Mental Health and Mental Disorder - Essay Example

Examination Questions Why might eating disorders becoming more prevalent The prevalence of eating disorders has become a of much controversy and debate in recent years. Before considering whether eating disorders might become more prevalent in the future it is useful to consider both the types of eating disorders that occur and also their probable causes. A knowledge of these will aid in identifying possible catalysts for an increase in eating disorders in the coming years. There are a number of misconceptions about eating disorders. While many of them do indeed begin with preoccupations with food and weight, they normal stem from many more issues that just food. Eating disorders "are complex conditions that arise from a combination of long-standing behavioral, emotional, psychological, interpersonal and social factors" (Costin, 1999). Many people with eating disorders use food and, more importantly, the control of food in an attempt to compensate for feelings, emotions and perhaps circumstances that are beyond their control. The control their eating because other parts of their life are uncontrollable and perhaps even overwhelming. Two main types of eating disorder exist: anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa (Goodman, 2001). A more recent type of eating disorder, called "binge eating" has recently been recognized, although not in a universal manner by health authorities. Anorexia is characterized by a refusal to keep body weight at or near a minimum healthy level, the feeling that a person is "fat" even though they are very underweight and obsessive concern with body image and food. Anorexia normally shows itself through a person essentially slowly starving themselves over a long period of time. In bulimia excessive calories are taken in the form of food binges, often without relation to feelings of hunger. Soon afterwards this food is purged from the body, often through self-induced vomiting. Binge eating involves the massive intake of calories, but without the subsequent purging. Essentially binge eating can be defined as overeating habits over a long period of time, characterized by a feeling of "loss of control" while doing so. While psychological, emotional, interpersonal and social factors are well known to produce some eating disorders, recent research has suggested that there may be some biochemical imbalances within the brain that may also lead to them. Thus the chemicals that control hunger, appetite and digestion have been found to be unbalanced in individuals with eating disorders (Costin, 1999). Whether these imbalances are the cause of the eating disorder or the result of it has yet to be determined. So with the causes and characteristics of eating disorders in mind, the question remains as to whether they will become more prevalent. This dimension seems to rely upon the social factors that can contribute to eating disorders. Thus if popular culture - in film, advertising, the Internet - continues to glorify "thinness" as a health need, as a necessity in order to be considered attractive and also as a sign of virtue through the person showing signs of self-control, then the present levels of eating disorders may stay the same. The increased prevalence of mass media within people's lives may suggest that such disorders may increase in number because the sheer intensity and amount of such messages being aimed at people, mainly young women will increase. One reason that eating disorders may increase is the apparently ever-lowering age at which pre-teens become conscious of their bodies in an adult manner. Thus the "tween" culture of 10-12 year-olds are increasingly showing signs of acting like 13-15 year-olds did several decades ago (Mitchell, 2005). Girls at a much younger age may well start to show signs of eating disorders and thus the overall prevalence of them will go up. This age group is particularly vulnerable for a number of reasons. First, the relatively immature emotional development make them easy targets for the sophisticated advertising campaigns that seek to suggest that "thin is beautiful". Second, for the same reasons that may be even less able to handle the emotional strains of such advertising and thus avoid descending into an eating disorder. Third, their parents may not be looking out for the signs of such disorders believing, as would have been correct a few decades ago, that their daughters would need to be older to be vulnerable to them. An area of eating disorders that may well become more prevalent, at least partially because they will now be recognized as such, are those affecting males. While most disorders are associated with girls and women, there are a number of different pressures that boys feel. As Bryant-Waugh (2004 ) suggests "if GI Joe were a life size male, he would have a 48 inch chest, 32 inch waist with cuts and impossible 32 inch biceps". Such images which are often repeated in "real-life" role models such as wrestlers and action movie stars, and this leads to a startling fact. The adolescent male eating disorder is called muscle dysmorphia, and that is when a man feels that his body is not muscular and lean, as he would like it to be. Bryant-Waugh states that "studies suggest that hundreds of thousands of boys are experiencing these disorders. It is found that 1 in 4 preadolescent cases of anorexia have been found to occur in boys". Such pressures are increasing with the greater prevalence of such figures within the entertainment, sports and even video-gaming world. Thus it seems likely that the prevalence of eating disorders will indeed increase over the coming years. Education of educators, doctors, parents and young people themselves to recognize the early signs of such disorders and how to counteract them before them become fully-developed needs to occur. 2)How useful is it to view 'Personality Disorders' in terms of a medical model The attempt to define human behavior that is regarded as departing from the norm in medical, moral, sociological or criminal terms has haunted human beings in general for centuries. It has also been a central dilemma within the "science" of psychology which has often attempted to define what are now termed as "personality disorders" in a medical sense. The attempt to define a disorder often depends upon the degree to which it can (or cannot) be distinguished from other disorders in terms of etiology. First, how can a personality disorder be defined One useful and comprehensive definition is the following: personality disorder is identifiedby a pervasive pattern of experience and behaviorthat is abnormal with respect to any two of the following: thinking, mood, personal relations,and the control of impulses. (everyday, 2006) The America Psychiatric Association has a more formal, but remarkably similar definition. It defines a personality disorder as an, enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectation of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment. (American, 2006) This is as near as can be possible to "medical model" for personality disorders, but its very generalities and uncertainty point to the quandaries that exist within a consideration of the whole condition. Unlike clearly defined mental illnesses or conditions such as chronic depression, some types of schizophrenia and manic-depression, personality disorders do not have a clearly defined series of symptoms. It might be argued that those individuals who have contributed most to human culture, history, art and science have exhibited an "enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectation of the individual's culture". Plato, Mozart, Gandhi, Einstein, Marie Curie, Sylvia Plath, Thomas Edison, Shakespeare . . . the list of "great" people could be continued ad nauseam to show that this "deviation" from the norm is in fact often a positive rather than a negative characteristic within individual human beings. The medical model assumes that the "deviation" from the norm is something resoundingly negative that needs to be "cured". The idea that the individuals mentioned above should have been "cured" of their ability is of course absurd, and that absurdity reveals the difficult raised within personality orders in particular, and psychology in general. An examination of the specific types of disorder that have been identified shows the generalized and overlapping nature of many of them: Antisocial Personality Disorder: Lack of regard for the moral or legal standards in the local culture, marked inability to get along with others or abide by societal rules. Sometimes called psychopaths or sociopaths. Avoidant Personality Disorder: Marked social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and extremely sensitive to criticism. Borderline Personality Disorder: Lack of one's own identity, with rapid changes in mood, intense unstable interpersonal relationships, marked impulsively, instability in affect and in self image. Dependent Personality Disorder: Extreme need of other people, to a point where the person is unable to make any decisions or take an independent stand on his or her own. Fear of separation and submissive behavior. Marked lack of decisiveness and self-confidence. Histrionic Personality Disorder: Exaggerated and often inappropriate displays of emotional reactions, approaching theatricality, in everyday behavior. Sudden and rapidly shifting emotion expressions. Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Behavior or a fantasy of grandiosity, a lack of empathy, a need to be admired by others, an inability to see the viewpoints of others, and hypersensitive to the opinions of others. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder: Characterized by perfectionism and inflexibility; preoccupation with uncontrollable patterns of thought and action. Paranoid Personality Disorder: Marked distrust of others, including the belief, without reason, that others are exploiting, harming, or trying to deceive him or her; lack of trust; belief of others' betrayal; belief in hidden meanings; unforgiving and grudge holding. Schizoid Personality Disorder: Primarily characterized by a very limited range of emotion, both in expression of and experiencing; indifferent to social relationships. Schizotypal Personality Disorder: Peculiarities of thinking, odd beliefs, and eccentricities of appearance, behavior, interpersonal style, and thought (e.g., belief in psychic phenomena and having magical powers). Most human beings at various times in their life exhibit at least one of these supposed disorders, and many people exhibit several at the same time. But they can function perfectly well within society and often use some of these characteristics for certain occupations. For example, the police often display a "marked distrust of others", indeed, it is perhaps essential to have such a distrust when investigating crime. Is the ideal police officer thus suffering from "paranoid personality disorder" The description of histrionic personality disorder could be applied to many people who from what Northwestern European type races would regard as "excitable" countries. Thus some culture do tend to be more emotional than other, for example the Italians and the Spanish. How could their behavior be defined according to a medical diagnosis What would be the bench-mark To conclude, there is an obvious imprecision to the definition and diagnosis of personality disorders. This makes them unsuitable for the normal medical model which is based upon the scientific method, and thus requires that a disease or condition be definable within clearly measured criteria. Personality disorders simply are not precise enough in their definition to accurately determine such criteria. Their "diagnosis" is essentially subjective rather than objective in nature. While a certain amount of subjectivity inevitably exists within all medicine, the amount of it within a diagnosis of personality disorders moves them out of the normal medical model. __________________________________________ Works Cited American Medical Association Mental Disorders: SM-IV-TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 2006. Bryant-Waugh, Raymond. Eating Disorders. Routledge, New York: 2004. Costin, Carolyn. The Eating Disorder Sourcebook : A Comprehensive Guide to the Causes, Treatments, and Prevention of Eating Disorders. McGraw-Hill, New York: 1999. www.EverydayHealth.com& Goodman, Laura. Eating Disorders. Routledge, New York: 2001. Mitchell, Claudia. Seven Going On Seventeen: Tween Studies In The Culture Of Girlhood. Peter Lang Publishing, New York: 2005. Read More