Download Fundamental Aspects of Psychopathology

Fundamental Aspects of
Psychopathology
Meta-Components of
Psychology
Culture
SES
Gender and Sex
Psychopathology
Race
Ethnicity
Definition of Mental
Disorder
• A clinically significant
behavioral or psychological
syndrome or pattern that occurs
in the individual and that is
associated with persistent
distress, disability or with
significantly increased risk of
suffering death, pain, disability,
or an important loss of freedom.
Assumption of DSM
• DSM defines major disorders
based on the phenotypic
presentation of symptoms
Inherent Components of
a Mental Disorder
• Dyscontrol
• Critiques?
• Impairment
• Critiques?
• Pathology
Taxometrics
• Mathematical Study of
Classification
• Gold Standard?
• Taxon
• Compromise: Bootstrap
Taxometrics
Culture
• Culture is values, beliefs and
practices belonging to a
particular group. This construct
begins to identify the context,
heterogeneity of beliefs and
persons within a group.
Multicultural
Considerations
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Ethnic Identity
Acculturation
Beliefs about illness
Manifestation of symptoms
Norms/values
Resiliency
Need for systemic involvment
Orientation to mental health services
Nature of reporting
Purpose of Diagnosis
• Understand cause/reason for
behavior
• Correctly identify disorder
• Select proper approach for
treatment
• How does culture impact these
issues?
Misdiagnoses
• Blacks and Hispanics more likely to
be misdiagnosed with a chronic
disorder.
• Blacks more likely to be
misdiagnosed with schizophrenia;
• Potential for violence and
dangerousness overestimated for
blacks inpatients and inmates;
• Minorities more likely to be
overmedicated;
• Minorities receive fewer referrals for
group/individual psychotherapy.
Gender (Addis)
• Network of social, historical
and psychological processes
that collectively form ideologies
and norms regarding who and
how men and women should be.
Hypotheses for Male
Depression
• Men experience depression
differently than women;
• Masked Depression Framework
• Masculine Depression Framework**
• Gendered Responding Framework**
• Increased adherence to masculine
gender norms increases risk for
depression and externalizing
disorders
Disorders of Childhood and
Adolescence: Gender and
Psychopathology
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Examining sex differences
provides a means to identify
the complex etiologies for
different forms of emotional
and behavioral problems.
Disorders of Childhood and
Adolescence: Gender and
Psychopathology
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Sex differences can occur because boys
and girls may:
a) experience different environmental risk factors,
b) experience different levels of the same
environmental risk factors have different
biological processes
c) require different thresholds of biological or
genetic risk for serious problems to develop
d) differentially experience interactions of
environmental and biological influences
Take home message
• Whether culture or gender,
consideration of within group
differences yields more
conceptually useful information
than examining between group
differences