psychopathology

Health

2022

We explain what psychopathology and psychological disorders are. The biomedical perspective and examples of psychopathological disorders.

Psychopathology studies mental illnesses.

What is psychopathology?

Psychopathology is the discipline that analyzes the motivations and the particularities of mental illnesses. This study can be carried out with various approaches or models, among which the biomedical, the psychodynamic, the socio-biological and the behavioral can be mentioned.

The word psychopathology can refer to:

  • That area of Health that describes and systematizes the changes that occur in the behavior of Humans and that cannot be explained through the maturation or development of the individual and are known as psychological disorders.
  • To the study area of ​​the psychology which focuses on studying those unhealthy states of mind of individuals, as we have already mentioned.

It follows that any conduct that causes discomfort, some impediment or disability as a consequence of the deterioration of cognitive brain functions is plausible to be called psychopathology.

Psychopathology is a discipline that studies the abnormal, the deviant, the maladjusted, the disturbed, the disorganized, etc; whose interest is focused on the nature and causes of abnormal or psychopathological behavior and is posed as objective main to discover laws that regulate abnormal or pathological behavior through the scientific method.

The interest of psychopathology lies in the nature and causes of abnormal or psychopathological behavior. However, it is difficult to establish absolutely and with total precision what should be understood by abnormal or psychopathological behavior, which is why it is useful to know what are the criteria or parameters that will allow us to enter the field of abnormal or psychopathological.

Biomedical perspective of psychopathology

The biomedical perspective of psychopathology addresses the mental disorders like any other kind of disease, considering that psychopathological alterations are generated by underlying biological abnormalities (genetic, biochemical or neurological). Therefore, treatment should be focused on correcting these organic root abnormalities.

In this sense, it can be said that abnormal behavior is a disease suffered by the pathological functioning of some part of the body. These diseases are related to alterations in the brain portion, which can be anatomical (the size or shape of certain brain regions are not within the normal canons) or biochemical (when the biochemical elements that contribute to neuronal functioning have their function. altered).

Psychopathology understands that mental disorders can be:

  • Organic Those that have obvious physical causes, such as Alzheimer's.
  • Functional. They nucleate abnormal behavior patterns that offer no concrete evidence of organic abnormalities in the brain.

Examples of psychopathological disorders

In the case of psychopathological disorders that develop during an individual's infancy, childhood or adolescence, we can establish that there are several types, among which are:

  • Mental retardation.
  • Communication disorders (phonological, stuttering, etc.)
  • Pervasive developmental disorders.
  • Disorders of the learning.
  • Tic disorders.
  • Ingestion and eating disorders.

In the case of developmental disorders, those that assume that the individual in question suffers from a disability at different levels are included. Within this category stands out, for example, the autistic disorder, which begins in childhood and is translated into a series of disabilities in what is the psychological area and also in the behavioral one.

The five senses are affected by abnormalities in autistic people who, in addition, are characterized by being quiet, hardly laugh, have limitations in terms of language Y communication and on a physical level they have a series of deficiencies in lateralization.

Likewise, within the psychopathological disorders of development, there is also the one known as Rett's disorder, which occurs in the female gender and which resembles autism to some extent. A mental retardation as well as an affection in the motor coordination are the two hallmarks of the patients of this syndrome that supposes that they have a severe disability in many senses.

Finally, it is interesting to note that the behavioral model of psychopathology does not mark differences between pathological behaviors and normal behaviors, since both are the result of learning conditioned by the environment or environment. Therefore, great importance is attached to environmental influences rather than biological or genetic ones. Treatment in this model revolves around both overt and inferred behavior modification.

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