HLTHAGE 2G03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Gross National Happiness, Gross Domestic Product, Moral Treatment
17 Jan 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Mental Health 2GG3
Monday, January 8, 2018 – Lecture 1
Metal Health – referring to feelings, thoughts, cognition, and self concept
Good Mental Health?
• Minimalist: absence of mental disorders
• No generally accepted definition of mental disorder
• Highly contested
• The ability to get on in their every day life? The ability to connect with others?
• Ability to enjoy oneself, ability to handle stress, discomfort, and change
• The ability to pursue goals and interests
• Sense of psychological and emotional wellbeing
➢ Cannot be a clear indicator of mental illness
➢ Collectivist cultures → this is more normal
➢ Danger of assuming universality
• Mental health is not entirely personal – linked to others
• Must consider mental health in a social context
Poor Mental Health – Disorder Model
• Disorder model (medical model/biomedical model): assumes mental illnesses exist as
disete ategoies oe has it, o oe does’t
• Based on disease specificity – binary understanding
• Some symptoms may reflect components of normalcy, collections of symptoms form
syndromes that are discrete and unique
• Disorder model allows us to delineate who has a disorder and who does not
• Dominant model
• Lots of shortcomings
Poor Mental Health – Distress Model
• Dimensional model
• Metal illesses do’t eist as idepedet etities, athe, all people soe o a
continuum of psychological distress, part of everyday life
• E.g. everyone experiences sadness, anxiousness, etc, however they fall on a spectrum
which indicates the severity of their experiences
• Some people will have increased difficulty, due to any number of personal factors – but
disease is grounded in specificity, which makes it definite and understood
• Definitions of mental health are highly contested, makes it difficult to study
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
DSM
• Official list of mental disorders
• Gateway to treatment
• Unable to get treatment or be covered by insurance unless the disorder is stated in the
DSM (officially recognized)
• composed of committees that get together and discuss symptomatic influence of
certain disorders which will determine whether or not that disorder or symptom will
make it into the DSM
• does’t disuss ause o teatet – because we cannot definitively state cause or what
treatments will work
• gives us a common language between clinicians
• However,….
➢ Lacks validity: the ability to know that what is being described actually exists (unable to
base a diagnosis on a definitive understanding of cause
➢ Reduces highly personal experience to a checklist on a page
➢ Pre-defined disorders → does one match this list of syndromes
How a Diagnosis is Formed
• A result of an interview more so than physical exam
• Interview: clinician and patient have a dialogue which includes history of
psychopathology as well as current
• Diagnosis primarily made by self-reporting
• Observations of friends and family can be included in the equation
• NOT an objective fact – more so an interpretation and a judgement made by the
clinician making the diagnosis
Factors that Drive Mental Health and Illness
• Social determinants
• Individual experiences
• Biological factors
• Socially constructed labels to draw the line between normalcy and atypicality
The Individual and Society
• Mental disorders not merely experienced by the individual – also takes into account
relationships in life
• Abnormality requires the presence of another person to deem it as such
• We’e ostatl ipatig oe aothe
• Stability, social cohesion, productivity → markers of good social mental health
Bhutan and Gross National Happiness
• Bhutan launched GNH
• Gross National Happiness Gross Domestic Product
• Said that happiness is most important to them
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Rating of quality of life
• Widespread social measures to improve happiness
• Gauges the spiritual, physical, social, and environmental health of citizens and natural
environment via survey
• Despite poverty, one of the happiest places on earth
Poor Mental Health
• Can societies be mentally ill?
• Widespread paranoia, mistrust, lack of cohesion, etc – probably indicators of poor
mental health in a community
• Moral panics, mass psychogenic events, trump, civil wars
• Thee is a dage i laellig these pheoea’s as etal illess – it denies
responsibility, suggests spontaneous development
Improving Mental Health
• Individual activities to improve quality of life
• Therapist assisted individual interventions
• Psychotherapies: CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, etc
• Psychopharmaceuticals
• Mental healthcare professionals: psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses
• Unlicensed counsellors, life coaches, etc.
• Alternative individual therapies: light therapy, play therapy, animal assisted therapy,
group therapy, family therapy
Monday, January 15, 2018 – Lecture 2: From Madness to Mental Illness
Key Themes
• Madness → mental illness (abnormal behavior)
• Is mental illness on the rise?
• Teatet/oeptio of etall ill does’t eessail fit sipl sto of edial
progress
• How old are mental disorders? Are they historic entities? Or responses to changes in
life?
Pre-Institutional History
• No way to date mental illness
• We have descriptions of things that may sound like mental illness (delusions?
Depression?)
• Earliest recordings from 2nd c BCE, potentially mania, depression, delusions
• Hippocrates and Galen → Greek physicians, taken up as roman
➢ Placed madness in brain
➢ Rome falls, medicine declines
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Monday, january 8, 2018 lecture 1 (cid:862)me(cid:374)tal health(cid:863) referring to feelings, thoughts, cognition, and self concept. The ability to connect with others: ability to enjoy oneself, ability to handle stress, discomfort, and change, the ability to pursue goals and interests, sense of psychological and emotional wellbeing. Cannot be a clear indicator of mental illness. Collectivist cultures this is more normal. Danger of assuming universality: mental health is not entirely personal linked to others, must consider mental health in a social context. Dsm: official list of mental disorders, gateway to treatment. Unable to get treatment or be covered by insurance unless the disorder is stated in the. Lacks validity: the ability to know that what is being described actually exists (unable to base a diagnosis on a definitive understanding of cause. Reduces highly personal experience to a checklist on a page. Pre-defined disorders does one match this list of syndromes.
