C15 - Psychological Disorders Flashcards
Disordered
Psychological disorder
Different does not mean disordered.
Could pose a risk to others(pedos) or themselves(suicide). Cultures play a role in the expression and diagnosis of a mental disorder
Deviant
Deviant means “different from the norm”. One might be a deviant in one culture but not the other. If you are BOTH(not one or the other) distressing and dsyfunction, then you can classify behaviors as deviant
Albert Einstein was deviant in his intellect and creativity, but he was not disordered or suffering from a psychological disorder
Distressing ; dysfunctional
distressing behavior - leads to real discomfort or anguish, either in person or to others
dysfunctional - prevents one from participating in everyday social relationships, holding a job, or being productive in other ways.
How do mental health professionals determine when someone is suffering from a psychological disorder?
The U.S. uses The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual(DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association(APA)
The DSM has editions, and they place disorders in one of two diagnostic classifications or axes, Axis I disorders and Axis II Disorders
Axis I disorders
Includes the major clinical syndromes that cause significant impairment to life functioning such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. These disorders develop after adolescence and can wax-and-wane(alternate increase and decrease) and are not always permanent
Syndromes
Groups or clusters of related symptoms that are characteristic of a disorder
Axis II disorders
Include personality disorder and mental retardation, tend to appear in childhood or adolescence and usually last a lifetime
Difference between Axis I and Axis II disorders
Axis I is seen as when people suffer from them, it is different or inconsistent from their personality and they cause a degree of subjective stress.
Whereas Axis II is seen as consistent of an individual’s personality and do not cause as much as subjective stress as Axis I. It is simply part of the person
DSM influence on Chinese culture
anorexia nervosa was non-existent in China as a disorder. Once a teenager in hong kong died because of his fear of becoming fat, it became more popular. People covering the story started using American DSM to describe the disorder which led to a change of symptoms which made their disorder more Americanized, since before anorexia was considered just the fear of having your stomach bloated in china
The DSM includes three other Axis as well which list medical conditions and environmental factors that contributes to an individual’s psychological state
Axis I - Clinical disorders (syndromes, comorbidity) >250
Axis II - Personality disorders, mental retardation > 100
Axis III - General medical conditions
Axis IV - Psychological and environmental problems
Axis V - Global Assessment of functioning
(Questions for test. Axis I disorder - all other disorders. Axis II - mental retardation, personality disorders, anxiety, panic, phobias, PTSD, and OCD.
Psychological disorders %`s
Psychological disorders are not uncommon.
26% of the population suffers from a diagnosable disorder. Of the course of an entire lifetime, almost half 46% of the adults in the United States will suffer from at least one psychological disorder and more than half of those will suffer from one or two disorders known as comorbidity. About 50% will suffer from an Axis I or II disorder
Comorbidity
Occurrence of two or more disorders at the the same time
Types of overall main disorders
Anxiety disorders, mood disorders, schizophrenia, dissociative disorders, somatoform disorders, personality disorders, and childhood disorders
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
A common anxiety disorder, characterized by a pervasive and excessive state of anxiety lasting at least 6 months
More common in women than men. Most people would refer to people with this as ‘worrymarts’, those who worry about anything and everything often out of proportion to the actual threat.
This specific anxiety GAD can be debilitating and prevent many people who suffer from it from being able to even work
Panic attacks
Episodes of anxiety associated with perceptions of threat and occurring because of fear of danger, inability to escape, fear of embarrassment, or fear of a specific category of objects. Because of its psychological affects, people experiencing think they are having a heart attack or going crazy
Usually lasts 10 minutes but sometimes it can come and go over a period of an hour or more.
Panic disorder
People who get panic attacks and experience persistent worry, embarrassment, and concern about having more attacks
Panic disorder creates a positive feedback cycle, where anxiety about future attacks hijacks the body’s emergency response system and catapults it out of control. Many people with the disorder has preoccupation and anxiety over having another attack, which creates an anxious mood, then increases the likelihood of worrisome thoughts and ironically another panic attack
People who do not have intense anxiety or fear over another panic attack do not qualify for panic disorder. 10% of the u.s. population have experienced a panic attack in the past 12 months, and only about 2 to 5% of the population has panic disorder
Agoraphobia
An anxiety disorder involving fear of being in places from which escape might be difficult or in which help might not be available should a panic attack occur
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) [hippocampus]
Triggered by exposure to a catastrophic or horrifying event that poses serious harm or threat
3 Symptoms of PSD :
- Re-experiencing the trauma
- Avoid thoughts, feelings, and activities associated with the trauma ; emotional numbing or distancing from loved ones
- Increased arousal, such as irritability, sleeping, or exaggerated startle response. This is often seen in combat veterans, 24% of veterans from Iraq have developed PTSD
People from all ages can develop this. Children can develop this who suffered serious trauhma like extreme domestic abuse. Children with PSTD show reduced brain activity in the hippocampus when doing a verbal memory task. Since that area of the brain controls learning and memory, PSTD can interfere with learning
Phobia
An anxiety disorder: an ongoing/persistent and irrational/unreasonable fear of a particular object, situation, or activity
Social phobia/social anxiety disorder
Fear of humiliation in the presence of others, characterized by intense self-consciousness about appearance or behavior or both.
The fear embarrassing themselves in front of others. They often realize their fears are irrational. It makes it difficult to go out in public situations. lead the person to act nervous and exhibit behaviors that attract people’s attention
Specific phobias
Specific phobia for a particular object or situation such as spiders(arachnophobia), heights, flying, enclosed spaces (claustrophobia), doctors/dentists, or snakes
Characterized by intense and immediate fear, even panic, when confronted with very particular situations or objects. Even thinking about those situations or objects may set off the fear reaction
People with specific phobia’s aren’t generally anxious people, but do almost anything to avoid coming into contact with the feared object or experiencing the feared event
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
An anxiety disorder in which obsessive thoughts lead to compulsive behaviors
Obsession
an unwanted thought, word, phrase, or image that persistently and repeatedly comes into a person’s mind and causes distress
Compulsion
A repetitive behavior performed in response to uncontrollable urges or according to a ritual set of rules
Some compulsive behaviors stem from superstitions. You may need to tap the wall 65 times so your parents don’t die. You know rationally there is connection but still does the ritual nonetheless