Essay on "Mental Disorder vs. Physical Disorders"

Essay 4 pages (1325 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Physical and Mental Disorders

For centuries, humans have tried to separate disease into a cause/effect and black/white frame of reference. In history, sometimes disease was thought to be divinely inspired, or something in the wind, and then with the advent of the Scientific Revolution and microscopes discovered it became germ theory. This germ (virus, bacteria, etc.) caused this, another one caused that. This germ theory has primarily been a Western paradigm, whereas in the East, disorders are typically thought of as imbalances in one system or another. In the germ, or biomedical model, the responsibility of the illness is external, because the germ is external, and illness is seen as confined to a specific organ or group of organs. Instead, a newer model that combines both the physical and mental aspects of illness, or the Health Psychology Model, sees that yes, there are differences in symptoms, diagnosis, and care between mental and physical ailments, but that humans are holistic beings and both physical and mental disease affects the other. It is this holistic continuum that truly defines the new model -- the new model focuses on interaction, focuses on holism, and focuses less on simply the cause of disease, but ways to improve the quality of life to prevent disease (Curtis, 2000). Based on this view, if we were to group disease, it should likely be grouped by affected region -- with no real distinction between actual mental and physical, but more Psychological disorders and/or Physical disorders, understanding that there is almost always blurring between them (Dombeck, 2003).

Conditions, for instance, that would now be called depression or mental illness were seen as physical manifestations of mania, hysteria and melancholia, and for thousands of years, treated just as if the disease was a physical cut or bruise. It is difficult to "see" hysteria or mania, but we can view the results or the symptoms. Similarly, calming a patient with a sedative certainly mitigates the symptoms, but not the root cause. In the 20th century, we have made tremendous progress towards a better understanding of the links between mental and physical ailments, and also in the identification and treatment of both. In reality, though, neither minds nor bodies develop illness- only people do so within certain organisms of the body. Mental illness can be brought about by trauma to the brain or body, but just as easily can be the result of a chemical or biological imbalance. Physical illness may be brought on by mental and emotional causes (stress, grief, and trauma) and may manifest in ways that tie both together. It is interesting that the International Classification of Diseases, used by the World Health Organization and other international bodies, does not draw a fundamental distinction between mental and physical diseases; just sees them as aspects of either the psychiatric or body (Kendall, 2001).

Assessment - Assessment of physical disorders tends to be quantitative in nature; done through measurement and tests using norms and the variations of these norms to find illness. For instance, blood pressure, pulse, and/or various blood tests will have a specific set of mathematical measurements. This is combined with a thorough history of symptoms, and then matching the symptoms with the data provides the tools for diagnosis. For mental disorders, the assessment is more qualitative: what is the individual's mood, behavior, thinking pattern, reasoning, memory, and ability to express oneself, get along with others. This tends to be geared towards age appropriateness, so that a child's assessment would be quite different than an adult. At times, quantitative testing is done to assess personality issues, cognitive function, and memory. In most cases, both physical and mental health are assessed with every visit to a physician, and various tools are used to probe for deeper answers (American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines, 2006).

Diagnosis- the term diagnosis refers to the identification of the nature and cause of something. In both mental and physical illness, we look for patterns -- of behavior, symptoms,… READ MORE

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