About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about some contemporary issues and debates in mental health diagnosis and treatment, focusing in particular on: (i) criticisms of the DSM, including that it both over-diagnoses depression and dilutes the classification of a traumatic event, when linked to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); (ii) a key debate around whether or not the cause of mental illnesses should be the focus of research; (iii) differences in the diagnosis of PTSD between men and women, with ‘masculine’ causes often associated with male diagnoses; (iv) some strengths of focusing on causes when researching mental illnesses, as well as some ethical concerns with doing so, especially concerning PTSD; (v) the potential issues with the self-diagnosis of mental illnesses; (vi) bipolar disorder as an illness which should be ‘easy’ to diagnose, due to its clear and distinct classification; (vii) Zimmerman and colleagues’ 2008 study, which found that less than half of the patients who had self-diagnosed as having bipolar disorder actually had it; (viii) the issue of overmedicating as a result of overdiagnosis; (ix) the ‘Mad in America’ campaign, which is a series of podcasts discussing patient experiences in the mental health treatment system.

About the lecturer

Dr Cody Porter is a senior lecturer in social psychology in the department of Health and Social Sciences at the University of the West of England. Dr Porter’s research interests are in information elicitation, lie detection and offending behaviour. Some of Dr Porter’s recent publications include ‘Implementing converged security risk management: Drivers, barriers, and facilitators’ (in press) and ‘Applying the asymmetric information management technique to insurance claims’ (2022).