2.11 Chapter Summary
- The DSM-5-TR is the most recent classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals for diagnosis.
- This chapter provides introductory information about several mental disorders that are of interest to criminal justice students, including anxiety disorders, trauma-related disorders, psychotic disorders, mood disorders, personality disorders, paraphilic disorders, childhood and developmental disorders, neurocognitive disorders, and substance use disorders.
- Treatment for mental disorders (including education, medication, and therapy) is critical, but it is often lacking, particularly for groups who are marginalized by factors such as poverty, race, and gender.
- Criminal justice professionals will encounter behavioral issues that can exist alongside or separately from diagnosable mental disorders. These include malingering and psychopathy.
Key Term Definitions
- Anosognosia: A lack of awareness or insight into one’s own mental disorder diagnosis and related needs.
- Anxiety disorders: A category of disorders characterized by excessive and persistent fear and related disturbances in behavior. There are multiple types of anxiety disorders.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): A set of therapeutic techniques aimed at adjusting someone’s mental processes (e.g., thinking or perceiving) to promote behavior change.
- Co-occurring mental disorder: A mental disorder diagnosed in a person who also experiences (an)other mental disorder(s), most frequently referring to a mental disorder along with a substance use disorder.
- Culturally competent: A descriptor applied to behavioral health care that factors in and positively uses understanding of a person’s background and life experiences to provide them with care that meets their needs. Cultural competence may be bolstered by cultural humility or a willingness to engage in ongoing cultural learning and introspection as to personal biases.
- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM): A classification system for mental disorders that is used for diagnostic purposes by most U.S. mental health professionals.
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT): A therapeutic approach that uses concepts such as mindfulness and acceptance to help control intense emotions, reduce self-destructive behaviors, and improve relationships.
- Dissociative disorders: A category of mental disorders that involve the separation of a person from their core self, impairing the person’s memory and identity.
- LGBTQIA+: Acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual, plus other gender and sexual identities not encompassed in the acronym letters.
- Malingering: When a person fakes or exaggerates symptoms for secondary gain, such as avoiding a consequence or obtaining a benefit.
- Mood disorders: A category of mental disorders impacting mood and emotion, including depressive disorders and bipolar disorders.
- Neurocognitive disorders: Disorders characterized by acquired cognitive impairment due to a medical condition, such as Alzheimer’s disease, or an event, such as a brain injury.
- Neurodevelopmental disorders: Disorders involving differences in brain function that first present in childhood during the developmental period.
- Paraphilic disorders: Disorders involving harmful impacts (distress, impaired functioning, or victimization of others) due to intense and atypical sexual urges specified in the DSM-5-TR (e.g., sadism, pedophilia, exhibitionism).
- Personality disorders: Disorders involving a person’s atypical thinking and behavior that cause them to have trouble functioning and relating to others. Examples include antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): Disorder caused by exposure to a traumatic event or series of events causing ongoing symptoms such as intrusive thoughts and nightmares.
- Psychotic disorders: Disorders that cause thinking and perceptions that are disconnected from reality (psychosis), including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and delusional disorders.
- Psychopathy: A set of traits (not a diagnosis) that may include a lack of empathy, callousness, deceitfulness, and grandiosity.
- Psychosis: A collection of symptoms that affect the mind, causing a person to have difficulty recognizing what is real and what is not (for example, delusions and hallucinations).
- Serious mental illness: A diagnosable mental illness with symptoms that substantially impact major life activities. Bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and schizoaffective disorder are examples of diagnoses that are typically considered serious mental illnesses.
- Substance use disorder: A mental disorder that involves recurrent use of alcohol and/or drugs, despite significant impairment or problems, including health, home, or work problems, caused by the substance use.
- Trauma: A situation that physically or emotionally harms a person to the extent that it impacts their well-being.
Discussion Questions
- As you have learned about a number of specific diagnoses, can you imagine how these might present in the criminal justice system?
- What barriers are there to the diagnosis and treatment of these disorders outside of and within the criminal justice system?
- For disorders that present in childhood, what approaches might be used to prevent people with these diagnoses from becoming involved in the criminal justice system?
- What are the risks and benefits of being formally diagnosed with a mental disorder?
Knowledge Check
Use these optional questions to check your knowledge after reading this chapter.
Licenses and Attributions for Chapter Summary
“Chapter Summary” by Anne Nichol is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
