Reference no: EM132801202

CASE:

At one time Andrea Yates was a high school valedictorian, champion swimmer, and college-educated registered nurse. Then in 2002, she was convicted of capital murder for killing three of her five children. She systematically drowned her five children in the bathtub after her husband left for work.

In 2005, her conviction was overturned, and a new trial was ordered. Yates was retired in 2006 and found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. Yates had a long medical history of suffering from severe postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. After giving birth to each of her children, she displayed extreme psychotic behaviour that included hallucinations, attempted suicides, self-mutilation, and an irresistible impulse to hurt the children. She had been in and out of mental institutions over the years.

Just weeks before the murders, Yates was released from a mental hospital because her insurance stopped paying. She was told by her psychiatrist to think happy thoughts. Despite warnings from her doctors, she was left alone with the children. This was one of the cases when the plea, innocent by reason of insanity, was justified.

The case explaining the 4D's indicators of Psychological Abnormality:

a. Distress - this can experience by many people with or without mentally illness. But if a person already diagnosed by mental health professional, that a person have this, it will not easily treated. People having emotional distress, the behaviour will unmanageable and cannot think properly which is included in Andrea Yates case wherein she had extreme psychotic behaviour - hallucinations, attempted suicides, had self-mutilation, and an irresistible impulse to hurt the children.

b. Deviance - the kind of Andrea Yates' mentally illnesses can affect and violate the social norms, culture and the society. It can usually inherit by the family members.

c. Dysfunction - due to Yates' mental illness, she however experienced unproductivity, could not work well or had poor performance in her everyday lives which caused to her poor behaviours.

d. Dangerousness - due to her illness, she may think that hurting others or themselves are okay or fine. She cannot think properly on how to behave in the community.

QUESTION:

Using the information above, make an analysis of the situation using the Diathesis-Stress Model and choose one Perspective which you think possible based on the case presented.