
Stays in bed all day
Eats too little
Hyperactive
Neglects appearance
Are these experiences ‘abnormal’ in and of themselves?
Are they more likely to be ‘abnormal’ if they:
Are severe?
Occur in a certain context?
Can’t be controlled by the person experiencing them?
Are distressing for the person?
Last for a long time?
What is ‘abnormality’?
Is it defined by statistical deviance?
Is it defined by deviance from social norms?
But is this sufficient? What about:
- Criminality?
- Norm questioning forms of art?
- Cultures differ in what is deemed to be ‘normal’?
Can we then define ‘abnormality’ as deviance from norms (aspiring to wealth and intelligent
behaviour may be social norms, whereas psychopathology may relate to behaviours that are
odd, eccentric and not culturally endorsed)?
However, certain forms of social deviance are not perceived to be necessarily associated
with psychopathology, such as rebellious behaviour like teenage rebellion and political
protests.
Different cultures vary in what behaviours are ‘normal’, for example, hearing voices is
normal in some cultures. So, are there really any consistently ‘abnormal’ behaviours?
, One of the most common requirements in definitions of psychopathology is that:
“the symptoms must cause clinically significant distress and impairment in social, academic
or occupational functioning”.
(Davey, 2008).
FOUR Ds
These helps us to understand abnormality or psychopathy.
Deviance
Dysfunction
Distress
Danger.
Classifying ‘abnormality’
Classifying groups phenomena into classes based on similarity
This helps the search for the causes of psychopathy
It may also help individuals to receive the best treatment
It creates terminology that aids communication amongst clinicians.
The German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1883-1923) developed on of the earliest,
comprehensive classification systems
His approach was innovative because he examined patterns of symptoms – which
appeared to form clusters or syndromes.
In 1949, the World Health Organisation added psychological disorders to the
International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD)
- Now in its 11th edition, 2018
In 1952, the APA published its first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)
- Now in its 5th edition, 2013.
Schizophrenia
Life time prevalence: 0.5-2%
- Appears to be similar across cultures
24 million sufferers worldwide
No gender difference in prevalence
The course of symptoms follows three stages:
- 1. The prodromal stage
- 2. The active stage
- 3. The residual stage
Onset is most common between ages 15 and 35
28% have only one psychotic episode.
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