Class 5- Psychological Disorders, Stress, and Conciousness

Question 1

How do you define a psychological disorder?

Answer 1

A psychological disorder is a set of behavioral and/or psychological symptoms that are not in keeping with cultural norms.

They are severe enough to cause significant personal distress and/or significant impairment to social, occupational, or personal functioning.

They are diagnosable and treatable.

Question 2

What are some examples of neurodevelopmental disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 2

Neurodevelopmental disorders usually manifest early in development, appear as deficits, and are generally difficult to treat.

Examples include:

Autism

ADHD

Question 3

What are some examples of neurocognitive disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 3

Neurocognitive disorders centrally affect cognition, with cognitive decline, and deficits can range from major to mild.

Examples include:

Alzheimer’s Disease (amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles)

Parkinson’s Disease (low dopamine levels, dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra die, Lewy bodies develop in neurons)

Delirium

Question 4

What are some examples of sleep-wake disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 4

Sleep-wake disorders show disturbance in quality/ quantity of sleep and may involve specific breathing patterns or nightmares.

Examples include:

Dyssomnias- abnormalities in amout, quality, or timing of sleep

(Insomnia, narcolepsy, and sleep apnea)

Parasomnias- abnormal behaviors that occur during sleep

(Somnambulism (sleep walking), night terrors)

Question 5

What are some examples of anxiety disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 5

Anxiety disorders involve excessive fear and/ or anxiety, as well as avoidance behaviors.

Examples include:

Phobias

Social Anxiety Disorder

Panic Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Question 6

What are some examples of depressive disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 6

Depressive disorders include sad, empty, and or irratable mood.

Examples include:

Major depressive disorder

Depression (monoamine hypothesis- depletion serotonin, norepinephrine, and/ or dopamine)

Question 7

What are some examples of bipolar disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 7

Bipolar disorders act like a “bridge” between psychotic and depressive disorders, involve cyclic episodes.

Examples include:

Bipolar I Disorder (manic-depressive)

Bipolar II Disorder

Cyclothymic Disorder

Question 8

What are some examples of schizophrenia spectrum/ other psychotic disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 8

Schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders involve delusions, hallucinations, and/ or disorganized speech. May involve “negative” symptoms.

Examples include:

Delusional disorder

Brief Psychotic Disorder

Schizophreniform Disorder

Schizophrenia (has positive and negative symptoms, as well as cognitive symptoms)

Schizoaffective Disorder

Question 9

What are some examples of trauma/ stressor- related disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 9

Trauma- and stressor-related disorders involve exposure to traumatic/ stressful events and may exhibit any wide range of symptoms.

Examples include:

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Acute Stress Disorder

Adjustment Disorders

Question 10

What are some examples of Substance-related/ addictive disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 10

Substance-related/ addictive disorders involve drugs, brain’s reward systems, tolerence and withdrawal.

Examples include:

Substance use disorders

Alcohol-related disorders

Caffeine-, Cannabis-, Hallucinogen-, etc- related disorders

Gambling Disorder

Question 11

What are some examples of personality disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 11

Personality disorders include socially deviant feelings and behavior, pattern of behavior is inflexible, begins in adolescence, and categorized into three “Clusters”.

Ten Personality Disorders:

Cluster A (odd/ eccentric): paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal

Cluster B (dramatic/ eccentric): antisocial, borderline, histronic, and narcissistic

Cluster C (anxious/fearful): avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive

Question 12

What are some examples of disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 12

Disruptive, Impulse-control, and conduct disorders involve problems in self-control and emotions and the behaviors generally violate the rights of others and/ or cause legal trouble.

Examples include:

Oppositional defiant disorder

Intermittent Explosive Disorder

Conduct Disorder

Pyromania

Kleptomania

Question 13

What are some examples of obsessive-compulsive disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 13

Obsessive compulsive disorders involve obsessions (thougts or urges) and compulsions (repeptitive disorders).

Examples include:

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Hoarding Disorder

Trichotillomania

Question 14

What are some examples of somatic symptom disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 14

Somatic symptoms disorders involve excessive and/or medically unexplainable symptoms, commonly encountered in primary care.

Examples include:

Somatic symptom disorder

Illness anxiety disorder

Conversion disorder

Factitious disorder

Question 15

What are some examples of feeding/ eating disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 15

Feeding and eating disorders are characterized by disturbed eating behavior, wherein the consumption and/or absorption of food may be affected.

Examples include:

Pica

Anorexia nervosa

Bulimia nervose

Binge-eating disorder

Question 16

What are some examples of dissociative disorders?

What general characteristics do they have?

Answer 16

Dissociative disorders involve disruptions and/or discontinuities, or an abnormal integration of consciousness, identity, emotion, etc.

Examples include:

Dissociative Identity Disorder

Dissociative Amnesia

Depresonalization/ derealization disorder

Question 17

Define Stress.

How do we determine what is stressful? What are some types of stressors?

Answer 17

Stress is anything that poses a threat or challenge to our physical or mental well-being.

We cognitively appraise stress to determine how harmful it could be.

1. Primary response: initial evaluation, focuses directly on a present threat, is there a threat?
2. Secondary response: evaluation of our ability to cope with this stessor

Types of stressors:

1. Catastrophes
2. Significant life changes
3. Daily hassles
4. Ambient

Question 18

What is general adaptation syndrome in response to stress? What are the stages?

Answer 18

Our resistance to a stressful stimuli is defined through the general adaptation syndrome, which states that first we are alarmed, our and our resistance to stress drops, then our resistance increases during the “resistance” period and finally we become exhausted and our resistance drops off sharply.

Question 19

Describe a circadian rhythm.

Answer 19

Circadian rhythms are biological clocks, that control increases and decreases in our alertness in predictable ways over a 24 hour cycle.

Physiological indicators of circadian rhythm are melatonin (released by pineal gland), body temperature, and serum corisol levels.

Light exposure and the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus regulate sleep, melatonin, and body temp.

Question 20

Define the stages of sleep. What types of EEG waves dominate the stages?

Answer 20

Stage 1: theta waves; fleeting thoughts

Stage 2: sleep spindles, K-complex; increased relaxation, decreased temp, heart rate, and respiration

Stages 3&4: delta waves; heart and digestion slow, growth hormones secreted, deepest level of sleep

Stage REM: jagged beta waves; dreaming

Question 21

What is the difference between hypnosis and meditation?

Answer 21

Hypnosis is a state of conciousness where attention is more focused and peripheral awareness is reduced.

Meditation is a practice that induces a mode of consciousness for some purpose. Lower frequency alpha and theta waves, left hemisphere in the brain may be altered.

Question 22

What is consciousness?

Answer 22

Consciousness is the awareness that we have of ourselves, our internal states, and the environment.

Consciousness includes stages of alertness and sleep.

Alertness and arousal is controlled by the Reticular Activating System (RAS).

Question 23

What are the classes of consciousness altering drugs? What are some examples of drugs?

Answer 23

Question 24

What are some behaviors/ physiological responses that drug use can lead to?

Answer 24

1. Tolerance: more drug to achieve desired effect
2. Withdrawal: symptoms with decreased/ discontinued drug use, dose-dependent and drug-specific
3. Addiction: compulsive drug use despite harmful consequences, must have tolerance and withdrawal symptoms to be “addicted”
4. Dependence: due to repeated use, needing to use a drug to function normally
   4a. Psychological dependence: drug becomes central to a person’s thoughts, emotions and activities, strong urge to use; any drug can lead to psychological dependence
   4b: Physical dependence: presence of withdrawal symptoms, often follows heavy use over several weeks or longer; not all drugs are considered capable of leading to physical dependence

Question 25

What is the dopamine reward pathway?

Answer 25

The dopamine reward pathway begins in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain and connects to the nucleus accumbens (“pleasure center”).

Dopamine is released in response to rewarding stimuli and mediates the effects of reinforcement. Many addictive drugs stimulate the release of dopamine to reinforce drug use.