4 Flashcards
Historical roots
ancient world “phytopathology” have been around for millenniums.
Hippocrates
mental illness caused by imbalance of four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile)
Middle ages
abnormal behavior was due to spirit possession, with treatment of choice being exorcism
Renaissance
abnormal behavior was due to witchcraft, if accused would most likely die.
18th century
mental disorders are diseases of the mind.
Psychopathology
the study of abnormal behavior
Psychological disorders
any pattern of behavior that causes people significant distress, causes them to harm others or harms their ability to function every day.
Situational context
the social or environmental setting of a person’s behavior
Maladaptive thinking or behavior
anything that does not allow a person to function within or adapt to the stresses and everyday demands of life
Working definition of abnormality
Part of a continuum ranging from absence of disorder to severe disorder
Lawyers and judges
Determine how law should address crimes committed under the influence of mental illness
Psychologists/psychiatrists
Assess behavior’s abnormality
Do not determine sanity
Biological Model
Explains behavior as caused by biological changes
Chemical, structural, or genetic systems of the body
Psychodynamic view
Disordered behavior results from repressed thoughts, memories, and concerns in the unconscious mind
Behaviorists view
Abnormal behavior are learned responses and environmental conditions
Cognitive theorists
Abnormal behavior comes from irrational beliefs and illogical patterns of thought
Biopsychosocial Model
Incorporates elements of all models
The Pros and Cons of Labels
PRO
Labels make up a common language in the mental health community
Allow psychological professionals to communicate clearly and efficiently
Labels establish distinct diagnostic categories enabling good treatment
CON
Labels can bias judgment
“psychology student syndrome”- after looking over the symptoms, having a tendency to diagnose yourself and even others with various conditions
Anxiety Disorders:
Main symptom is excessive or unrealistic anxiety and fearfulness
Approximately 40 million American adults ages 18 and older, or about 18.1 percent of people in this age group in a given year
Anxiety disorders frequently co-occur with depressive disorders or substance abuse.
Free-floating anxiety
Anxiety unrelated to any realistic, known source
Phobia
an irrational, persistent fear of an object, situation, or social activity
social phobia
fear of interacting with others or being in social situations that might lead to a negative evaluation
specific phobia
fear of objects or specific situations or events
Claustrophobia
fear of being in a small, enclosed space
Acrophobia
fear of heights
Agoraphobia
fear of being in a place or situation from which escape is difficult or impossible
Panic disorder
disorder in which panic attacks occur frequently enough to cause the person difficulty in adjusting to daily life
Panic attack
sudden onset of intense panic in which multiple physical symptoms of stress occur, often with feelings that one is dying
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Intruding, recurring thoughts or obsessions create anxiety
Relieved by performing a repetitive, ritu alistic behavior (compulsion)
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
Experience feelings of dread and impending doom
Physical symptoms of stress
Symptoms lasts six months or more
Acute Stress Disorder (ADD)
a disorder resulting from exposure to a major stressor, with symptoms of anxiety, dissociation, recurring nightmares, sleep disturbances, problems in concentration, and moments in which people seem to relive the event in dreams and flashbacks for as long as one month following the event
Symptoms occur within 4 weeks of the traumatic event
Include anxiety, dissociative symptoms
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Symptoms of ASD that last longer than one month
Symptoms may not occur until 6 months or later after event
Women are 2x more likely to develop these disorders
Cause of anxiety disorder Psychoanalytic:
Repressed urges and desires trying to enter conscious
Create anxiety controlled by
the abnormal behavior
Cause of anxiety disorder Behaviorists
Disordered behavior is learned through reinforcement
Cause of anxiety disorder Biological explanations
Lower levels of GABA and serotonin may reduce ability to calm reactions to stress
Panic disorder related to possible defect in serotonin binding to receptors
Chemical imbalances may have a genetic component
Cause of anxiety disorder psychologists
Anxiety comes from illogical, irrational thought processes
Magnification
Interpret situations as far more dangerous, harmful, or important than they are
All-or-nothing thinking
Believe one’s performance must be perfect or result will be a total failure
Overgeneralization
Interpret a single negative event as pattern of defeat and failure
Minimization
Give little importance to one’s successes or positive events
Major depression symptoms
Severe form of depression Comes on suddenly Seems to have no external cause Risk of suicide Most common of diagnosed mood disorders Twice as common in women as men
Causes of Mood Disorders Psychoanalytic theories
Anger at authority figures from childhood turned inward on the self (relational disturbances)
Causes of Mood Disorders Learning theories
link depression to learned helplessness (environmental stressors)
Causes of Mood Disorders Cognitive theories
See depression as the result of distorted, illogical thinking, negative attributions
Causes of Mood Disorders Biological theories
Examine function of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine systems
Genetics
Structural brain changes
Anorexia nervosa
In their lifetime, an estimated 0.6 percent of the adult population in the U.S. will suffer from anorexia
Individual reduces eating and experiences severe weight loss due to starvation
Bulimia nervosa “ox-hunger”:
In their lifetime, an estimated 1.0 percent of the adult population in the U.S. will suffer from bulimia
Cycle of “bingeing” or overeating enormous amounts of food at one sitting (e.g. 20,000 calories at once; 3500 cal= 1 pound)
Using inappropriate methods for avoiding weight gain
Schizophrenia
severe disorder in which the person suffers from disordered thinking, bizarre behavior, and hallucinations, and is unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality
Altered Perception
- Senses may be enhanced or blunted
* Hallucinations—false, imaginary sensory perceptions that occur without external stimuli (most common is auditory)
Altered Language and Thought
- Disorganized and bizarre thoughts and logic
- Word salad, neologisms
- Delusions—mistaken beliefs based on misrepresentations of reality
Altered Emotion
- Exaggerated and fluctuate rapidly
- Blunted and decreased intensity
- Flattened affect
Altered Behavior
• Social withdrawal
• Unusual actions with a special meaning
• Cataleptic–prolonged maintenance of a fixed body posture
• Waxy flexibility–a patient’s limbs retain any position into which they are manipulated
Delusional disorder: a psychotic disorder in which the primary symptom is one or more delusions
Delusional disorder
a psychotic disorder in which the primary symptom is one or more delusions (may or may not be schizophrenia)
hallucination
false sensory perceptions, such as hearing voices that do not really exist
positive:
• Excesses of normal behavior
• Delusions
• Hallucinations
• Outlook for recovery is generally good
negative: loss or absence of normal behavior impaired attention limited or toneless speech social withdraw
hallucinations biological factor
Neurotransmitters
Dopamine hypothesis - overactivity of dopamine
neurons may contribute to some forms of schizophrenia
hallucination Brain abnormalities:
• Larger cerebral ventricles
hallucination Psychosocial Factors:
- Stress-vulnerability model (Diathesis-stress model)—people inherit a predisposition that increases their risk for mental disorders if exposed to certain extremely stressful life experiences
- Critical and hostile families
- Families with communication disorders
hallucination Personality Disorders:
- Persistent, rigid, and maladaptive pattern of behavior
* Behavior interferes with normal social interactions
Ten types of personality disorders falling in three groups
- Odd and eccentric (paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal)
- Dramatic and emotional (antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic)
- Fearful and anxious (avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive)
Antisocial personality disorder (approximately 1% of adults over 18)
- Disregard for social rules, cultural norms, the consequences of behavior, the rights of others
- Guiltless, exploitive, intrusive, and self-indulgent
- Lack of conscience, impulsive, superficial charm
Antisocial personality disorder Biological
- Genetic factors may be involved
- Lower than normal stress hormones in antisocial personality
- May be responsible for their low responsiveness to threatening stimuli
Other Possibilities
• Disturbances in family communications and relationships
• Childhood abuse, neglect, overly strict parenting, parental rejection
Psychotherapy
improve psychological functioning by building coping strategies and promote adjustment to life
Insight
Psychoanalysis (Freud)
psychodynamic
Cognitive
Rational emotive behavior therapy (Beck)
Group family and marital
Behavior
Classical conditioning
Systematic desensitization
aversion therapy
operant conditioning shaping reinforcement punishment extinction
observational learning
modeling
Biomedical
Psychopharmacology
electroconvulsive therapy
psychosurgery
Biomedical therapy
uses physiological interventions, such as drugs to reduce or alleviate symptoms of psychological disorders
basked on the premise that chemical imbalances or disturbed nervous system function are involved in mental heather problems
3 major forms of biomedical therapy
psychopharmacology
electroconvulsive therapy ECT
psychosurgery
four major categories of drugs used to control or relieve symptoms of psychological disorders
anti anxiety
antipsychotic
mood stabilizer
antidepressant
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT):
based on passing electrical current through the brain. Used almost exclusively to treat severe depression when drug therapy fails
Psychosurgery:
operative procedures on the brain designed to relieve severe mental symptoms that have not responded to other forms of treatment
Psychopharmacology
May provide relief (but not always), not a cure, Physical dependence, Side and long-term effects
• Tardive dyskinesia
movement disorder involving facial muscles, tongue, and limbs; possible side effect of long-term use of antipsychotic medications
Four major forms of insight therapy (definition
Variety of therapies seeking to improve psychological functioning by increasing awareness of underlying motives and improvement in thoughts, feelings, and/or behavior
Psychoanalysis/psychodynamic
Cognitive
Humanistic
Group, Family, &Marital
Characteristics of psycho therapies
psychodynamic therapy - goal - freud
person centered therapy - insight - rogers
Gestalt therapy - insight - Perls
Behavior therapy - action -watson jones skinner bandura
cognitive therapy - action - Beck
CBT-action- various
REBT- action - ellis
Goals of Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Therapies:
Psychoanalysis: Freudian therapy designed to bring unconscious conflicts into consciousness
Five Major Techniques of Psychoanalysis:
- Free association
- Dream analysis
• Manifest content-actual dream
• Latent content-symbolic meaning - Analyzing resistance-reluctance to talk about certain topics
- Analyzing transference-therapist
Evaluation of Psychoanalysis/Psychodynamic:
- Criticisms: lack of scientific credibility, over-emphasis on sexual problems
- Modern Psychodynamic Therapy: briefer, more directive, and more modern form of psychoanalysis that focuses on conscious processes and current problems
Cognitive Therapy
focuses on helping clients recognize though distortions and replace distorted, unrealistic beliefs with realistic ones
• Improvement comes from insight into negative self-talk the internal dialogue; the things people say to themselves when they interpret events.
Cognitive Restructuring
process of changing destructive thoughts or inappropriate interpretations
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy-
combines cognitive therapy (changes faulty thinking) with behavior therapy (changing faulty behavior)
Two Major Cognitive Therapies
- Albert Ellis’s Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) attempts to eliminate self-defeating beliefs through rational examination of irrational beliefs by directly challenging the clients
- Aaron Beck-identified 5 common though distortions
• Arbitrary inference (jumping to conclusions)
• Selective thinking (focus on one aspect)
• Overgeneralization (draw big conclusions from one incident)
• Magnification (blowing out for proportion)
• Personalization (taking responsibility for events that were not you’re doing)
Evaluating Cognitive Therapies
Highly effective for
Depression
Anxiety disorders
Bulimia nervosa
Anger management
Addiction
Procrastination
Insomnia
Criticisms:
Ignoring unconscious processes
Overemphasis on rationality
Minimizing the importance of the past
Focus on symptoms not causes
Subjective Discomfort
emotional distress or discomfort
