PSYC 4240 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Mental Disorder, Mecha, Heredity

• School: University of Georgia
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 4240
• Professor: Miller

Document Summary

Myths w/ mental illness: can be controlled, crazy, lazy, dumb, dangerous. Internalizing (depression/anxiety) vs. externalizing (adhd, addiction, narcissism) disorders. But people can come in just to talk. If mental mechanism is not performing specific function it was designed to perform (normal anxiety vs. pathological anxiety) If designed mech doesn"t work and leads to impairment, then it is a disorder. *wakefield harmful dysfunction : hybrid of value judgment and biological advantage. May be unable to judge when something is bad. Argues 2 constructs are fundamental to define mental disorder. Dsm-5 (diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders) American psychiatric association puts it out but psychologists use it the most. Present for specified duration (i. e. depression 2 weeks; anxiety 6 months; schizophrenia 6 months) Threshold of matching prototype (i. e. 4 of 9 symptoms) What client says is the problem (not diagnosis) Distinguish clinical significant dysfunctions vs. common human experience. Describe demographics, symptoms, age of onset, precipitating factors.