Common Mental Disorders: A Bio-social Model

by Peter Huxley (Author), Prof. David Goldberg (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1991

  $3.35

  This work provides a simple model for common mental disorders and shows how this relates to the conventional model using multiple categories of mental illnesses. Up to date information about pathway to psychiatric care is offered, along with five levels and four filter mechanisms (described in a previous book, Mental Illness in the Community ). A new model with three important components is described: vulnerability refers to the factors which make some individuals more susceptible than others to developing episodes of mental disorders when under stress; destabilization refers to those processes which release an episode of illness at a particular time in an individual's life, and which determine whether the individual will be predominantly anxious or predonimantly depressed; while restitution refers to those factors which determine how long an episode of illness will last in a particular individual. The authors describe the physical processes which underlie states of depression and anxiety, and show how environmental factors can exert direct effects upon these processes. This book should be of interest to professionals and students in psychiatry, psychiatric nursing and social work.