Key words
Introduction to psychopathology: a bio-psycho-social approach.
Objectives
Social workers see a great diversity of people in the framework of social services and customer service. This means that they often come into contact with people who are suffering from a psychic disorder (or one of the members of their family is). Sometimes social workers have an advisory and/or supervisory role in this regard, other times their task is to refer people on to others. Which is why’s it’s vital that they have a scientifically sound and topical basic knowledge of psychopathology. The training module provides an initial orientation in that respect. One of the starting-points for this, is the bio-psycho-social model. The main focus is on the basic principles of biology as these don’t feature in other modules.
The link to the profession of ‘Social Assistant’ is constantly monitored.
The purpose of this training module is to shape these objectives by fostering and developing the following core skills from the training profile:
Job-specific core skills
-1. Social workers’ vision in all they undertake is based on a broad-based insight into societal reality.
Supporting subset skill:
- To integrate different evidence-based perspectives into your viewpoint on social
situations and human behaviour.
-2. Social workers operate at a crossroads of people and their human environment, working from a fundamental ethical attitude.
Supporting subset skill:
- To take up a well-reasoned standpoint on norm-referenced issues and ethical dilemmas.
General core skills
General (generic) core skills
-3. The ability to reflect critically on oneself and to work thematically (by making projects).
Supporting subset skill:
- To develop a well-reasoned standpoint of your own.
This training module makes the link to the training module ‘Psychology’ (standard educational route 1) in which sets are provided (as a frame of reference): the student can use these sets to help expound psychopathology.
Those who wish to go more deeply into the various psychic disorders can do the optional subject ‘Psychopathology’ on standard educational route 2.
It also provides a support to social assistants in social services and customer service and in their advisory and/or supervisory role.
This training module can be linked to the optional subjects ‘Mental health care’ and ‘General Social Work’ on standard educational route 3 – specialisation Social Work.
Topics
Different components in this course demand our attention to ethical and/or social implications.
Overview:
1. Psychiatry and society: definition of psychic disorder.
2. a) Classification from symptom to syndrome;
b) DSM-IV: structure, value and limitations;
c) Systematic diagnostics: anamnesis and assess of a psychic condition.
3. Explanation and treatment of psychic disorders: biological (genetics and social sciences), psychological and social.
4. Process, prognosis and prevention.
5. Illustrative study of a psychic disorder so as to clearly communicate the previous points.
Prerequisites
Entry-level skills
Exit qualifications in secondary education.
Final Objectives
Exit-level skills
The core skills from the training profile listed in the ‘objectives’ section are fully underpinned by the following exit-level skills of the training module:
At the level of knowledge and comprehension
The students:
- Expound correctly the importance of multidimensional approach to human behaviour and psychopathology;
- Contextualize, on the basis of scientific definition, the basic concepts and specialist terminology of genetics, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and psychopathology;
- Pinpoint the difficulties caused by how we define the term ‘psychic disorder’;
- Describe objectively the relative merits and limitations of systems used to classify psychic disorders.
At the application level - skills
The students:
- Make soundly out a case for (or against) the ethical and/or social implications of the different views on psychic disorders.
Materials used
::Click here for additional information::
Vandereycken, W. and Van Deth, R. (2004). Psychiatry. Houten(NL): Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum.
Syllabus via an e-learning environment.
Course notes taken during lectures.
Study costs
The estimated cost price is ca. 40.00 euros.
Study guidance
Examples of past exam questions are gone through in class;
Questions about the subject matter can be asked during or after the lectures;
Individual and/or group consultation by appointment.
Contact details: item Lecturer(s).
Teaching Methods
Lectures: theory;
Tutorial and feedback session;
Audiovisual lecture;
Group discussion.
Assessment
An examination for this training module is scheduled in the exam period at the end of the semester in which you took this course.
A written examination with open-ended questions. Our preference is for knowledge-, comprehension- and application questions that bear upon any part of the entire course content.
The total number of questions is limited to what can be got through comfortably within the allotted time for the exam.
Resits
An analogous written exam is organized during the resits.
Lecturer(s)
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