Disorders Flashcards
Psychopathology
Problematic patterns of thought, feeling or behaviour that disrupt an individual’s sense of wellbeing or social or occupational functioning.
Mental health
The capacity of individuals to behave in ways that promote their emotional and social wellbeing.
Mental health problems
Include the wide range of emotional and behavioural abnormalities that affect people throughout their lives.
Mental disorder
The existence of a clinically recognisable set of symptoms and behaviours that cause distress to the individual and impair their ability to function as usual.
Suicide
The act or instance of a person ending their life. The leading cause of death for Australians aged between 15 and 44 (ABS, 2017).
Psychodynamic formulation
A set of hypotheses about the patient’s personality structure and the meaning of a symptom. Answers three questions to a patients: motives and conflicts, object relations and ego functioning.
Neuroses
Problems in living, such as phobias, chronic self-doubts and repetitive interpersonal problems. Stem more from environmental experiences.
Psychoses
Disturbances involving a loss of touch with reality. Result primarily from biological abnormalities.
Cognitive–behavioural perspective of psychopathology
Integrates principles of classical and operant conditioning with a cognitive perspective. Psychopathology results from environmental contingencies and dysfunctional cognitions.
Biological approach to psychopathology
psychopathology stems from faulty wiring in the brain, particularly in the abundance, overreactivity or underreactivity of specific neurotransmitters.
Diathesis–stress models
The model of psychopathology that proposes that people with an underlying vulnerability (also called a diathesis) may develop a disorder under stressful circumstances.
Psychodynamic approach to psychopathology
Make a general distinction among neuroses, personality disorders and psychoses, which form a continuum of disturbance.
Systems approach
An approach that explains an individual’s behaviour in the context of a social group, such as a couple, family or larger group.
Family systems model
The model of psychopathology which suggests that an individual’s symptoms are really symptoms of dysfunction in a family.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
The manual of clinical syndromes published by the American Psychiatric Association and used for descriptive diagnosis. DSM-5 was published in 2013, with major changes to the classification system and diagnostic categories.
Descriptive diagnosis
A classification of mental disorders in terms of clinical syndromes.
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
A disorder characterised by age-inappropriate inattention, impulsiveness and hyperactivity.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
A developmental disability that involves challenges with social, emotional and communication skills.
Schizophrenia / psychotic disorders
Psychotic disorders characterised by disturbances in thought, perception, behaviour, language, communication and emotion.
The DSM-IV subtypes of schizophrenia include: Paranoid, Disorganised, Catatonic, Undifferentiated and Residual Schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia positive symptoms
Symptoms of schizophrenia such as delusions and hallucinations that reflect the presence of something that was not there previously and is not normally present.
Schizophrenia negative symptoms
Symptoms of schizophrenia such as flat affect, socially inappropriate behaviour and intellectual impairments that reflect a deficit or a loss of something that was once present or should be present. Lack of emotion, motivation or complex thought.
Hallucinations
Sensory perceptions that distort, or occur without, an external stimulus.
Delusion
A false belief firmly held despite evidence to the contrary.
Loosening of associations
A tendency common in individuals with schizophrenia, in which conscious thought is directed along associative lines rather than by controlled, logical, purposeful processes.
Depressive disorders
A disorder characterised by disturbances in emotion and mood.