When I ask you to imagine a person who has suffered from a psychological disorder what do Chapter 14 and 15 Psychology Notes Mental Illness and Treatment Part 1 What Does the Term Mental Illness Bring To Mind you imagine o Do You Imagine A Great Coach o Or a Famous Actress o Do you imagine Beautiful Paintings o Famous Writers o Historic Presidents o Or do you Think of a Crazy person Mental Illness Touches Everybody According to the National Institute of Mental Health in 2012 almost one in five American adults suffered from some form of mental illness What is Mental Illness Not everyone who suffers from mental illness has to be institutionalized Not everyone hallucinates or has delusions Not everyone even needs treatment As with some physical illness some people recover from bouts of mental illness on their own Mental Illness are conditions that usually have a couple major components First they entail prolonged periods of subjective distress Second they impair function The Line between Illness and Health is Blurry Sadness is not a disorder Depression is Fear is not a disorder Chronic anxiety is Magical ideation is not a disorder Schizophrenia is Rudeness and inconsideration is not a disorder Psychopathy is Not every case is clear cut When has someone who is sad about a terrible event crossed the line into depression When has a jerk s behavior crossed the line into psychopathic behavior Psychiatric Diagnosis It is very important to draw these lines sometimes yet it is very important to come up with some sort of criteria that helps clinicians make a decision about whether someone needs treatment and what kind of treatment they may benefit from The Diagnosis and Statistical Manual DSM Clinicians use a book called the DSM V in order to help make the judgment It is based on over 60 years of research and it serves as a guide to diagnosing mental illnesses and recommending treatments The DSM is always somewhat controversial but it is still an important tool It lists behaviors and symptoms associated with illness and contains suggested criteria for a diagnosis The Major Types Of Illnesses We Will Discuss 1 Anxiety Disorders 2 Mood Disorders 3 Personality Disorders 4 Schizophrenia and Psychotic Disorders Anxiety Disorders These are disorders characterized by anxiety that is disproportionate to the actual threat to one s person and which interferes with an individual s ability to function These are among the most common disorders in the world Approximately 31 of the people meet the diagnostic criteria for anxiety disorders at some point in their lives We will talk about these disorders as separate disorders and one can have one without the others but someone with serious anxiety frequently meets criteria for multiple illnesses Generalized Anxiety Disorder GAD This is a state of anxiety that is not necessarily attached to a particular thing It s a general sense of discomfort and people with this disorder spend about 3X as much time worrying as people without anxiety Panic Disorder Agoraphobia Phobias PTSD Panic attacks are brief periods of spiked anxiety associated with intense physical symptoms These include dizziness heart palpitations trouble breathing chest pain sweating numbness tingling etc You often believe you are about to die People who have panic attacks while in public often develop an irrational fear of going out because they are afraid the attack will happen again and that they won t be able to escape Phobias in general are intense fears of specific things or situations Many of these center around things like animals or clowns But they can get very strange Social Anxiety Disorder This is an intense fear of social situations It can be specific like the fear people will judge the way you swallow your food or general sense of discomfort centering around social situations which inhibits one s ability to function socially Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is hard to classify but it is a response to a traumatic event Intense fear paranoia avoidant behavior and full blown panic attacks are among the symptoms Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Called OCD for short this is probably one of the most well know and widely misunderstood of the anxiety disorders OCD is characterized by obsessions and compulsions Obsessions are repetitive thoughts which are disturbing for the sufferer Obsessions can include irrational fears of doing bad things contamination illness engaging in undesired sexual acts But ODC sufferers don t want to do these things In reality a hallmark of OCD is being aware your obsessions are irrational that you don t get ill or harm yourself but feeling anxiety anyway Compulsions are repetitive behaviors that temporarily reduce anxiety They can range from repeated washing to repetitively touching an object Again OCD sufferers know it is irrational OCD is usually comorbid with other disorders often Generalized Anxiety Disorder It is also related to and sometimes comorbid with body dysmorphic disorder and hypochondria This is an obsession with a flaw or perceived flaw with one s body Some people with this disorder may go through multiple surgical procedures to fix a supposed flaw nobody else even notices or recognizes as flawed OCD Obsessions OCD Compulsions OCD and other Disorders Body Dysmorphic Disorder Hypochondria Anxiety Disorders Hypochondria is an intense fear of physical illness It is associated with the beliefs that physical symptoms are associated with serious illness and may lead someone to constantly get checked by the doctor or to avoid the doctor Hypochondria is not associated with faking illness That is a different disorder called malingering They are totally different These are disorders characterized by anxiety that is disproportionate to the actual threat to one s person and which interferes with an individual s ability to function
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