Unit 5
Mental and Physical Health
Diagnosis, anxiety, depression, stress, and treatment.
Diagnosis & Classification
DSM-5-TR & the biopsychosocial approach
Autism is a DSM-5-TR diagnosis that includes sensory differences. The biopsychosocial approach fits autism well: biology, thinking style, and environment all matter.
Diagnosis & Classification
Labeling effects (Rosenhan)
Labels change how people see behavior. Autistic people are often mislabeled as cold, manipulative, or lazy.
Anxiety Disorders
GAD, social anxiety & OCD reassurance seeking
Anxiety is very common in autism. Repeated checking questions can come from autism-related uncertainty, social anxiety, or OCD-style reassurance seeking, so the behavior alone can't diagnose anything.
Depressive Disorders
Major depressive disorder vs. burnout
Autistic burnout can look like depression but is driven by long-term overload and masking. Mixing them up can lead to the wrong help.
Depressive Disorders
Learned helplessness (Seligman)
Years of trying and failing without the right support can lead to giving up, which is part of why shame is so heavy in executive dysfunction.
Dissociative & Personality Disorders
Personality disorders
Antisocial and narcissistic traits form part of the Dark Triad, and autistic people are sometimes wrongly mistaken for them.
Stress & Physical Health
General Adaptation Syndrome
Selye's alarm, resistance, and exhaustion stages map almost perfectly onto autistic burnout: coping and masking (resistance) until exhaustion.
Psychological Therapies
Systematic desensitization & CBT
These can help anxiety, but for sensory differences the goal should be coping in a way that respects the nervous system, not forcing endurance. Adapted CBT works better for many autistic people.
Behavioral Therapies
Token economy
External rewards and artificial urgency can help an interest-based nervous system get started on tasks.
These connections are study aids, not medical advice. Some ideas (like the excitation/inhibition theory) are still being researched.