Psychological Problems

3 Key excerpts on "Psychological Problems"

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  eBook - ePub

  Psychology and Social Work

  Applied Perspectives

  • Gabriela Misca, Peter Unwin(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  Classification systems such as the ICD and DSM allow professionals to differentiate types of mental illness and their specific contributory factors in order to provide appropriate treatment. For example, anxiety-related disorders, depression and psychotic disorders have very different aetiologies, and those suffering from them have different needs. However, such classification systems are not free from controversy. These systems have been developed from the medical model and tend to focus on symptoms and define disorders as separate entities, despite the evidence suggesting mental health may be better understood as being a continuum (Larsson et al., 2012). Moreover, by giving diagnostic labels to disorders, there is a risk of inappropriate labelling of a client’s difficulties, and many people are diagnosed with multiple problems, a phenomenon known as comorbidity. The medical model that underpins both the ICD and the DSM places the problem within the individual, a focus on disease and the desire to return the patient to a previous ‘healthy’ state. As mentioned above, the issue of homosexuality has been a subject of great controversy in terms of DSM categorization: it was listed as a disorder until DSM-II, then in DSM-III this ‘diagnosis’ was changed to ‘ego dystonic homosexuality’ (i.e., in conflict with the ego or one’s selfimage). It was only with the publication of the DSM-III-R in 1987 that this was dropped, following a long process of political debate about what constitutes ‘normality’. A social model, as found in counselling psychology and practice, emphasizes health, choice and self-help and would view homosexuality as a matter of choice, not a ‘problem’ that needed solving.

  Common mental health problems

  There now follows a brief overview of the most common mental health problems and their characteristics to facilitate familiarization with the terminology, its abbreviations and the general area of mental health concerned. MIND (2015b) provides clear evidence of the prevalence of mental health problems in the UK across age and social class.

  Anxiety-based problems

  Anxiety is an excessive negative state of mind characterized by bodily symptoms of physical tension and by feelings of apprehension, uncertainty and fear. Anxiety is a normal human emotion felt by most people at some point in their life; it is therefore important that social workers are able to recognize differing levels of anxiety in individuals. Some anxiety disorders, however, cause such distress that it interferes with a person’s ability to function normally.

  Anxiety-based problems are common, with around 4.7 in 100 people in England affected by such a problem yearly (estimates from MIND, 2015b, based on 2009 survey data). The five most common anxiety disorders are as follows.

  1. Specific phobia is defined as an excessive and persistent fear triggered by a specific object or situation. Phobic individuals develop irrational beliefs that the phobic object or situation is certain to cause harm (phobic beliefs).
  2. Panic disorder is characterized by repeated panic or anxiety attacks associated with a variety of physical symptoms, including heart palpitations, perspiration, dizziness, hyperventilation, nausea and tremor. In addition, the individual may experience real feelings of terror or severe apprehension and depersonalization.

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  eBook - ePub

  Understanding Psychology for Medicine and Nursing

  Insights and Applications

  • Mohamed Ahmed Abd El-Hay(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Biological perspective (medical or disease model): this explains psychological disorders in terms of particular disturbances in the anatomy and chemistry of the brain and in other biological processes, including genetic influences (e.g., Plomin & Asbury, 2005; Plomin & McGuffin, 2003). The medical model gave rise to the idea that abnormality is a mental illness. Neuroscientists and others who adopt a neurobiological model study the causes and treatment of these disorders as they would study any physical illness, assuming that problematic symptoms stem primarily from an underlying illness that can be diagnosed, treated, and cured. Researchers using this approach look for genetic abnormalities that may predispose a person to develop a particular mental health problem by affecting the functioning of the brain. They also look for abnormalities in specific parts of the brain and dysfunction in neurochemical systems in the brain and other parts of the body. Proponents of this perspective generally favor the use of drugs to treat mental health problems.

  2. Psychological perspective: there are a number of psychological perspectives that look differently at variations in emotions, thinking, or behavior. Common psychological perspectives include:

  a. The psychodynamic perspective emphasizes unconscious conflicts, usually originating in early childhood, and the use of defense mechanisms to handle the anxiety generated by the repressed impulses and emotions. Bringing the unconscious conflicts and emotions into awareness is expected to eliminate the need for the defense mechanisms and alleviate the disorder.

  b. The cognitive model suggests that some mental problems stem from maladaptive cognitive processes and can be alleviated by changing these biased cognitions. The way we think about ourselves, the way we appraise stressful situations, and our strategies for coping with them are all interrelated. It is not the negative events that cause Psychological Problems, but it is our thoughts about those events.

  c.

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  Mental Health and Crime

  • Jill Peay(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Routledge-Cavendish

    (Publisher)

  Mental disorder

  Problems of definition and diagnosis

  It would be possible to write an entire book on what is meant by mental disorder. Indeed, an excellent one has already been written on just that topic (Bolton, 2008). Its treatment here will necessarily be partial.

  Mental disorder has been defined clinically, perhaps tautologically, perhaps simplistically, as ‘a disorder that presents with mental signs and symptoms’. As will emerge more fully in the latter sections of this book, the current legal definitions are hardly more helpful. And there is a further fundamental problem, namely whether mental disorders are indeed distinct from physical disorders. Reputable opinion would argue not (see Kendell, 2001, Matthews, 1999). Indeed Kendell, a former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has argued that

  … if we do continue to refer to ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ illnesses we should preface both with ‘so-called’, to remind ourselves and our audience that these are archaic and deeply misleading terms. (Kendell, 2001:490)

  That said, this is not the place to review what is a fascinating literature on the infusion of ‘the mental’ into physical illness and/or vice versa. Rather, the book takes as its premise a widespread recognition of the concept of mental disorder, even if that concept is itself of dubious value.1

  The focus here is on a tension within the topic between an approach that emphasises a quasi-scientific basis, with all of the seeming certainty that that embraces, and one which places much greater stress on what is not yet known or understood (see Kendell, 2001 and Cheng, 2001, implicitly supporting the scientific view, and Turner, 2003, for a contrary view). The former approach might be typified by frequent resort to the accepted

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