Adjustment Disorders PDF

When adjustment fails  When people act in response to something, their actions are geared towards reaching a certain goal. This goal may be trying to make something stop (like pain) or What are get something to start (like trying to feel good...

When adjustment fails  When people act in response to something, their actions are geared towards reaching a certain goal. This goal may be trying to make something stop (like pain) or What are get something to start (like trying to feel good). maladaptive With maladaptive behaviours, the person is directed towards their goal, but not in an adaptive/ healthy way behaviours? Because they are often reinforcing, maladaptive patterns can become habitual - not just in our actions but also in our patterns of feeling, thinking, and relating to others  Negative Thinking and Self Talk “I’m a loser’’, “I’m unlucky” “No one cares”, “No one understands” “Nothing works out for me” “Nothing is going to change - It’s never going to get better” “It HAS to be like this, not like that” Adjustment Disorders DSM-5-TR (APA, 2022) Adjustment disorders describe maladaptive emotional and/or behavioural responses to an identifiable psychosocial stressor, that is experienced at a level disproportionate to the severity or intensity of the stressor  DSM-5-TR The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition (DSM-5-TR), lists adjustment disorders in the category of trauma- and stress-related disorders, a group of conditions for which one of the explicit criteria is exposure to either a traumatic or a stressful event.  Adjustment Disorder vs. PTSD Similar symptoms. Symptoms of adjustment disorder not severe enough to meet the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. The symptoms of PTSD can last for months or even years, while Adjustment Disorder typically resolves within six months. PTSD is also often linked to traumatic experiences that threaten life or safety, while Adjustment Disorder is often linked to life changes or transitions  Psychological Vulnerabilities Weak ego strength/sense of belonging Decreased sense of agency, low self efficacy, learned helplessness Early adverse childhood experiences that lead to a cognitive style that processes events as being out of one’s control/catastrophic These become maladaptive coping schemas, leading to maladaptive coping mechanisms  Biological Humanistic Psychodynamic Cognitive-behavioural Structural or Lack of positive Unconscious Dysfunctional functional regard unresolved thinking and patterns of brain interfering with a conflicts in early ineffective or functioning, person’s path of childhood maladaptive genetic self-actualisation preventing the (outdated) coping predispositions id, ego and super styles ego from maturing properly Do we need to pathologise it?  People with adjustment disorder are unable to successfully function in society and require some form of intervention The behaviour of the person falls out of expected socio-cultural norms  Thamas Szasz Hungarian Psychiatrist Enfant terrible of psychiatry 1961, The Myth of Mental Illness There is no such thing as mental illness Calls attention to the political nature of psychiatric diagnosis. Szasz did not deny that humans have difficulties, but he preferred to conceptualise them not as mental illnesses or as diseases, but as ‘problems in living’  Counter argument Psychiatric labels have undoubtedly been deployed in the service of a range of political agendas and Szasz was justified in bringing attention to these Is his contention that psychiatric diagnoses represent nothing more than the labelling of those who are deviating from ‘psychosocial, ethical, or legal norms’ overstated and trivialising? Perhaps a normative reference point is: an approximation to the person’s previous (premorbid) state of health or level of functioning - and the extent of the deviation from this – resulting in distress and concern from the individual or their significant others.  COMMONLY USED CRITERA FOR DEFINING MALADJUSTMENT (HIDES) Help seeking Irrationality/dangerousness Degree of Deviance Emotional distress Significant impairment  Going back to the definition of Adjustment Definition: Feldman (1989) ‘The efforts people make to meet the demands and challenges placed on them by the world’ Not being able to adjust to these Definition: APA (2022) Any means through which human beings modify attitudes and behaviours in response to environmental demands. Not being able to modify attitudes and behaviours to these demands