Essay Instructions: Psychiatry and psychology are confusing distress with disorder. These fields are stretching their umbrellas to include more and more variations in human behavior that are neither sick nor necessarily harmful. What is harmful is the attempt to include more and more human behavior under the label of mental illness.
In this paper, you are to address this issue by a) addressing the concept of “subjective distress” and “impairment” or “disability” as criteria for mental disorder, b) selecting one anxiety disorder that you think is the most likely candidate for exclusion from DSM-IV, that is, the one “disorder” that you think should not be labeled as a disorder and c) generating a new disorder that is associated with subjective distress and/or impairment. Specifically, you are to provide your own, thoughtful answers to the following questions.
Be sure to answer ALL of the questions below.
1.
When should subjective distress be a criterion of mental disorder and when should it be just an indication of normal, human unhappiness? Most of us recognize that everyone is distressed or unhappy some of the time. Many unfortunate people are distressed or unhappy most of the time. Freud, for example, suggested that the goal of psychoanalysis was to reduce neurotic depression and anxiety and bring people to a normal, unhappy life. Therefore, when is distress a sign of disorder and when is it just a sign of human unhappiness? Be as specific as possible. Use examples to illustrate when subjective distress should and should not be a criterion of mental disorder.
2.
When should disability or impairment be a criterion of mental disorder and when should it merely be a reflection of human variability? Many people say, with considerable justification, that they could not do a common human activity, such as fight in combat, work as a construction worker on scaffolding many floors high, serve as an air traffic controller, do surgery, or extract teeth. In the interpersonal realm, many people say that they could not be friends with someone who had particular religious or political views or who had a particular temperament. This inability or unwillingness to do certain jobs or relate to certain people could be considered impairments in occupational or interpersonal functioning in that they limit a person’s options. Therefore, when is disability or impairment a sign of disorder and when is it just a sign of human variability? Be as specific as possible. Use examples to illustrate when impairment or disability should and should not be a criterion of mental disorder.
3.
Which one of the following anxiety disorders that we have studied do you consider the most likely candidate for exclusion from the DSM because of the distress and impairment criteria you have discussed above: specific phobia, social phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or obsessive compulsive disorder? Consider the category as a whole, not just one type from within the category (e.g., do not just exclude one type of specific phobia). Why do you think it may not be appropriate to consider it as a mental disorder?
4.
Make up a new mental disorder by providing its name and criteria. Note that this disorder can be any kind of disorder; it doesn’t have to be an anxiety disorder. In the criteria, include its essential symptom or symptoms and its associated symptoms (e.g., to have the disorder you must have symptom X and Y and have at least 2 of symptoms A, B, C, and D). For example, some people have what might be called an End of Life Regret Disorder, which is a strong sense of regret and/or guilt experienced toward the end of one’s life as one contemplates mistakes that one made, opportunities that one missed, etc. You can imagine what the essential and associated symptoms of this “disorder” are. Of course, you can not use this example for your disorder. Come up with your own disorder. After describing your disorder, indicate why the disorder should or should not be included in DSM-V.
Please organize the paper according to the 4 questions above and use headings or numbers to refer to those 4 questions. The content of the paper and the quality of the writing are both important.
Please use master level writing as expected. This includes organization, coherence, clarity, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Double spaced, 1 inch margins, and 12-point font.
4 pages in length.
Since this is a thought paper, you do not need any references.
ONE OF A KIND.
