PSYC 1030H Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Drapetomania, Overdiagnosis, Mental Disorder

• School: Trent University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1030H
• Professor: Brenda Smith- Chant

Document Summary

Mental disorder: any behaviour or emotional state that causes an individual great suffering, if self-destructive, seriously impairs the person"s ability to work or get along with others, or endangers others or the community. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Five categories: primary clinical problem, such as depression. Problems with the dsm: danger of overdiagnosis, power of diagnostic labels, confusion of serious mental disorders with normal problems, illusion of objectivity and universality. When the manual is used correctly and diagnoses are made with valid objective tests, dsm is reliable. Culture does influence and shape symptoms a sufferer has, and how the disorder is expressed. Culture-bound syndromes: disorders that are specific to particular cultural contexts, table 15. 2. Consist of ambiguous pictures, sentences, or stories that the test taker interprets or completes: unconscious thoughts will be projected onto the test and revealed. Not always accurate, clinicians project their bias or score them differently. Rorschach inkblot test: scored by psychodynamic tests.