Classifying Psychological Disorders

The more we understand something, the more likely we are to do something in and for it

The community of mental health professionals such as psychologists and psychiatrists have tried to come up with an accurate and reasonable list of mental health disorders. There exist various lists and classification systems for mental health disorders. Each with their own set classifying and inclusion criteria. The major goal of making such lists was to limit the way in which terms are used. The idea was to give precise meanings to words that were used in day to day language. Example: OCD or Schizophrenic.

Despite the presence of many classification systems, there exist two major approaches to classifying mental health disorders. They are (i) empirical approach and (ii) clinical-consensual approach. I want to discuss these two approaches a bit today, because I think we need to spread correct information about mental health workings. I think knowing a bit about how mental health professionals come up with systems to classify disorders could make a person more comfortable with discussing mental health in their lives.

 The Empirical Approach

This approach has been linked to behavioural assessment, and relies upon factor analysis, which is to say, we try to use empirical tools at our disposal to cluster together a set of problems that occur together. A behavioural check-list is a good way of doing this. Lets say, in a survey of people being treated for psychological disorders, a questionnaire is given with a list of 100 problems to the caretakers of the patients.  A post-survey analysis of the correlations between the '100-problems' could lead to what we call a 'syndrome', or a collection of symptoms.

We neatly package a set of occurrences under a group name and do this over and over again, with various and different people. It will be better understood if I give you an example. Lets have a person, lets call her Kate. Now Kate gave a test, results come out and Kate falls under a syndrome category. End of story. Not really. Something neat happens when we do such kind of analysis with multiple people. The results remain consistent. Which is to say, if one person has a particular set of symptoms another person will more likely than not have the same symptoms. Like I said, pretty neat. We, theoretically and practically, know nothing about this another person but we can predict a set of problems they face. Such is the voodoo of statistics.

 The Clinical-Consensual Approach

The other side of making classifications about psychological disorders. This is based on the judgement and experience of the clinicians the client and or patients are working with. A category for classification used in 1880 was highly detailed and precise and before I mislead you further, I would correct myself and say that all it was just one category. Nowadays, we've four. Namely (i) Brain Disorders, (ii) Psychosis (iii) Neurosis and (iv) Personality Disorders.

 Put briefly, these categorizations mean this. Brain disorders are disorders that result from a damage like lesion or hemorrhage suffered by the brain. A specific brain area might be related to a specific and complex psychological function. That damage may lead to abnormal behaviour pattern. Psychosis and Neurosis are sides of a coin. They differ based on the severity of the disorder and the extent to which a person's perception of reality is distorted. Psychosis refers to severe syndromes which can be extremely dangerous if not given any psychological attention. Neurosis on the other hand refers to mild syndromes with respect to severity and perception of reality. Lastly, we have P.D. or personality disorders. They are defined as long-standing maladaptive personality traits or patterns. The person has inappropriate behavioural responses and an extreme rigidity towards any change.

 This is, in no way an exhaustive account. I don't intend it to be that, at all. This is an awareness account. It is basic but true and distilled towards unbiased explanation. The aim for this is to make someone a bit more comfortable when it comes to talking about mental health with a bit more positivity. The less we know of something, the more afraid we are. The more we understand something, the more likely we are to do something in and for it. That's what I think. What do you think?

 Keep Thinking,

 Anand  

PS: To know further about the largely accepted approaches in more details, visit the below link to see the three most-widely used criteria used for classifying disorders.

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2017/different-approaches-to-understanding-and-classifying-mental-disorders.shtml#:~:text=The%20DSM%20and%20ICD%20serve,within%20broader%20categories%20of%20disorder.