Psychopathology: A Primer for Clinicians

This course is a tale of two paradigms. It begins by tracing the history of psychopathology to understand how we have come to the current diagnostic classification systems but shows how the quest to accurately diagnose mental health disorders has numerous challenges. This traditional paradigm for understanding mental unwellness is losing proponents, as both institutions and individuals come to see the inherent contradiction between ever-greater expenditure for health and wellness, yet simultaneous decreases in global health markers. The increase in both mental health concerns and also physical pathologies such autoimmune disorders is proposed to be a result of sociocultural, economic, and political cultural factors which cause small-t trauma, separating people from their most authentic selves. A path of five “As” is proposed to counter the pathology-inducing effects of our modern world and allow the healing return to wholeness.