PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Mental Disorder, Converting Vegetarians, Personality Disorder

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

Document Summary

Perceptions: when you receive additional information, your perceptions change, when diagnosing mental illness, as much info as possible is gathered to rule out alternate explanations for unusual behaviour. Someone who is unhappy about failing a test and mopes through the day might be feeling bad about the grade but would not be signi cantly distressed. Generally speaking, those with a mental illness not only feel some level of distress but it also adversely affects their life to some extent. It may prevent them from riding in elevators, or socializing with their friends, or from attending university. The degree to which mental illness affects our daily life varies with the disorder and its severity, but some level of functional impairment is common to mental disorders. Context matters: once you understand the context of the behaviour, your opinion on it might change.