HLTHAGE 1CC3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Panic Attack, American Psychiatric Association, Value Judgment
27 Jun 2018
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May 1st 2017
Mental Health Lecture 1
What is mental illness? 4-5 dominant themes.
We think about mental illness as something derogatory-that person has lesser value.
Where someone falls bw being mentally healthy and mentally ill goes beyond factors of what they say,
think, feel, etc.
For a long time; homosexuality was a sign on mental illness. Our ideas of what counts as being healthy
and ill are fluid, they change and are subject to societal forces. What society holds to be important, etc.
What is good mental health?
Stereotype: belonging is important (people in groups).
Everybody has mental health, we may have differing degrees, but we still all have it. Mental illness is
slightly different; it essentially means that you have been diagnosed as such (derived from an underlying
abnormal condition). Mental illness=mental disorder.
Mental disorders have an impact on at least 1 of 3 areas in the person’s life: how you feel, how you
think, and how you behave.
Ways of thinking about mental illness.
Spiritual: possession, problematic relationship with God.
Balance: Yin/Yang, bodily humours.
A very common, and old idea, think: chemical imbalance (not scientifically proven).
There’s a level that we’re meant to be at, and when we’re thrown off, things go ary.
Somatic problem: Ibn-Sina (Islamic position), psychopharmaceuticals (drugs as first line
treatment).
Comes from a physical defect…typically comes from the brain.
Personal: moral failing, no such thing as mental illness at all.
Rejecting the idea of mental illness as a true illness, really just a problem in living, or
addictions (some people it is clear as day as disease, for others, labeling it this way is
just giving an excuse for someones behaviour).
Problem of consciousness: psychoanalysis
Someone who has strange/abnormal/problematic behaviours…there is hidden roots, if
you bring them to light then the person will fair much better.
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May 1st 2017
Society: poverty, Naomi Wolf.
Poverish conditions where someone lives, or a war zone. Naomi says that anorexia and
bulimia etc come from the way society depicts how a woman should look.
There is not one choice that is definitely the answer, they all have explanatory power.
4 models we now use to diagnose mental illness.
1) Medical model (specific): most dominant, mental illness is just physical illness that is expressed
in a different way. The symptoms of the underlying physical illness comes out in terms of
someone feeling really sad/panic attack/hears voices. No fundamental difference until how it is
expressed.
a. Roots found in the brain.
b. Focus is on the individual; its something that you as a specific person has, not about
wider environment (if you put the person in an isolated desert, they will still have the
disorder).
c. We can use the tools in medicine to do something about it: proper diagnosis, course of
action, and specific cause=a specific solution.
d. Disagreements: chemical imbalances? Neurotransmitters or gut bacteria? Prenatal
damage? Genetically programmed?
e. Serves as a way that only certain people can help others with mental illness (e.g. what
good is talk therapy with a psychologist when the problem is with neurotransmitters for
a physician.
2) Psychological model: Focuses on the individual, and concerned with a person as a unique
identity, but differs from medical in that it is far more interested in psychic prophecies in the
mind vs the brain.
a. The reason someone develops the symptoms of the disorder is that there is some kind
of conflict or problem that develops within the mind; it typically stems from how the
individual reacts with the environment. (e.g. something happens and were profoundly
impacted mentally and that changes the way we think and feel).
b. Disagreements
3) Behavioural model: Skinner; mental illness is a learned behaviour. Something happens and as a
result it changes how we react, and we learn from that process so overtime we reinforce
ourselves.
a. We learn the deviant behaviours (e.g. a girl is diagnosed with OCD (cleanliness) here we
look at what conditioned her to take on these behaviours; when she was young was she
rewarded and praised by her parents for cleaning her room and washing her hands etc?)
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May 1st 2017
b. The symptoms of the mental disorder and the disorder are the same thing. If you stop
the symptoms, you stop the disorder. The roots are no deeper than having to unlearn
problematic behaviours.
c. Lines bw this model and psychological model are flimsy.
4) Sociological model: we cannot understand individuals independently form their social
environment. We are connected to our immediate surroundings and society.
a. 2 variants:
a.i. 1) individuals’ likelihood of developing mental illness depends on where their
social sending is (some people have more protective factors in their life, some
have more harmful- e.g. having more education, being a man, coming from a
higher class background are all things that protect you from becoming unwell.
Conversely, being racialized, being a women, precarious work are all things that
expose you to mental illness). Think: if you have a lot of money, can buy meds,
see a counselor, go on a vacation, etc.
a.ii. 2) we don’t have a way to say exactly what a mental illness is. Majority do not
have material existence. Those who are labeled mentally ill are those who lack
power. These definitions therefore of mental health are dependent on who has
the ability to say what it is…psychiatrists (wealthy, upper class, European, men).
This would be why we had homosexuality listed as a mental disorder, then as
societies shifted to not being one. Conversely, social anxiety: used to be
shyness, now an actual disorder.
So many models exist because some models look really compelling when applied to certain disorders,
but not to others. E.g. genetic basis of schizophrenia (confident) compared to anorexia. And the
opposite for the social model.
Sometimes, being diagnosed and prescribed medications works for them. Others may find the
behavioural model better (learning thoughts to contradict maladaptive behaviours).
Each model gives way for some groups to benefit, and some groups to lose.
Therefore, many advocate for the biopsychosocial model, taking into account biological (physical
health), psychological (coping skills), social (family circumstances).
Often people say they subscribe to this model, but that doesn’t mean that all of these models
are weighted evenly…most of the time bio (medical) is weighted very heavily.
Mind/body dualism rests upon the notion that the body and mind are separate entities. This may
become problematic.
Mental disorder is often profoundly a physical experience (e.g. sensation of a panic attack: pulse racing,
SOB).
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Document Summary
We think about mental illness as something derogatory-that person has lesser value. Where someone falls bw being mentally healthy and mentally ill goes beyond factors of what they say, think, feel, etc. For a long time; homosexuality was a sign on mental illness. Our ideas of what counts as being healthy and ill are fluid, they change and are subject to societal forces. Everybody has mental health, we may have differing degrees, but we still all have it. Mental illness is slightly different; it essentially means that you have been diagnosed as such (derived from an underlying abnormal condition). Mental disorders have an impact on at least 1 of 3 areas in the person"s life: how you feel, how you think, and how you behave. A very common, and old idea, think: chemical imbalance (not scientifically proven). There"s a level that we"re meant to be at, and when we"re thrown off, things go ary.
