Uncovering Psychology Units 3&4

1. Uncovering PsychologyUnits 3&4 Mental health and the biopsychosocial framework

2. Mental health and mental illness • Mental health and mental illness are terms that often get used interchangeably, but they refer to very different things. • Mental health: The state of having both normal cognitive functioning and emotional wellbeing, and also an absence of mental disorder or disease. • Mental illness: A set of conditions or disorders that result in or cause abnormal behaviour and adversely impact on the individual and those around them.

3. Classifying mental disorders • Two major systems are used for classifying mental disorders: • The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) created by the World Health Organization; it also includes all physical diseases. • The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) created by the American Psychiatric Association. • Other systems exist, but are less widely used.

4. Diagnosing mental disorders • The ICD and DSM both use a categorical approach to diagnosing mental disorders. The categorical approach simply looks at whether a necessary symptom or sign is present or absent. • The alternative dimensional approach looks not just at a symptom’s presence or absence, but also at its severity or degree. • The dimension approach is more nuanced, but also more ambiguous than the categorical approach.

5. The biopsychosocial framework • Many different factors contribute to an individual’s physical and mental health. • The biopsychosocial model looks at three major categories of factors when assessing someone’s health: • Biological: Genetics, illness, trauma, medication, drugs etc. • Psychological: Mood, conflicts, coping, loss, etc. • Social: Poverty, employment, stigma, etc. • All of these factors play a part in shaping, and understanding, mental health.