Mental Disorders

Mental Health Facts

• Mental illness are medical disorders

• Research indicates that there are biological and genetic causes for mental illness

• Mental illness does not discriminate, it affects people of all ages, gender and cultures

•Situations can occur that can challenge your healthy mental outlook

•Wanting to guard yourself against pain, stress and frustration in these situations is only natural

Freud

• Described the process by which we protect ourselves from the awareness of our undesired and feared impulses

Defence Mechanisms

Compensation:

Using a substitute method to achieve a desired goaleg. Short-man syndrome

Conversion:Transferring an emotion into a physical symptom or complaint

Daydreaming:Accomplishing through imagination something you have not accomplished in reality.

Direct Attack:Overcoming obstacles or problems through realistic efforts to find solutions

Repression:Blocking of unacceptable impulses from consciousness

Displacement:Transferring an emotion connected with one person or thing to another person or thing; replacing a threatening object with a less threatening one.e.g. Being angry at your boss and kickingthe dog or punching a pillow.

Giving Up:Allowing discouragement to get you down.

Idealization:Placing value on something or someone that is beyond its worth; worship of someone/thing.

Projection:Placing the blame for your failures on other people or things.e.g. Picking a fight with your boyfriend/ girlfriend because you failed a math test.

Denial:The refusal to accept reality and to act as if a painful event or thought didn't happen.

Rationalization:Explaining your weaknesses or failures by giving socially acceptable excuses.

e.g. I failed a test because i didn't get enough sleep last night.

Regression:Reverting back to a less mature stage of development.e.g. Overwhelming fear might lead to bed-wetting or thumb sucking.

Which Defence Mechanism is employed?

When Timmy aged 4 found out he had a new baby sister he started to wet the bed again.

Regression

Betty was bitten by a dog when she was 6 years old. Years later someone asked her about the scar on her chin and she said she did not remember.

Repression

We do not have a TV at home.It is good for the children to do without one.

Rationalization

Dan loves to joke about his big nose

Compensation

“Lisa has gotten so fat!” said chubby Sherry.

Projection

Mental Illness

• a disturbance in thoughts and emotions that decreases a person’s capacity to cope with the challenges of everyday life.

Mental Health

•Functioning in a state of mental and emotional well-being

WHAT IS STIGMA?

When someone appears to be different than us, we may view him/her in a negative

stereotyped manner.Due to inaccuracies and misunderstandings,

people have been led to believe that an individual with a mental illness has a weak

character or is inevitably dangerous.The media, as a reflection of society, has done

much to sustain a distorted view of mental illness.

http://www.muchmusic.com/tv/muchtalks/mentalhealth

Causes

- Too much stress - Pyschological factors (i.e. Early

childhood experiences

- Biological factors (ie. Brain function, chemical imbalance

- Disease- Genetic predisposition (inherited or

susceptibility)

Continuum

Normal

Neurotic

Borderline Personality Disorders

Psychosis

Normal

What the majority of population is like

Often statistically definedDoes the subject fit within this realm

of behaviour?

Neurotic/ Neurosis

• A maladaptive behaviour (inappropriate to a given situation) is used as protection against unconscious anxiety

• Sufferers experience high levels of tension or stress in managing their daily lives, but they may be able to function at work or in intimate relationships & friendships.

• Panic attacks, Phobias, Obsessive-compulsive disorders

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X59pI3JPLPs&feature=related

Borderline Personality Disorders

Persistent neurotic behaviours often with a physical psychosomatic element, and some degree of

hallucination; distorted perception of reality, which may be recognized

by the individual as distortion.

e.g. Pathological liars

Psychosis• Patient loses touch with the real

world, may suffer from hallucinations or delusions and needs treatment before he/she can live a life with any degree of normality; individual believes the hallucinations / delusions.

Paranoia: suffering from irrational thought of persecution or foreboding

• Schizophrenia• Multiple Personality Disorder

(Disassociative Identity Disorder)

Anxiety Disorders

Generalized Anxiety disorderPhobias

OCDParanoia

Personality Disorders

• A habitual pattern of rule-breaking and harming of others.

• Pathological lying• Absence of empathy towards

others• Deliberately causing pain• A lack of guilt for damage caused• Often loners, highly suspicious &

mistrustful of otherse.g. Sociopaths

Mood Disorders

Major Depression: deep unhappiness causing sleep,

appetite changes, suicide

attempts

Bipolar Affective Disorder:– mood changes beyond the normal

range. Manic high to deep depression (low)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzjBHaT6htU

Schizophrenic Disorders• A complex disorder that leads to

feelings of distress and social isolation

• Distortion of reality• Social withdrawal• Disturbances of thought,

perception, motor activity and emotions.

• Some become totally apathetic• Catatonic schizophrenics become

rigid and mute, usually characterized by bizarre hallucinations & delusions.

Substance Related Disorders

Refers to the harmful use of substances (alcohol, drugs, tobacco) leading to significant impairment or

distress.

Often classified as “abuse” or “dependence”

Treatment:Disorder Treatment Anxiety Psychotherapy Behaviour therapy Anti-anxiety drugs Mood disorders Counselling Psychotherapy Anti-depressant drugs Personality disorders Drugs Hospitalization Schizophrenia Drugs Psychotherapy Hospitalization Substance Abuse or dependence Counselling Behaviour therapy Self-help groups (e.g. AA)

How has society changed its view on mental illness?

Past:

Caused by evil spirits

Praying, fasting, drinking foul substances

Witchcraft/Warlocks

Present:

Asylums

Therapy / Medicine

Psycho-therapy

What is the criteria used in Canada to judge mental illness?

• Persistent personal unhappiness• The inability to function in society & be a

contributing member• Antisocial behaviour that harms others

You can be held in custody if you are seen as posing a threat to yourself or to others.