Chapter 16: Psychological Disorders Flashcards
The Demonological View
- Abnormal behaviour was claimed to be work of the devil
- Procedure called trephination drilled hole in skull to release evil spirits
Early Biological Views
- Hippocrates suggested that mental illnesses are diseases just like physical disorders
- Believed that site of illness was the brain
- Biological emphasis increased after discovery that general paresis (mental deterioration disorder) resulted from brain deterioration
Psychological Perspectives
- Freud believed that psychological disorders are caused by unresolved conflicts
- Disorders that don’t involve a loss of contact with reality (obsessions, phobias, etc.) called neuroses
- Severe disorders involving a withdrawal from reality called psychoses
Vulnerability-Stress Model
…everyone has some degree of vulnerability to developing a disorder
- Vulnerability can have biological basis, brain malfunction, or hormonal factor
- Can also arise from personality factors such as low self-esteem
- Vulnerability often only causes disorder when a stressor combines with it to trigger the appearance of the disorder
Distressing
we are likely to label behaviours abnormal if they intensely distress an individual
Dysfunctional
most behaviours that are abnormal are dysfunctional for the individual or society
Deviance
abnormality of a behaviour is based on society’s judgments of the deviance of it
Abnormal Behaviour
behaviour that is personally distressful, personally dysfunctional, and/or culturally deviant
Diagnosing Psychological Disorders
- Classification must be set up that meets standards of reliability (high levels of agreement in decisions among clinicians) and validity (diagnostic categories accurately capture the essential features of disorders)
- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) most widely used diagnostic system
Axis I
person’s primary clinical symptoms
Axis II
long-standing personality or developmental disorders that could influence behaviour and response to treatment
Axis III
physical conditions that might be relevant
Axis IV
intensity of environmental stressors
Axis V
person’s coping resources
Critical Issues in Diagnostic Labeling
- Diagnoses can have important legal consequences
- Law tries to take into account the mental status of individuals accused of crimes
Competency
defendant’s state of mind at time of a judicial hearing (not during committing of crime)
Insanity
presumed state of mind of defendant at time of crime
Anxiety Disorders
…group of behaviour disorders in which anxiety and maladaptive behaviours are core of the disturbance
-Frequency and intensity of anxiety responses are out of proportion to situation that triggered them
Four components of Anxiety Disorders
- Subjective-emotional component (feelings of tension and apprehension)
- Cognitive component (feeling of inability to cope, sense of impending danger)
- Physiological responses (increased heart rate and blood pressure, muscle tension)
- Behavioural responses (avoidance of certain situations and impaired task performance)
Phobic Disorder
- strong and irrational fears of certain situations or objects
- Most common include agoraphobia (fear of open and public spaces), social phobias, and specific phobias (dogs, snakes, spiders, etc.)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
-a chronic state of diffuse, or “free-floating”, anxiety that is not attached to specific situations or objects
Panic Disorders
…anxiety disorder characterized by unpredictable panic attacks and a fear that another will occur
- Much more intense than generalized anxiety disorder
- Many people develop agoraphobia because of fear that they will have an attack in public
OCD
- Anxiety disorder characterized by persistent and unwanted thoughts and compulsive behaviours
- People realize obsessions and compulsions have no value, and want to stop
Obsessions
-repetitive and unwelcome thoughts, images, or impulses that invade consciousness
Compulsions
…repetitive behavioural responses that are difficult to resist
- Genetic link found with Tourette’s, childhood disorder characterized by muscular/vocal tics, facial grimacing, vulgar language
- Increased activity in frontal lobes, decreased serotonin activity
PTSD
-A pattern of distressing systems (flashbacks, nightmares, etc.) an anxiety responses that recur after a traumatic experience
4 Main Symptoms of PTSD
- Severe symptoms of anxiety, arousal, and distress
- Relives the trauma in recurrent flashbacks, dreams, and fantasies
- Numb to world and avoids stimuli that serves as reminder of the trauma
- “survivor guilt” in instances where others were killed
Causal Factors in Anxiety Disorders
- Genetic factors
- Abnormally low levels of GABA activity may cause people to have highly reactive nervous systems that quickly produce anxiety responses in response to stressors
- Biological preparedness makes it easier to learn to fear certain stimuli, and may explain why phobias seem to centre on certain classes of primal stimuli and not on more dangerous modern ones, such as guns
Neurotic Anxiety
…state of anxiety that arises when impulses from the id threaten to break through into behaviour
-Form of anxiety disorder determined by how ego’s defense mechanisms deal with neurotic anxiety
Maladaptive Thought’s role in Anxiety Disorders
-Eliciting stimuli -> physiological responses -> catastrophic appraisals -> panic attack
Behavioural Perspective on Anxiety Disorders
-results from emotional conditioning
Culture-bound Disorders
behaviour disorders whose specific forms are restricted to one particular cultural context