Psychological Disorder
-Any recurrent abnormal behaviour or mental state
Abnormal Behaviour
-Strange behaviour within a culture, causes personal distress, is maladaptive, or is dangerous to self or others
Neurosis
-Obsolete term for mild mental disorder
Psychosis
- Severe psychological disorder
- Person with psychosis suffers delusions (false beliefs) and/or hallucinations (false sensations) and has greatly impaired everyday functioning
Types of Delusions
- Grandeur: falsely believing one is famous or has great knowledge, ability, or authority
- Persecution: falsely believing that others are trying to harm one
Defining and Classifying Psychological Disorders
DSM-5
- Lists about 300 psychological disorders and symptoms for classification
- Most widely accepted diagnostic system of abnormal behaviour in Canada and the United States
Biological (Possible Cause of Psychological Disorders)
- Disorders involve structural or biochemical abnormalities in the brain
- Diathesis-Stress Model: schizophrenia develops when there is both a genetic predisposition and more stress than a person can handle
- Imbalance in neurotransmitters may cause mood disorders (norepinephrine and serotonin), obsessive-compulsive disorder (serotonin) and schizophrenia (dopamine)
Psychodynamic (Possible Cause of Psychological Disorders)
- Disorders are caused by unconscious sexual or aggressive conflicts that are unresolved
- Many pedophiles and people with dissociative identity disorder report having been sexually abused in the past
Learning (Possible Cause of Psychological Disorders)
- Disorders derive from inappropriate learning
- Most phobias result from learning
Cognitive (Possible Cause of Psychological Disorders)
- Disorders originate from faulty thinking
- People may be depressed because they view themselves, their world, and their future negatively
Humanistic (Possible Cause of Psychological Disorders)
-Disorders result from blocking one’s nature tendency toward self-actualization
Anxiety Disorder
Unrealistic fear and apprehension
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Anxiety Disorder)
-Experiencing excessive irrational anxiety and worry that one finds difficult to control
Panic Disorder (Anxiety Disorder)
-Recurring attacks of overwhelming anxiety, fear or terror
Phobias (Anxiety Disorder)
- Persistent, irrational fears of something.
- Three classes of phobias: Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety Disorder, and Specific Phobia
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (Anxiety Disorder)
-Persistent, recurring, involuntary thoughts (obsessions) or behaviours (compulsions), or both
Somatic Symptom Disorders (-unwarranted physical symptoms)
- -Illness Anxiety Disorder: preoccupation with one’s health and fear that bodily symptoms are a sign of a serious disease despite reassurances from doctors to the contrary
- -Conversion Disorder: loss of motor or sensory functioning that has no apparent physical cause but that solves some psychological problem
Dissociative Disorders (loss of personal identity due to a non-organic cause)
- -Dissociative Amnesia: loss of memory for limited periods of one’s life or for one’s entire personal identity
- -Dissociative Identity Disorder: having two or more distinct, unique personalities in the same individual, with each identity in control at different times
Schizophrenia
- Severe loss of contact with reality
- The most serious of the psychological disorders
Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia
- Hallucinations
- Delusions
- Disorganized thinking and speech
- Disorganized or bizarre behaviour
- Inappropriate affect
Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia
Loss of or deficiency in thoughts and behaviours characteristic of normal functioning including:
- Social withdrawal
- Apathy
- Loss of motivation
- Limited speech
- Slow movements
- Poor hygiene
- Poor problem-solving abilities
- Distorted sense of time
Causes of Schizophrenia
- Many theorists adhere to the diathesis-stress model
- Diathesis-Stress Model: people with a predisposition toward a disorder, such as schizophrenia, may develop the disorder if they are subjected to sufficient environmental stress
Major Depressive Disorder (Depressive Disorder)
-Overwhelming feeling of sadness, despair, worthlessness, hopelessness, and, in extreme cases, suicidal intentions
Seasonal Affective Disorder (Depressive Disorder)
-Depression that comes and goes with the seasons
