Clinical Psychology; Classification Of Disorders Flashcards
What is a psychological disorder?
It is a syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion, regulation, or behavior
Disturbed, or dysfunctional, behaviors are maladaptive- they interfere with ____ __ ____ ______
Day to day life
What is attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)?
A psychological disorder normally appearing around age 7, with key symptoms such as extreme inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity
What did Philippe Pinel suggest about madness and how we should treat it?
Madness is not a demon possession, but a sickness of the mind cause by severe stresses and inhumane conditions
We should enforce moral treatment, like gentleness, activity, and air & sunshine.
What is the medical model?
Psychological disorders have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital
In Malaysia, what is amok?
A sudden outburst of violent behavior
In Latin America, what is Susto?
A condition marked by severe anxiety, restlessness, and fear of black magic
In Japan, what is taijin-kyofusho and hikikomori?
Social anxiety about one’s appearance combined with blush and fear of eye contact
Extreme withdrawal
What three influences contribute to psychological disorder?
Biological, psychological, and social cultural
Why do some psychologists criticize the use of diagnostic labels?
Once we label a person, we view that person differently. Labels create perceptions and our interpretations
Is poverty a risk factor?
Yes, conditions and experiences associated with poverty contribute to the development of psychological disorders.
What are anxiety disorders?
Psychological disorders categorized by distressing, persistent anxiety, or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety
What is generalized anxiety disorder?
A person unexplainably and continually feels tense and uneasy
What is panic disorder?
A person experiences sudden episodes and intense dread
What are phobias ?
A person is intensely afraid of a specific object or situation
Causes the person to avoid it
What are two disorders involving anxiety that DSM-5 classifies separately?
Obsessive compulsive disorder- a person is troubled by repetitive thoughts (obsessions) or actions (compulsions)
Post traumatic stress disorder- a person has lingering memories, nightmares, and other symptoms for weeks after a severely threatening, uncontrollable event
What is panic disorder?
An anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable, minutes long episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or frightening sensations. It is often followed by worry over a possible next attack
What is social anxiety disorder?
Intense fear of social situations leading to avoidance of such
What is agoraphobia?
Fear or avoidance of situations such as crowds or wide open places where on has felt loss of control and panic
What is post traumatic growth?
Positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises
Can learn fear through observational learning?
Yes
Think of the monkey snake thing
How does cognition influence our feelings of anxiety?
Our interpretations and irrational beliefs can cause feelings of anxiety: we can interpret the creaky sound in the house as simply the wind or as a possible knife wielding intruder
A lone spider near the bed becomes a likely infestation
Do genes matter when it comes to anxiety? How do genes influence disorders?
Yes
By regulating neurotransmitters; an anxiety gene affects the brain levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in charge of influencing sleep and mood, and also glutamate, which with too much of, the brain’s alarm center becomes overactive
How does the brain play a role in disorders?
When the disordered brain detects that something is amiss, it seems to generate a mental hiccup of repeating thoughts or actions.
The anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region that monitors our actions and checks for errors, seems especially likely to be hyperactive in those with OCD.
Fear learning experiences that traumatize the brain can also create fear circuits within the amygdala
What are mood disorders? What two principal forms do they come in?
They are psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes
- Major depressive disorder; prolonged hopelessness and lethargy (lack of energy/enthusiasm)
- Bipolar disorder; formerly called manic-depressive disorder, it is where a person alternates between depression and mania (an overexcited, hyperactive state)
What is the number one reason people seek mental health services?
Depression
What is anxiety a response to? What is a depressed mood a response to?
Anxiety is a response to the threat of future loss
Depressed mood is a response to past and current loss
What is major depressive disorder?
A mood disorder when a person experiences two or more weeks with five or more symptoms of depression, including a depressed mood or loss of interest
What is persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia) ? What are some symptoms?
A mildly depressed mood that lasts for at least two years
-problems regulating appetite
-problems regulating sleep
-low energy
-low self esteem
-difficulty concentrating and making decisions
-feeling of hopelessness
What is mania?
A mood disorder marked by a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state
What 3 facts did Peter Lewinsohn claim that any theory of depression must explain?
-many behavioral and cognitive changes accompany depression
-depression is widespread
-women’s risk of major depression is nearly double men’s
Do genetics play a role in mood disorders?
Yes, they run in families
If your identical twin is diagnosed with major depressive disorder, the chances are about 1 in 2 that at some time the other twin will be diagnosed similarly
Fraternal twins also have close odds too
What does the neurotransmitter norepinephrine do during mania and depression?
Norepinephrine increases arousal and boosts mood, during mania, it is abundant, during depression it is scarce
What is rumination?
Compulsive fretting; overthinking about our problems and their causes
What is explanatory style ? What are the two different ways it could go?
Explanatory style is who or what we blame for our failures or credit for our successes (we can externalize the blame on an unfair test, or blame ourselves and probably feel stupid)
If you have a breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend.. you could go down
Stable (I’ll never get over this)——> global (without them, I can’t do anything right)——> internal (our breakup was my fault)——> depression
Temporary (this is hard to take, but I will get through this)—-> specific (I miss them, but thankfully I have family and other friends)——> external (it takes two to make a relationship work and it wasn’t meant to be)—-> successful coping
Depression people typically respond to events in self focused, self blaming way.
Describe the cycle of depressed thinking
- Stressful experiences
- Negative explanatory style
- Depressed mood
- Cognitive and behavioral changes
which frontal lobe is active during positive emotions and less active during depressed states?
Left frontal lobe
What is the hippocampus vulnerable to?
The hippocampus is the memory processing center linked with the brain’s emotional circuitry
It is vulnerable to stress related damage
Does non suicidal self injury (NSSI) lead to suicide?
Not usually, but may escalate to suicidal thoughts and acts if untreated
What is schizophrenia?
Means split mind, split from reality
It’s a psychological disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and or diminished or inappropriate emotional expressions
What is psychosis?
A psychotic disorder where a person loses contact with reality, experiencing irrational ideas and distorted perceptions
What are delusions?
False beliefs, typically paired alongside psychotic disorders
What are hallucinations?
false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of sensory visual stimulus.
People with schizophrenia may have hallucinations
What is different in attention concerning those with schizophrenia?
Those with schizophrenia cannot perform selective attention; irrelevant, minute stimuli may distract them from a bigger event.
What is the flat affect in schizophrenia?
Your emotional expressions don’t show outwardly, you may speak in dull flat voice
Emotionless state
What is catatonia?
It’s when you remain motionless for hours then become agitated (troubled or nervous)
When does schizophrenia enter people’s lives?
When young people are maturing into adulthood
What are some positive symptoms of schizophrenia? What are some negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
Hallucinations, talk in disorganized and deluded ways, and exhibit inappropriate laughter, tears, or rage
Toneless voice, expressionless face, mute/rigid bodies
Thus positive symptoms are the presence of inappropriate behaviors while negative symptoms are absence of appropriate behaviors
What is slow developing schizophrenia called? Fast , rapid developing schizophrenia?
Chronic or process schizophrenia
Acute or reactive schizophrenia (recovery is more likely)
What excess of receptors was found in schizophrenic patients’ brains ?
Dopamine
Researchers speculate that dopamine may intensify brain signals in schizophrenia, creating positive symptoms like hallucinations and paranoia
What are some brain abnormalities associated with schizophrenia?
Enlarged fluid filled cerebral cavities and corresponding decreases in the cortex
There is also abnormal activity that occurs in the frontal lobes, thalamus, and amygdala
What is somatic symptom disorder?
A psychological disorder where the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apparent physical cause
What is conversion disorder, or functional neurological symptom disorder?
There is a loss of some bodily function without physical damage to the affected organs or their neural connections
A disorder where a person experiences physical symptoms where no physiological basis or reasoning can be found
Ex.: a patient might lose sensation in a way that makes no neurological sense
What is illness anxiety disorder? (Formerly called hypochondriasis)
A disorder where a person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease
What are dissociative disorders?
Disorders where conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings
A person may experience a sudden loss of memory or change in identity in response to a stressful situation
What is dissociative identity disorder (DID)?
A rare dissociative disorder where a person exhibits two or more alternating personalities.
What is anorexia nervosa? What is Bulimia nervosa?
Eat little and drop below normal weight, yet still feel fat, exercise excessively
Eat in spurts or overeat, then purge through vomiting , fasting, or excessive exercise
What are personality disorders? What are the three clusters?
Psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and enduring behaviors that impair social functioning
Cluster A- odd, eccentric: paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal
Cluster B- dramatic, emotional: antisocial, borderline, histrionic, narcissistic
Cluster C- anxious, fearful: avoidant, dependent, obsessive, compulsive
What is antisocial personality disorder?
A personality disorder in which a person (usually a man) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even towards family and friends. May be aggressive and ruthless
What are the four D’s?
Deviant
Distressing
Dysfunctional
Dangerous
What do we use to classify disorders?
The DSM-V
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental illness
What is sanity and insanity? (Legal definitions)
A person accused of a crime can acknowledge that they committed the crime, but argue that they are not responsible for it because of their mental illness, by pleading “not guilty by reason of insanity”
What was trephining in ancient times?
When they drilled holes into people’s heads to release demonic spirits
What were asylums?
An institution for people with mental disorders, eventually become like a prison with filthy conditions and unspeakable cruelty
What was the psychopharmacologic revolution?
Effective drugs were being produced for conditions like schizophrenia and depression (these drugs were actually found by accident!)
What is deinstitutionalization?
The movement to remove patient who weren’t considered threats from mental hospitals
What is a stigma?
The societal disapproval and judgement of a person with mental illness because they do not fit their community’s social norms
What are the 3 spectrums of schizophrenia?
Paranoid- dominated by delusions of persecution (convinced someone is mistreating or planning to harm you or your loved ones) and grandeur (believing you are wonderful, successful, more important than others)
Catatonic- striking motor disturbances
Disorganized- severe deterioration of adaptive behavior (basically, flat affect)
What is cognitive behavioral therapy?
Tries to change the way people think and the way they behave; it attempts to replace irrational thoughts with more helpful thoughts to develop a more positive approach
What is a key drug that helps stabilize moods in bipolar disorder?
Lithium
What is systematic desensitization?
Gradual exposure therapy
Difference between compulsions and obsessions?
Obsessions- recurring thoughts
Compulsions- recurring behaviors
What is fugue?
Person has sudden memory loss or amnesia and ends up in an unexpected place
What are dissociative disorders orders often associated with?
Trauma
