EXAM Flashcards
Obsessive compulsive disorder
- Obsessions: Persistent, recurring, involuntary thoughts, images, or impulses that invade consciousness
- Common Themes: Worry about contamination, Doubt as to whether a certain action was performed
- Compulsion: A persistent, irresistible, irrational urge to perform an act or ritual repeatedly; Usually involve cleanliness, counting, checking, touching objects, hoarding or excessive ordering, rituals are often used to avoud “danger”
What causes Anxiety disorders: Psychodynamic explanations
Repressed urges threaten to surface
What causes anxiety disorders: Cognitive behavioural learning explanations
– classical conditioning then operant conditioning
– modeling
What causes anxiety disorders: Cognitive explanations
Illogical/Irrational thought patterns
– Magnifications
– All or nothing thinking
– Overgeneralization
– Minimization
What causes anxiety disorders: Biological explanations
Genetics
– MZ twins are more similar than DZ twins, even when adopted
Neurochemical contributions
– Neurotransmitters (e.g., GABA/Serotonin)
Clinical disorder
High enough level, goes on for a long enough period of tie that is impacts a person’s everyday life
Mood (Affective) disorders
– Moods or emotions that are extreme and unwarranted
– The extreme depression to extreme elation
– Two Broad categories: Depressive & Bipolar
Depression
Not ‘a case of the blues’ or ‘having a bas day’
Clinical depression (And Grief)
when frequency, intensity, duration of symptoms is out of proportion to situation
(Grief = different type of depression, depressed because of your grief)
Depression causes and impact on daily living: Emotional symptoms
Sadness
Hopelessness
Anxiety
Misery
Inability to enjoy
Depression - causes and impact on daily living: cognitive symptoms
Negative cognitions of self, world and future
Depression - causes and impact on daily living: Motivational symptoms
Lack of interest
Lack of drive
Difficulty starting anything
Depression - causes and impact on daily living: Somatic symptoms
Loss of appetite
Lack of energy
Sleep difficulties
Weight loss/gain
Major depressive disorder
– Overwhelming sadness, despair, and hopelessness
– loss of availability to experience pleasure
– in extreme causes depression can:
—– Cause a person to have suicidal intentions
—– Cause delusions or hallucinations (symptoms of psychotic depression)
What causes depression: Biological factors
Genetic Factors
– High accordance rate for identical twins
– lower rate for fraternal twins
– genetic predisposition to mood disorder
Neurotransmitters
– Under activity: Norepinephrine & Seretonin
What causes depression: Psychological factors
Disposition/Vulnerability
– Perfectionism ( can contribute to)
– Cognitive process
Depressive Cognitive triad: Negative thoughts concerning
– The world
– oneself
– the future
- Cannot suppress negative thoughts
Recall more failures vs. success
Cognitive process: Depressive Attributional Pattern
– Success = failure outside of self
– Negative outcomes = personal factors
– plays role in learned helplessness (Just stop trying because they fail so many times, when they think they just cant escape it)
What causes depression: Learning and environmental factors
Loss of reinforcement
Loss of social support
Deeper depression
Bipolar
Depression
– Extreme lows (major depression)
– Eeyore
Euphoria
– Extreme highs (“mania”, “manic episodes”)
– Temporarily loose touch with reality; optimism is delusional
– Tigger
An individual experiences to radically different moods
– mood swings
– can have relatively normal periods between
No external cause for ups and downs
Duration within a mood varies
Is genetic factor
Neurotransmitter
Genetic presupposition
Schizophrenia
Once called ‘dementia praecox’
– latin for “out of ones mind before ones time”
Division of mind/brain
– split mind (not split personality)
– seems to be caused by overproduction of dopamine in an area and underproduction in another
Schizophrenia: Psychosis
Reality is challenged
Live in a different world
Ex. Twilight zone
Schizophrenia: Symptoms
Delusions (false beliefs)
– Paranoid/ persecution - others hurt them
– Reference - others talking to them
– Influence being controlled by others
– Grandeur – special mission of purpose
Speech disturbance
– make up words
– string by sounds
– (come into house, louse mouse and cheese please sneeze)
Disorders of thought
– sudden interruption
– hard to link thoughts together logically
Hallucinations
– Both auditory and visual
– Auditory more common
Emotional disturbances
– Affect is incongruence and inappropriate
— Ex. laughing at a funeral
— Sometimes flat (no emotion when there should be one)
Schizophrenia: Behaviours
Bizzarre/ Odd
Unorganized
Catatonic
– Hold positions for a long period of time (never comfortable)
– Non communicative
Can act violently
– Not dangerous
may react with violence if they are afraid
– May look like violence but is safety for them
Schizophrenia: Positive and Negative signs
Positive - express symptoms
– Have these added to the repertoire not found in typical population
– (Delusions, hallucinations, thought and speed irregularities, in appropriate affect)
Negative - missing things found in typical population
– lack of speech, flat effect, withdrawal
Schizophrenia: Etiology
Biochemical, anatomical, hereditary, and psychosocial factors
Main biochemical explanation is dopamine hypothesis
– Too much in basal ganglia and too little in frontal cortex
Personality disorders
– “what’s wrong with you i’m okay”
– Long standing, inflexible, maladaptive (ruins relationships) pattern of behaving and relating to others
– Usually begins in childhood or adolescence
– Tend to have problems in their relationships and at work
– generally clustered into 3 categories
Personality disorders: 3 categories
Odd/Eccentric
– Ex. Schizotypal
—– Lacks social skills
—– Different wardrobe
—– Poor social relationships
—— Ex. wearing tiger makeup to an interview and get mad when theres prejudice around it
Erratic/Dramatic
–Narcissistic personality disorder
—– Self important, high entitlement, self centred, arrogant, exploitive, craves admiration/attention, lacks empathy
– Antisocial personality disorder
—–Disregard for others, exploit others, lie - NO REMORSE
—– Childhoods: lie, steal, vandalize, innate fights, skip school, run away from home; may be physically cruel to others and to animals
—– Adolescence often drink excessively, use drugs and engage in promiscuous sex
—– Adulthood: can be highly succesful but typically fail to keep a job, are bad parents, do not honor financial (or other) commitments to law
Anxious/Inhibited
– Dependent
—– Overly dependent on others for advice and approval
—– Clingy with friends/ lovers
—– fear abandonment
Personality disorders: Dissociative identity
Different:
Memories
Behaviours
Ways of displaying emotions
Thoughts
Somatoform Disorders
Belief you are Ill
Belief you experience physical complaints/disabilites
No known biological cause
Somatic = “bodily” ailment
Conversion disorder
Suggests neurological problem - none present
Glove anesthesia
– Impossible (not how the nerve structure works)
—– Ex. numbness would be down arm
Goals and sources of help
Goal of treatment
Help change maladaptive (prevent from living normal_ thoughts, feelings, behaviours
Resources for therapy
Psychologist
- PhD
- Specialize in 1 area
Psychiatrists
- MD
Prescribe drugs
Psychological associates
- Training to be a psychologist with no PhD
Counsellors
- MA degree 1 or 2 year training
Social workers
- Mental health or psychiatric
Therapists
Therapy is a relationship
- process of therapy
- relationship between client & psychologist & technique
Psychodynamic therapies
Underlying Assumption:
- tension between unconscious impulses and the current constraints
Freud’s Therapy:
- Psychoanalysis
Explore unconscious motivations and conflicts
Freuds Psychoanalysis
- Conflicts between - unconscious/irrational impulses (ID) vs. hard social constraints of SUPER EGO
- GOAL: create a level of harmony in the system
HOW?
- makes you aware of the ID
- Reduced some compliance with SUPEREGO
- Gives more strength to the EGO
What is “the problem”
- Repression
— how you handle conflicts
— Suppressing at an unconscious level
GOAL: help patients achieve insight (release you from your repression)
Insight
- Conscious awareness of psychodynamics underlying problems
Psychodynamic Techniques
Free Association and Catharsis
Resistance
Dream Analysis
Transference & Counter transference
Psychodynamic Techniques: Free association & Catharsis
Free Association
- Not regular conversation
— Uncensored
— Verbal stream of thoughts, feelings, or images that enter awareness
— Assumption
- Free associations are predetermined not random
- Analyst tracks associations
- Identifies apparent underlying source
Catharsis
- patient encouraged to explore intense and string feelings
- feelings that they have repressed for fear of punishment/retaliation
- Release called catharsis
Psychodynamic Techniques: Resistance
- Therapist expects client to try and maintain status quo
- Resistance
— defensive maneuvers
— Unwillingness or inability to approach discuss certain topics
— sign that anxiety-arousing material is being approached - analyst tried to break down resistance
- Enables patient to face painful ideas desires and experiences
Psychodynamic Techniques: Dream analysis
- “royal road to the unconscious”
- Dreams are meaningful
— Manifest - known, remembered (give them)
— Latent - hidden, actual motives (they analyze) - Therapist helps client understand the symbolic meaning of their dreams
Psychodynamic Techniques: Transference and countertransference
Transference
- When the client deals with their past and what has brought them to where they are
- Impose that value on their therapist
- problems or thoughts you shouldn’t have
- might see your therapist as father or mother if that’s who you had problems with in the past
Countertransference
- About the analyst
- over time has feelings (good and/or bad) towards
- Have to treat themselves and be aware
- Can be a role model for achieving insight
Careful about boundaries/ethics
Transference and the analyst
- Difficult task for analyst
— handle emotional experience
– delicate balance - power differential and vulnerability
- Have to help patient to interpret feelings and the source from earlier experiences ( from childhood)
Psychodynamic therapies
- how does a psychologist help clients
- interpretation
— Statements by therapist
—– provide client with insight into behaviour
— Time consuming as a client must arrive at ‘insight’ - brief psychodynamic therapies
- Example: Interpersonal therapy (rational therapy)
— Focuses most exclusively on clients current relationships with important people in their lives
— sees social relationships, acceptance and respect is critical
Humanistic therapies: in general
Theory behind therapy
- “whole” person in a continual process of change
- despite limitations of genes and environment person has “freedom to choose”
- conscious control of behaviour
- With choice comes responsibility/accountability
