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 goal
eg. 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
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 kicking
the 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
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 defined
Does the subject fit within this realm of
behaviour?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X59pI3JPLPs&feature=related
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
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
Anxiety Disorders
Generalized Anxiety disorder
Phobias
OCD
Paranoia
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 others
e.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)
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
Anxiety
Mood disorders
Personality disorders
Schizophrenia
Substance Abuse or dependence
Treatment
Psychotherapy
Behaviour therapy
Anti-anxiety drugs
Counselling
Psychotherapy
Anti-depressant drugs
Drugs
Hospitalization
Drugs
Psychotherapy
Hospitalization
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
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.