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.
Manic states
Relating to a mood disturbance in which people feel excessively happy or euphoric and believe they can do anything.
Major depressive disorder
A form of psychopathology, characterised by depressed mood, loss of interest in pleasurable activities and disturbances in appetite, sleep, energy level and concentration. Sadness or anhedonia (lack of pleasure) for at least two weeks. Women twice as likely to be diagnosed with depressive disorders. 30-40 % heritability.
Persistent depressive disorder / dysthymia
A chronic low-level depression of more than two years’ duration, with intervals of normal moods that never last more than a few weeks or months also known as dysthymic disorder.
Bipolar disorder
A psychological disorder marked by extreme mood swings; also called manic depression. Genetics contribute to the aetiology of many mood disorders and play a particularly powerful role in bipolar disorders. Environmental and cognitive processes also contribute to the development of depression. Mania is highly elevated mood and behaviour and hypomania is less severe mania.
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
A depressive syndrome whereby mood and behaviour changes occur with regular seasonal climatic variation.
Anxiety disorders
Disorders characterised by intense, frequent or continuous anxiety, which may lead to disruptive avoidance behaviour.
Anxiety disorders, like depression, show substantial heritability but do not require a genetic predisposition. Cognitive–behavioural theories link them to conditioned emotional responses and dysfunctional cognitions.
High comorbidity with depressive disorders.
Panic disorders
A disorder characterised by attacks of intense fear and feelings of doom or terror not justified by the situation or unexpected.
Agoraphobia
Fear of being in places or situations from which escape might be difficult. Help may be difficult to get.
Ophidiophobia
Fear of snakes.
Arachnophobia
Fear of spiders.
Coulrophobia
Fear of clowns.
Acrophobia / hipsophobia
Fear of heights.
Basophobia
Fear of falling.
Cynophobia
Fear of dogs
Trypanophobia
Fear of needles/ injection
Obsessive–compulsive disorder
A disorder characterised by recurrent obsessions and compulsions that cause distress and significantly interfere with an individual’s life.
Obsessions
Persistent unwanted thoughts or ideas.
Compulsions
An intentional behaviour or mental act performed in a stereotyped fashion in response to an obsession. Anxiety increases if a person is prevented from their compulsions.
Post-traumatic stress disorder
An anxiety disorder characterised by symptoms such as flashbacks and recurrent thoughts of a psychologically distressing event outside the normal range of experience.
10% of people who experience a traumatic event develop PTSD.
Cognitive–behavioural theories link them to conditioned emotional responses and dysfunctional cognitions.
Dissociative disorders
Disorders characterised by disruptions in consciousness, memory, sense of identity or perception of the environment.
Dissociation
A disturbance in memory and consciousness in which significant aspects of experience are kept separate and distinct (or disassociated).
Dissociative identity disorder / multiple personality disorder
The most severe dissociative disorder. At least two distinct personalities exist within the person. May or may not know about the existence of the others.
Somatic symptom disorders
Disorders that occur when people complain of pain, suffering or illness but no physical problems can be identified to explain their ailments. Two types are conversion and illness anxiety disorder.
Conversion disorder / hysteria
A disorder characterised by a loss or significant change in a physical function without any physical problem to explain the condition.
Characterised by a loss or significant change in a physical function without any physical problem to explain the condition.
Illness anxiety disorder / hypochondriasis
A disorder that occurs when people believe they are suffering from an illness or ailment, even when there is no medical evidence to support that belief; formerly called hypochondriasis or hypochondria.
Occurs when people are preoccupied with acquiring or suffering from an illness or ailment, even when there is little or no medical evidence to support that belief.
Judgement of abnormality
Distressing to self or others
Dysfunctional for person or society
Deviant: violates social norms
Syndrome
A grouping of signs and symptoms, based on their frequent co-occurrence, that may suggest a common underlying pathogenesis, course, familial pattern, or treatment selection.
Dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia
Schizophrenia reflects elevated levels of dopamine in brain. Psychosis is induced by chronic treatment with amphetamine, a drug that releases dopamine.
Blocking dopamine transmission can reduce positive symptoms.
Other data contradict the dopamine hypothesis.
Neural Atrophy in Schizophrenia
- Neuron loss in brain results in a diminished volume of brain tissue
- Enlarged ventricles are a common finding in schizophrenia
- Atrophy has been observed in the frontal, temporal and prefrontal cortex as well as in the tissue connecting to the limbic system (emotional regulation)
- May be a result of the disorder or of medication, rather than a cause
Environmental causes of schizophrenia
- Environmental variables play an important role in both onset and course of schizophrenia, e.g.,
- Pattern of communication and expression of emotion with family, expressed emotion
- Experience of physical and/or sexual abuse as a child
- Events that affect the development of neural system in utero (e.g., Rubella, malnutrition)
Negative triad of depressive disorders
Negative view of self, world and future.
Cognitive distortions
negative distortions of positive information.
Bipolar disorders
- Bipolar I: Manic Episodes. May or may not have major depressive episodes
- Bipolar II: Hypomanic (but not Manic) Episodes. Major Depressive Episodes
- Cyclothymia: Two years of ups and downs that don’t become full manic, hypomanic, or depressive episodes
High genetic component. Social rhythms and sleep cycles too.
Social anxiety disorder
Fear of public situation (public speaking).
Generalised anxiety disorder
Excessive worry plus physiological symptoms of anxiety. 2 percent of population.
Depersonalisation / Derealisation Disorder
Depersonalisation: the experience of the self seems unreal.
Derealisation – the person’s surroundings seem unreal.
Not while taking drugs.
Not psychotic
Dissociative amnesia
- a person responds to a stressful event with memory loss.
- It can range from small and selective to complete (i.e., amnesia for one’s entire life).
- This is not caused by a head injury or drugs or alcohol.
Dissociative fugue
A person loses all sense of personal identity, gives up his or her customary life, wanders to a new faraway location and establishes a new identity
* May last from a few hours to several years
* In the DSM-5, considered a type of dissociative amnesia rather than a separate disorder.
Trauma-dissociation theory
Development of disorder occurs in response to severe stress. Often begins in early childhood, frequently in response to physical or sexual abuse. Most persons with DID also have PTSD.
