HLTHAGE 1CC3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Hand Washing, Headache, Webmd
27 Jun 2018
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May 15, 2017
Mental Health Lecture 5
Recall: Neuroses describe a situation where a person has some kind of emotional disturbance, but they
are aware of it happening.
Central theme: Categorization; why does it matter how we might organize disorders under DSM? What
is the significance of having disorders under umbrellas (i.e. neuroses), rather than having them in
separate chapters with their relationship with one another being ambiguous?
After they split the neuroses up, the chapter on anxiety disorders included OCD and PTSD; in DSM5 this
switched to each of them having discrete chapters.
Why do we divide these disorders up; instead of having one experience called mental illness? The basis
here is typically symptoms (the core experience for all these anxiety disorders, the person is
preoccupied by distress), it could be treatment (but DSM doesn’t talk about treatment, and often the
same drug is used for a variety of disorders); or could it be cause? (hard to say because we don’t know).
PTSD and OCD often result from traumatic events or episodes, and a symptom (compulsion) is really
important in OCD, is also often followed by trauma.
PTSD: a disorder that is being described to a wider and wider range of people.
Some say there is a direct line from civil war to today.
Civil war: diagnosed with soldier’s heart (disease where a person was physically exhausted can’t
fight anymore).
WW1: Shell shock (first thought it might have been physiological because after explosion made a
person walk strangely, etc.).
WW2: Combat fatigue.
Are theses all the same disorder? Or different.
Now we get to PTSD. What used to be a strictly war disorder, now extends to abuse, work related, etc.
Cause is mentioned here! Because, to be diagnosed with PTSD, you must have experienced a traumatic
episode, without that you would not be qualified for the diagnosis.
Sometimes symptoms take months or years to develop. Hard for people to then get a diagnosis because;
if this work accident happened 5 months ago, why were you living life normally before, and now you
can’t sleep, go to work, etc.
Cannot occur simply due to exposure via TV; it has to be something that represents a threat to your life,
or a threat to a loved one.
Debate from 9-11: people predicted rates of PTSD would go up, and they did.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
May 15, 2017
Re-experiencing: Person must feel as if the event is recurring, reliving the experience, includes
hallucinations, repetitive play, recurrent dreams. Being out of the moment.
Flashbacks: take the person out of the here and now; out of time and space. You might actually
suddenly feel like you are back in a battlefield somewhere in Syria, or at a car accident, etc.
“dissociative” in nature, meaning you are removed from realistic time and space.
Not the same as a delusion, or hallucination. **Hallucination can be apart of it though. It is
characterized by an episode, that could last half a moment, or 20 mins, etc.
Very distressing component, some may feel really numb, others just detached from the
moment.
Does the person when faced with some stimuli that reflects the situation, do they respond? Is it difficult
for them to recount the sequence of events, do they seem distress, do they avoid the situation that they
would feel distressed?
Avoidance and Arousal
Avoidance is one of those things that is central to a PTSD diagnosis. A person will avoid the thing that
will evoke memories, or a dissociative flashback.
e.g. someone who has suffered from domestic violence will avoid dating.
Arousal is like a heightened response, a door slams, and you’re not just startled but you jump out of
your seat. Also can be seen through a person getting angry really quickly, from something that someone
else feel inoquitous about.
A person’s behaviours may also become reckless or self destructing.
Negative Cognition and Moods
If a person finds it difficult to recall events, then it will be hard to gain a diagnosis, or get a claim from
WSIB, etc.
Problematically, this is just a central component of the diagnosis; one cannot remember details.
Inability to recall specifics from event, estrangement from others, diminished interest in pre-trauma
activities, feeling that their life is pointless or insignificant, are all symptoms.
Think: these are all a lot like MDD, and other mood disorders.
An inconvenient diagnosis?
What is the symbolic value of a diagnosis? In a way it legitimizes your suffering; it makes real/tangible
something that is otherwise abstract.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Recall: neuroses describe a situation where a person has some kind of emotional disturbance, but they are aware of it happening. After they split the neuroses up, the chapter on anxiety disorders included ocd and ptsd; in dsm5 this switched to each of them having discrete chapters. Ptsd and ocd often result from traumatic events or episodes, and a symptom (compulsion) is really important in ocd, is also often followed by trauma. Ptsd: a disorder that is being described to a wider and wider range of people. Some say there is a direct line from civil war to today. Civil war: diagnosed with soldier"s heart (disease where a person was physically exhausted can"t fight anymore). Ww1: shell shock (first thought it might have been physiological because after explosion made a person walk strangely, etc. What used to be a strictly war disorder, now extends to abuse, work related, etc.
