Characteristics of Psychotic Disorders

Psychopathology – Mental Health Disorders

In this course, Dr Cody Porter (University of the West of England) explores mental health disorders. In the first lecture, we think about characteristics of psychotic disorders, with a series of research papers focusing on schizophrenia. In the second lecture, we think about characteristics of affective disorders, focusing on depression. In the third lecture, we think about characteristics of anxiety disorders and a series of research papers which have explored OCD symptoms and treatments. Next, we think about the biological, behaviourist, social learning, psychodynamic, cognitive and humanistic models for explaining mental health. In the fifth and final lecture, we think about gender differences in mental health, especially in diagnoses of schizophrenia and depression.

Characteristics of Psychotic Disorders

In this lecture, we think about characteristics of psychotic disorders, focusing in particular on: (i) abnormalities which characterise a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, including delusions, hallucinations and disordered thinking; (ii) the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia; (iii) defining psychosis and a psychotic episode; (iv) differentiating schizophrenia from psychosis; (v) Rosenhan’s 1973 study, which highlighted the failings in validity of hospital diagnoses of mental health conditions; (vi) Michael Green’s proposal that neurocognitive deficits in basic functioning are what is often labelled as schizophrenic; (vii) Sullivan and colleagues’ 2003 meta-analysis, which found there to be a greater heritability effect on schizophrenia prevalence than environmental influence; (viii) Gottesman’s 1991 study, which investigated the concordance rates of schizophrenia in twins; (ix) Benzel and colleagues’ 2007 exploration of the genes associated with schizophrenia susceptibility; (x) the original dopamine hypothesis, which stated that individuals with schizophrenia suffer with excess dopamine, resulting in too many neurons firing at the same time; (xi) the difficulty with this hypothesis being understanding which of schizophrenia or the excess of dopamine is the cause of the other; (xii) Farde and colleagues’ 1997 study, which found no statistically significant difference in dopamine levels between individuals with and without schizophrenia; (xiii) Noll’s 2009 paper, which found that one third of patients did not respond to drugs which block dopamine receptors.