PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 63: Panic Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Selective Mutism

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jill L Atkinson

Document Summary

Outline the characteristics of a mental disorder. Apply the three-prong criteria to identify the presence of a mental disorder. Clinically significant - symptoms are considered clinically significant if a clinician judges them to be sufficiently significant, marked, or substantial in intensity or duration that the patient would benefit from professional treatment. These symptoms need to adversely affect the lives of their person and impair their lives. This needs to be considered within a cultural framework for context. Psychological distress and impaired functioning are key features here. Internally vs. externally driven factors both influence mental health. You cannot diagnose an individual with a mental disorder if the sole cause of his/ her distress or impairment is external them (ie. an environmental influence). People cannot be diagnosed with a mental disorder if that behaviour is voluntary. Describe the ways genes and environment interact to produce mental disorders (i. e. , diathesis-stress model)