Mental Disorders And Their Treatment
Diagnosing Mental Disorder
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is designed to provide objective criteria and categories for diagnosing mental disorder.
Critics argue that the diagnosis of mental disorders, unlike those of medical disease, is bias.
Supporters of the DSM believe that when the DSM criteria are used correctly, reliability in diagnosis improves; and that although some diagnoses are indeed subjective and culture-specific, other disorders are universal.
Some Major Disorders--Anxiety
Generalized anxiety disorder involves continuous, chronic anxiety,with signs of nervousness, worry, and irritability.
When anxiety results from exposure to an unexpected traumatic event, it can lead to posttraumatic stress disorder, which involves mental reliving of the trauma and increased physiological arousal.
In some long-term sufferers of PTSD, high levels of stress hormones may be toxic to the hippocampus and other parts of the brain.
Panic disorder involves sudden, intense attacks of profound fear, with feelings of impending doom.
Panic attacks are common in the aftermath of stress or frightening experiences; those who go on to develop a disorder tend to interpret the attacks as a sign of impending disaster rather than as a normal stress reaction
Some Major Disorders--Phobias
Phobias are unrealistic fears of specific situations, activities, or things.
Some phobias may have evolved because they were adaptive for the species; others are learn, reflecting quirks of personality or cultural practices.
Some Major Disorders--OCD
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)involves recurrent, unwished-for thoughts or images (obsessions) and repetitive, ritualized behaviors (compulsions) that a person feels unable to control.
Several parts of the brain having to do with fear and response to threat are especially active in people with OCD.
Some Major Disorders--Depression
Symptoms of major depression include distorted thinking patterns, low self-esteem, physical ailments such as fatigue and loss of appetite, and prolonged grief and despair.
Biological explanations of depression emphasize low levels of the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine, and the role of genetic predispositions.
Attachment and object-relations theories hold that depression results from a history of insecure attachment or from broken or conflicted relationships.
Vulnerability-stress models look at interactions between individual vulnerabilities (genetic dispositions, cognitive habits, and personality traits) and environmental stress.
Some Major Disorders--Personality
Personality disorders are characterized by rigid, self-destructive traits that cause distress or an inability to get along with others.
They include paranoid, narcissistic, borderline, and antisocial personality disorders.
A person with antisocial personality disorder (APD) lacks empathy and remorse, is unafraid of punishment, and is impulsive and lacks self-control.
The disorder may involve a neurological condition that is genetic or is caused by damage to the brain and central nervous system at birth or during childhood, parental rejection and abuse, or a combination of biological vulnerability and stressful or violent environments.
(Not all persons with APD are violent, however; some are deceitful and heartless con artists.
Some Major Disorders--Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder involving positive or active symptoms including delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech called word salads, and inappropriate behavior, and negative symptoms (including loss of motivation, poverty of speech, catatonic stupor, and emotional flatness).
Cases of schizophrenia vary in severity, duration, and prognosis.
The leading theories of schizophrenia are biological, focusing on genetic predispositions; structural brain abnormalities; neurotransmitter abnormalities; and abnormalities of prenatal developmental resulting from maternal malnutrition, viral infection, or other trauma during the second trimester.
The Biological Perspective
Throughout history, there have been efforts to root out mental illness literally, by intervening directly in the brain.
Psychosurgery, which destroys selected areas of the brain thought to be responsible for a psychological problem, is rarely done today, although some surgeons continue to experiment with it.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), in which a brief current is
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is designed to provide objective criteria and categories for diagnosing mental disorder.