Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial psychiatric assessment of a person typically begins with a case history and mental status examination.
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In a parallel way, Kohut considered that the 'skilful analyst will ... conduct the analysis according to the principle of optimal frustration'.H. Kohut (1971), The Analysis of the Self. New York: International Universities p. 199. Suboptimal frustrations, and maladaptations following them, may be compared to Freud's trauma concept, or to problem solution in the oedipal phase.
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The researchers conjectured that this externalizing outcome might be indicative of natural experimentation rather than unchecked abuse of drugs (which might indeed be associated with peer rejection). The results of this study support the idea that both social withdrawal and aggression lead to maladaptations later in adolescence, and that these difficulties are different for each type. In particular, the association between withdrawal and negative internalizing behavior was confirmed. In fact, Hymel, Rubin, Rowden, and LeMare,Hymel, S., Rubin, K.H., Rowden, L., & LeMare, L. (1990).
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In reality, the advantages conferred by any one adaptation are rarely decisive for survival on its own but rather balanced against other synergistic and antagonistic adaptations, which consequently cannot change without affecting others. In other words, it is usually impossible to gain an advantageous adaptation without incurring "maladaptations". Consider a seemingly trivial example: it is apparently extremely hard for an animal to evolve the ability to breathe well in air and in water. Better adapting to one means being less able to do the other.
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Rather than make specific hypotheses, then, the study's aim was to confirm that withdrawn as well as aggressive children suffer from more adolescent maladaptations than popular peers, and also to show that the particular social and emotional problems of each of the two groups are unique. The study, called the Waterloo Longitudinal Project, followed a group of 88 mostly middle-class male and female children from grade 2 (average age 7 years) to grade 9 (age 14). As a result of attrition, only 60 of the subjects remained in the study for the full seven years.
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It can also signify an adaptation that, whilst reasonable at the time, has become less and less suitable and more of a problem or hindrance in its own right, as time goes on. This is because it is possible for an adaptation to be poorly selected or become less appropriate or even become on balance more of a dysfunction than a positive adaptation, over time. Note that the concept of maladaptation, as initially discussed in a late 19th-century context, is based on a flawed view of evolutionary theory. It was believed that an inherent tendency for an organism's adaptations to degenerate would translate into maladaptations and soon become crippling if not "weeded out" (see also Eugenics).
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In 2010, a neuroanatomical basis of Waddell's signs has been proposed which argues that since the brain is organic, and even society is composed of a group of organic beings, the term "nonorganic" should be replaced by a term put forward by Chris Spanswick in 1997, "behavioral responses to physical examination." With the possible exception of cogwheel rigidity, these are best understood as neuroanatomical maladaptations to long- continued pain and, as Waddell and colleagues have stressed, do not indicate faking or malingering but rather that there are psychosocial issues that mitigate against successfully treating low back pain by lumbar discectomy, and which in themselves require other treatment.Ranney, DA. A Proposed Neuroanatomical Basis of Waddell's Nonorganic Signs, Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2010;89: 1036-1042.
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