[Crash Course] XXVII& XXVIII Psychological disorders
Being dubbed in remission isn't exactly the same thing as being labeled sane, and that was just one of Rosenhan's criticisms of the system. It viewed mental illness as an irreversible condition, almost like a personality trait, rather than a curable illness.
The way people were being diagnosed with psychiatric issues often revealed less about the patients themselves, and more about their situation. Like, saying you've heard voices one time might catch a doctors attention a lot more than weeks of normal behaviour.
Psychological disorders: deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional patterns of thoughts, feelings, or behaviours that interferes with the ability to function in a healthy way.
In this context, deviant is used to describe thoughts and behaviour that are different from most of the rest of your cultural context. But the concept of deviant changes a lot across cultures and in different situations. But be classified as a disorder, that deviant behaviour needs to cause that person or others around them distress, which just means a subjective feeling that something is really wrong. Dysfunction: when a person's ability to work and live is clearly often measurably impaired.
Biopsychological approach: -psychological influences, stress, trauma, learned helplessness, mood-related perceptions and memories. -biological influences, evolution, individual genes, brain structure, and chemistry. -social-cultural influences, roles, expectations, definitions of normality and disorder.
DSM 5: it's designed to be a work in progress
Definitions are powerful.
Anxiety is part of being human, but to some people, it can develop into intense fear, paralyzing dread, and ultimately turn into full-fledged anxiety disorder.
We commonly equate anxiety with fear, but anxiety disorders aren't just a matter of fear itself. A key component is also what we do to get rid of that fear. In medical term, anxiety disorders are characterised not only by distressing, persistent anxiety but also often by the dysfunctional behaviours that reduce that anxiety. At least a fifth of all people will experience a dignosable anxiety disorder of some kind at some point in their lives.
OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder): characterised by unwanted repetitive thoughts, which become obsessions, which are sometimes accompained by actions, which become compulsions. Being neat, orderly and fastidious, doesn't make you OCD. OCD is a debilitating condition whose suffers take normal behaviours perform them compulsively. They often use these compulsive, often ritualistic behaviours to relieve intense and unbearable anxiety.
GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder): people with this condition tend to feel continually tense and apprehensive, experiencing unfocused, negative, and out-of-control feelings.
Panic disorder: panic attacks, sudden episodes of intense dread or sudden fear that come without warning.
Phobias: simply experiencing fear or discomfort doesn't make you phobic, and in clinical terms, phobias are persistent, irrational fears of specific objects, activities, or situations. leads to avoidance behaviour.
Social anxiety disorder (social phobia): characterised by anxiety related to interacting or being seen by others.