MENTAL ILLNESS

1
MENTAL ILLNESS

• UNDERSTANDING
• PATHOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR

2
What is Mental Illness?

• Deviance
• Departure from cultural norms

3
Culture Pathology

• Relativistic View
• There is no standards of normality
• Pancultural View
• Basic standards of normality are cross-cultural

4
What is Mental Illness?

• Deviance
• Departure from cultural norms
• Maladaptive Behavior (a.k.a., functional
  impairment)
• Everyday behavior is impaired
• Personal Distress
• Subjective report of pain

5
Clinical Psychology The New Look

• Medical Model
• Proposes that it is useful to think of abnormal
  behavior as a disease

6
The Medical Model

• Diagnosis
• Distinguishing one illness from another
• What is it?

7
Diagnosis

• Determining whether the individuals problem
  meets all the criteria for a psychological
  disorder

8
The Medical Model

• Diagnosis
• Distinguishing one illness from another
• What is it?
• Etiology
• Causation developmental history of illness
• Where did it come from?
• Prognosis
• A forecast about the probable course of an
  illness
• Where is it going?

9
Myths of Mental Illness

• Disorders are incurable
• People with mental illness are violent
• People with mental illness behave bizarrely

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Who is mentally ill?

• Prevalence
• The percentage of a population that exhibits a
  disorder during a specified time period
• Substance Abuse
• Anxiety
• Mood

11
Psychology the Law

• Insanity
• A legal status indicating that a person cannot
  be held responsible for his or her actions
  because of mental illness
• Mnaghten Rule
• Insanity exists when a mental disorder makes a
  person unable to distinguish right from wrong

12
Psychology The Law

• Involuntary Commitment
• Hospitalized in psychiatric facilities against
  ones will
• Temporary (24-72 hrs) vs. Long-term (6 mos.)
• Dangerous to themselves
• Dangerous to others
• Need treatment (severe disorientation)