PSYC30014 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Tachycardia, Deeper Understanding, Thomas Szasz
10 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Lecture 1
- Psychopathology of everyday life → subject is so title because phenomena observed in
mental disorder are often extreme versions of everyday experience
- Freud’s work: psychopathologic mechanisms observed in neuroses are observable in
everyday life to a lesser extent
- Modern continuum models of mental disorder: transdiagnostic, dimensional, and staging
models
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- Essay topic - schizophrenia
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- Diagnosis may matter:
- → useful way to help a person understand how to manage that, maybe by giving a label
to experience a person might be able to draw information about that label;
- → might be a way to identify whether or not a person is a danger to themselves or
someone else;
- → communication between health professionals (provides common language [can be a
good thing and a problem]);
- → pragmatic considerations around health insurance and implications for that and
support systems;
- → if life is being impacted by the experience then maybe diagnosis might open the
doorway to treatment and support services and getting information to understand for self
treatment recovery, also a subjective process to make that decision (whether or not to
diagnose is not clear), diagnostic labels also carry stigma [manifests in terms of people’s
attitudes, behaviours, and beliefs towards people with mental disorders, not just labels
but also characteristic features of mental disorders tend to elicit public stigma]
- Diagnosis may embody a decision about whether or not a person’s experience is
clinically significant and might benefit from some treatment, grounded in utility and what
someone else can do to help them
- What is ‘normal’:
- → being like the majority (typical)?
- → autonomous functioning (being able to function in everyday life on your own accord,
able to navigate demands of everyday life by yourself)?
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- → accurate reality perception (intact reality perception, experience of everyday life in
terms of perception, thoughts, emotions, behaviour, etc which is congruent with that is
generally agreed upon)? [poor reality contact (feature of psychosis) ⇒ perceptual
experiences like hearing voices when noone is there or seeing things when there is
nothing objectively there or having unusual beliefs or false beliefs (being spied on or
super powers)]
- → regulated moods (in control of emotions and regulate emotions appropriately)?
- → adequate interpersonal relationships (maintain relationships
interpersonally/romantically/occupationally)?
- Judging psychopathology based on statistical infrequency → is it abnormal in concerning
sense because it happens so rarely?, is it always bad?
- Judging psychopathology based on norm violation → problem is that it emphasises
fitting in and that is open to abuse, some situations people should not have to conform
to or fit in, something about context that should change not person
- Personal distress → if psychological experience is causing distress then is it pathological,
bipolar disorder’s mania ⇒ elevated mood or substance dependence are pathological
- Psychopathology → descriptive term used to describe behaviour, thoughts, feelings, and
experiences, which are indicative of mental illness, even if they do not constitute a
formal diagnosis (clinical description); the study of the nature, causes, and development
of abnormal behaviour, thoughts, feelings, and experiences
- For clinicians, considerations of psychopathology cover three aspects of work: clinical
description (diagnosis), causation (aetiology), treatment and outcome
- The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is
used as the current authoritative listing of mental disorders
- DSM-5 broadly defines mental disorder as “clinically significant disturbance in an
individual’s cognition, emotion regulation or behaviour...usually associated with
significant distress or disability in social, occupational or other important activities”
- DSM-5 goes on to define what does not constitute a mental disorder - “an expectable or
culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved
one, is not a mental disorder”
- Depression symptoms/Grief is an adaptive response to loss of a loved one
- Why diagnose or classify psychopathology?
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Document Summary
Psychopathology of everyday life subject is so title because phenomena observed in mental disorder are often extreme versions of everyday experience. Freud"s work: psychopathologic mechanisms observed in neuroses are observable in everyday life to a lesser extent. Modern continuum models of mental disorder: transdiagnostic, dimensional, and staging models. Useful way to help a person understand how to manage that, maybe by giving a label to experience a person might be able to draw information about that label; Might be a way to identify whether or not a person is a danger to themselves or someone else; Communication between health professionals (provides common language [can be a good thing and a problem]); Pragmatic considerations around health insurance and implications for that and support systems; Diagnosis may embody a decision about whether or not a person"s experience is clinically significant and might benefit from some treatment, grounded in utility and what someone else can do to help them.
