Psychopathology

This chapter provides approaches to curriculum organization that challenge inappropriate medicalizations of deviance commonly experienced by women and most persons of color. Students of social work cannot wrestle with the issues confronting the validity of various diagnostic categories without examining pros and cons of the "medicalization" of various forms of deviance. The concept of mental disorder holds the field of mental health together. Clinical social workers are more likely to make diagnoses that comport with gender-frequency-consistent categories. The incidence of particular mood disorders is twice as high in women as compared to men. Women do exhibit higher rates of generalized anxiety, panic attacks, posttraumatic stress disorder, and agoraphobia. Higher rates of anorexia and bulimia are observed in women than in men. Women are more often labeled borderline, as having dependent personality disorder, as having histrionic personality disorder, and as having multiple personalities. Menopause occurs at about age fifty. Symptoms include "hot flashes," "night sweats," sleep disturbance, fatigue, and mood changes.