Exam 1 Flashcards
What is a psychological disorder?
A psychological dysfunction within an individual associated with distress or impairment in functioning that is not typical or culturally expected
Why is a psychological disorder hard to define?
~No clear boundaries between psychological and physical disorders (makes it difficult to diagnose
~Defined by a variety of concepts
~Consist of a cluster or syndrome of symptoms
-Patient may have only some of the symptoms and another patient with the same disorder can have different symptoms
-Symptoms must persist for some duration to constitute a disorder
~Normality and abnormality exist on a continuum
What is a psychological dysfunction?
A breakdown in cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning
What is distress or impairment?
Behavior or feelings that cause the person pain
What is a disability?
Impairment in one or more important area of functioning
What are cultural bound disorders?
Culture plays such an important role in psychological disorders that some disorders are only found in a single culture
What are the theories of psychological disorders?
Biological, psychodynamic, and behavioral/cognitive-behavioral
What is syphilis?
STD caused by a bacterial microorganism entering the brain
Why was syphilis so important for the biological theory?
Syphilis results in some symptoms similar to schizophrenia so it showed that biological factors can play an important role in psychological disorder and raised hopes of biological cures for other disorders
What are the common therapies?
Insulin shock therapy, ECT, prefrontal lobotomy, and drug therapy (neuroleptics, benzodiazepines, and antidepressants)
What is a prefrontal lobotomy?
Surgical procedure that destroys the tracts connecting the frontal lobes and lower centers of the brain
What are the problems with benzodiazepines?
Has significant limitations - habit forming and interferes with mental activity and motor activity
Who developed a classification that led to the DSM?
Emil Kraepelin
What is the basic goal of psychodynamic theory?
To make the unconscious, conscious
What is the psychodynamic theory?
Behavior influenced by the ongoing conflicts between opposing forces in the mind with most of these conflicts being unconscious
What are the factors for all 3 psychodynamic theories?
Importance of the unconscious, conflictual nature of mental life, importance of early childhood experiences, and defense mechanisms
What are the 3 types of psychodynamic theory?
Freud’s classical drive theory, object relations, and self-psychology
What is the atypical or not culturally expected part of classifying a psychological disorder?
What constitutes a disorder depends on a society’s cultural values
What can be said about abnormal behavior in cultural context?
Abnormal behavior may be expressed differently in different cultures; also, the same psychological disorder can have different symptoms in different cultures
What are examples of culture-bound disorders?
Koro, Windigo, and anorexia nervosa
What is the sexual and aggressive drive part of Freud’s classical drive theory?
We share non-human animals that have survival as their purpose in order to survive (sexual instinct-preservation of the species, human aggression survival)
Why does the sexual and aggressive drive produce conflicts?
There are complex rules about when we can be aggressive and when we can exhibit sexual behavior and we are not easily satisfied
What are the 4 additional concepts of classical drive?
Levels of consciousness, structure of personality (id, ego, superego), defense mechanisms, and psychosexual stages of development
What are the three levels of consciousness?
Conscious (present awareness), preconscious (info from past experience or learning), and unconscious (primitive sexual and aggressive impulse, wishes, fantasies, and traumatic experiences)
What is the structure of personality?
How the id, ego, and superego balance and interact (conflict) that determines our behavior and how well we function
What is the id?
Unconscious, baser animal drives, libido, primary process thinking
What is the pleasure principle?
Doesn’t take into account society’s rules or anybody else’s feelings
What is the ego?
Emerges from id in first year of life, partially conscious and unconscious, mediator, secondary process thinking
What is the reality principle?
Wants to satisfy the desires of the id but wants to do so in a manner that’s not going to offend the superego or society’s rules
What is the superego?
Splits off from ego, internalizes moral teachings, oedipal complex, partially conscious or unconscious, guilt or shame
What do defense mechanisms do?
Protect us from unpleasant emotions
What are unpleasant emotions that defense mechanisms protect us from?
Unacceptable impulse from id-neurotic anxiety, threats of punishment from superego-moral anxiety, and threats from outside world-reality anxiety
What else do defense mechanisms provide?
Self-deception and distortion of reality
What are the psychosexual stages of development?
Oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital
How are the psychosexual stages of development characterized?
By changes in how a child seeks physical pleasure from sexually sensitive parts of the body
What happens if there is too much or too little of one stage?
Fixation Ex.) Oral
Too much: smoking, nail biting, alcohol abuse, overeating
Too little: passive, clinging, dependent, pessimistic
What is object relations theory?
People do not seek drive satisfaction but seek relationships
What are some of the things that object relations explores?
Problems in the child’s early attachments that causes psychopathology, how children develop symbolic representations of important others (these representations influence our perceptions and behaviors), children introject into their own personalities, elements of significant persons in their lives, we experience internal conflicts as the attitudes and values of introjected people battle with our own attitudes and values, helps clients separate their own ideas and feelings from those of the introjected objects so their can develop as their own person, helps people establish a clear sense of self; view others more realistically and have more satisfying relationships
Who came up with self-psychology?
Heinz Kohus
What is self-psychology?
Unempathetic parenting that interferes with the development of healthy sense of self causes psychopathology
What are the components of self-psychology?
Emphasizes the child’s need to be “mirrored” by caregivers and to idealize them, therapist focuses on improving client’s self-esteem, self-cohesion, and a sense of self-continuity, and defenses not only protect against anxiety but also sustain self-esteem
What does psychodynamic therapy do?
Helps people gain insights into their unconscious conflicts and to work them through
What are the 4 techniques psychodynamic therapy uses?
Free association in which the client says anything that comes to mind, dream analysis that provides the manifest meaning (the surface meaning of the dream) and the latent meaning (true or hidden), interpretation (resistance), or transference in which the person unconsciously transfers onto somebody else feeling and thoughts about an early sig other
What are characteristics of behavioral/cognitive-behavioral theory?
Problematic behaviors are not unconscious conflicts, present not past, does not explore feelings, assumes all behavior is learned and, therefore, can be unlearned, and brief
What are the 3 types of behavioral theory?
Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning theory
What is classical conditioning?
Learn new responses when things are connected or paired
Who came up with classical conditioning and what does it involve?
Ivan Pavlov and John Watson; automatic and involuntary responses
What is the reflex?
Link between stimulus and response
What is the unconditioned reflex?
Link between stimulus and response that is inborn, automatic, and the same for all specie members that involves a survival tactic
What is the conditioned reflex?
Link between stimulus and response from experience and learning, varies among specie members