Transcript 16 mental illness

Mental Illness
The Medical Model of Mental
Illness
The Four Components of the Medical Model of
Disease
<Etiology
<Symptomology
<Prognosis
<Lesion
The Mental “Diseases”
Schizophrenia and Psychoses
-affect perceptions of reality, often with notable
physiological symptoms
Affective, or Mood, Disorders
-”Affect”=emotion
-Affective disorders include depression, bipolar disorder,
hypomania, etc
Anxiety Disorders
-Include panic disorder, generalised anxiety disorder,
performance anxiety, certain phobias, etc
Obsessive Disorders
-Include OCD, religious obsessions and other examples
of hyper-observance, certain eating disorders
3
Sociological Perspectives on
Mental Illness
Some Epidemiological Findings on Mental
Illness and Social Structure
<Incidence over the lifecourse
<Gender
<Race
<Class
The Labelling Perspective is a qualitative
sociological perspective that has been used in
many important studies, eg Goffman’s “The
Moral Career of the Mental Patient”
Scheff on the Labelling Model of
Mental Illness
-Mental Illness is a label
-The label is a means of social control
-The label, like all labels, is applied as a result
of differences in power
-The label results in the viewing of certain
behaviours as "symptoms"
-The label thus constitutes a self-fulfilling
prophecy
Szasz on AThe Myth of Mental
Illness@
-Mental Illness is a “fallback” categorization for
"residual deviance."
-Most "mental illnesses" do not fit the medical
model.
-The medical model is maintained by
psychiatrists and clinical psychologists whose
careers rely on the existence of MI.
-As Scheff also argues, ascribing MI is also a
means of social control for those who are not
criminal.
Laing on ASupersanity@
-It is wrong to think of the perceptions or
beliefs of the MI as ipso facto false or
perverse.
-The MI are inner oriented and may be able to
"see" realities that others cannot.
-What the MI "see" may have validity beyond
the perceptual abilities of "normals."
-The MI experience interpersonal problems as
a result of the incongruency in perceptual
abilities between them and normals.
Lessons from Rosenhans= AOn
Being Sane in Insane Places@
The study provided evidence for criticism
of the medical model.
-MI diagnoses are questionable.
-The MI label has many negative
consequences.
-Treatment in mental hospital may be more
harmful than therapeutic.
-Mental health care practitioners do not know
as much about MI as they (or we) think they
know.