Exam 2 Flashcards
Flight-or-Fight Response
Begins in Hypothalamus
The Autonomic nervous system and endocrine system are activated
Hypothalamus excites the sympathetic nervous system, causes heart rate to increase etc.
Parasympathetic nervous system calms our body down
The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is also active, which release the adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) which signals the adrenal cortex to release corticosteroids such as cortisol
Acute Stress Disorder & Trauma Definition
Trauma - an event in which a person is exposed to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violation, and would be considered traumatic by most, if not all, individuals
Acute Stress Disorders: symptoms begin within four weeks of the traumatic event and last less for a month
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Symptoms can begin at any time following the event
Around 25% of people affected don’t develop the full syndrome until 6 months or more
At least 50% of all cases of acute stress disorder evolve into PTSD
Symptoms of ASD and PTSD
Their symptoms are nearly identical
Increased arousal, negative emotions, and guilt (hyperalertness, difficulty sleeping, depression, anxiety, mood fluctuation, survivor’s guilt)
Reexperiencing the traumatic event either through flashbacks, nightmares, or reoccurring thoughts
Avoidance—Individuals may avoid talking about the traumatic event, thinking about it, or situations that remind them of it
Reduced responsiveness and dissociation (only in around 30% of cases)
Other ASD and PTSD Stuff
Facts:
Affects 3.5-6% of North Americans a year and 7-12% in a lifetime
Around half seek treatment, but well after the symptoms develop
Around 20% attempt suicide
Increased risk for other psychological or physical disorders
Women twice as likely to develop
People with low income twice as likely to develop
Hispanic, African, and Native Americans are at an increased risk
Triggers:
Combat
Disasters, Accidents, and Illnesses
Victimization
Terrorism and Mass Shootings
Torture
Causes of ADP and PTSD
Biological Factors: people with PTSD tend to already have an overly reactive stress response, and this increases after developing PTSD. There is also dysfunction in the brain’s stress circuit (overactive amygdala, underactive prefrontal cortex). People are also more likely to inherit PTSD if their family had PTSD.
Childhood Experiences: Childhood experiences like poverty, psychological disorders in family, assault, abuse, catastrophe, and parental separation increase the risk of PTSD
Cognitive Factors and Coping Styles: People with memory difficulties, high intolerance of anxiety, and poor coping styles are more likely to develop PTSD when exposed to trauma while people with resiliency and good coping styles are less likely to develop PTSD.
Social Support Systems: People with a good social support system are less likely to develop PTSD than those who don’t have one.
Severity and Nature of Trauma: The more exposure and severity, the greater likelihood of developing a stress disorder. Especially mutilation, sever injury, witnessing the injury or death.
Developmental Psychopathology Model: All these factors play a role in the development of stress disorders.
Treatment of ASD and PTSD
Only 1/3 improve within 12 months, and another 1/3 continue to struggle even after many years.
Treatments Goals: End lingering stress reactions, gain perspective on the traumatic experience, and return to constructive living.
Combat Treatment: Antidepressant drugs, they have shown to help around half of the patients. Group therapy also helps
Cognitive Behavioral: Cognitive processing therapy aims to change the attitudes and beliefs (mindfulness meditation). Exposure therapy also help (prolonged exposure therapy and EMDR).
Couple and Family Therapy: Clients work with families to address the trauma and work on learning better problem-solving and communication skills
Psychological Debriefing: Talk about feelings and reactions within days of the incident. This has mixed opinions; talking about it right afterwards can be beneficial for some, but harmful to others. Psychological First Aid is similar but individuals don’t have to talk about what happened.
Dissociative Disorders
The key to our identity is memory, so dissociative disorders involve the loss of some part of memory.
Types:
Dissociative Amnesia, Dissociative Fugue, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder
Dissociative Amnesia (Dissociative Fugue)
People are unable to recall information about their lives
The loss is much more extensive than normal forgetting
Can be localized (most common, effects events within a limited period of time), selective (some but not all events within a limited period of time), generalized (effects memory from an event and extends back), or continuous (forgetting into the future, quite rare)
The disorder is only on personal material, while encyclopedic memory is still there
At least 2% of all adults experience dissociative amnesia each year
Dissociative Fugue occurs when someone has dissociative amnesia so they leave their current life and start a new one in a new location (typically lasts a few hours or days, but ends suddenly). Most people regain memory.
Dissociative Identity Disorder
Also known as Multiple-Personality Disorder
Development of two or more distinct personalities called subpersonalities
The host subpersonality is the one that appears the most, but transitions can occur suddenly and dramatically
This is very rare, some researches believe it is iatrogenic, or cause by treatment.
Most are diagnosed late adolescence or early adulthood, women 3 times more likely to develop, symptoms generally begin after childhood episodes of abuse
The subpersonalities can be mutually amnesiac, mutually cognizant, or most commonly one-way amnesiac.
The average number of subpersonalities is 8 for men, 15 for women
The subpersonalities can differ in identifying features (gender or age), abilities and preferences (different languages or job skills), or physiological responses
Causes of DID and DA
Psychodynamic: These disorders are caused by repression. Dissociative amnesia and dissociative fugue are single episodes of massive repression. DID is thought to result form a lifetime of excessive repression. This has little research, but most support come from case studies where children were abused
State-Dependent Learning: A cognitive-behavioral view; people learn something in a particular state of mind, and are more likely to remember in the same condition. They believe that each thought, memory, and skill is tied to a particular state of arousal, and people with dissociative disorders only remember these things in an identical state of arousal.
Self-Hypnosis: Hypnosis can be used to help people forget facts, event,and their personal identity. There are similarities between dissociative amnesia and hypnotic amnesia.
Treatment of DA and DID
People with DA often recover on their own.
People with DID usually need treatment to regain lost memories and develop an integrated personality.
Treatments of DA are more effective than DID
Psychodynamic therapy guide patients unconscious to bring forgotten experiences into consciousness
Hypnotic therapy helps people remember forgotten events
Injections of barbiturates (truth serum) helps people remember events
In DID treatment, the therapists treatment is complex, but the goal is to help the patient recognize the disorder, recover their memories, and integrate the subpersonalities
Depersonalization-Derealization Disorder
The DSM-5 categorizes this a dissociative disorder, but it is not caused by lack of memory.
Depersonalization: one’s mental functioning or body feels unreal or detached
Derealization: the sense that one’s surroundings are unreal or detached.
These experiences don’t constitute a disorder, there has to multiple, reoccurring episodes.
This occurs in around 2% of the population, this occurs most commmonly in adolescents and young adults (not so much older than 40)
The disorder comes on suddenly and tends to be long-lasting, and few theories have been offered to explain this disorder.
Unipolar Depression Facts
In the US, approximately 8 percent suffer from severe unipolar depression and 5 percent suffer mild forms in any given year.
Approximately 20 percent of all adults will experience a major depressive episode.
Twice as common in persons younger than age 65.
Twice as common for women (26 percent).
Approximately 85 percent recover within 6 months, some without treatment, but more than half will experience another episode.
Between 6 and 15 percent of severely depressed individuals die by suicide.
Symptoms of Depression
Five main areas of functioning may be affected:
Emotional—feeling “miserable” or “empty”; anhedonia
Motivational—lacking drive, initiative, spontaneity, thoughts of suicide or actual suicidal behavior.
Behavioral—less active or productive, slowed speech, psychomotor retardation
Cognitive—negative self-view; pessimistic, helplessness and hopelessness
Physical symptoms—headache, dizziness, general pain, fatigue, difficulties sleeping, disturbances in appetite
Diagnosing Unipolar Depression
(Major Depressive Episode)
A period of two or more weeks marked by five or more symptoms:
depressed mood and/or loss of interest
loss of pleasure
changes in sleep, appetite, or weight
psychomotor retardation or agitation
feelings of fatigue
decreased in concentration or decisiveness
feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, or guilt
thoughts about death or suicide.
psychosis, including mood-related hallucinations and delusions.
Type of Depressive Disorders
Major: Seasonal, catatonic (severe motor agitation or retardation), peripartum (pregnancy), or melancholic (loss of pleasure)
Persistent: lasts for two years or more, can also be classified with major depressive episodes (more severe) or with dysthymic syndrome (less severe).
Premenstrual Dysphoric: clinically significant symptoms the week before menstruation
Disruptive Mood Regulation: Persistent depressive symptoms and recurrent outbursts of anger, typically emerges in mid-childhood or adolescence
