Lecture 2 Flashcards
What is abnormal behavior?
Actions that are unexpected and are evaluated negatively because they are outside of the norm
- Atypical or cultural inappropriateness
- Distress to the person or others
- Impairment in functioning
- Psychological dysfunction
None are enough alone to classify abnormal behavior
What is cultural inappropriateness?
Behavior at odds with cultural expectations of appropriateness and propriety
- Both the behavior and the context in which the behavior is displayed
What are the limitations of cultural inappropriateness?
Cultural relativity - the judgment of another person’s normality will depend upon the values and traditions of the culture in which they live
What is distress?
Negative internal emotions or experiences that are real to the individual but cannot be observed directly by other people
What are examples of distress?
Examples: Unhappiness, fear, apathy, guilt, physical aches and pains, visual and auditory experiences
What are the limitations of distress?
Some conditions do not produce distress such as mania
What is impairment in functioning?
Individuals who are unable to function adequately in their social roles can be considered to have a psychological disability, impairment, or dysfunction
What is psychological dysfunction?
Breakdown in cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning.
A psychological disability can look like a physical disability
What is mental health?
- Able to function effectively and to find satisfaction in life
- Have lasting and emotionally gratifying relationships
- They are likely to make realistic appraisals of their own talents or shortcomings
What are the focuses of studying psychological disorders?
Clinical description, causation, treatment and outcome
What is the definition of psychopathology?
The scientific study of psychological disorders
What is the clinical description?
The unique combinations of behaviors, thoughts and feelings that make up a specific disorder
What is a prognosis?
The anticipated course of a disorder
What does etiology mean?
The cause or source of a disorder
What is the supernatural tradition?
- Deviant behavior as a battle of “good” vs “evil”
- Believed to be caused by demonic possession, witchcraft, sorcery
- Treatments included exorcism, torture, religious services
What is trephination?
Bloodletting/purge-bleeding,
purging and even vomiting were thought to help mental illness
What was the mental hygiene movement?
- Refers to all the activities and techniques which encourage and maintain mental health
What did Dorothea Dix do?
- She had an instrumental role in the founding of the first psychiatric hospital in 1953 in PA
- She challenged the idea that people with mental disturbances could not be cured or helped
- She worked to eliminate cruel and neglectful practices toward the mentally ill, such as caging, incarceration without clothing, and painful physical restraint
What are the major methods used to assess behavior in clinical settings?
- The Interview
-Observation - Psychological tests
- Neuropsychological assessment
What is the clinical interview?
- Assists in identifying problems and determining the nature and extent of the maladaptive behavior
- The basis and often the only instrument of assessment since the DSM-5 are based largely on a person’s self-report of symptoms
What is observation?
Observational procedures are concerned with what persons do rather than what they say they do
- observations made during the interview, together with a person’s responses to certain types of questions, comprise a mental status examination, providing a current picture of the person’s level of function
What is the MSE mood?
- The prevalent emotional state the patient tells you they feel
- Often places in quotes since it’s what the patient tells you
Example: “fantastic, angry, irritable…”
What is the MSE affect?
The emotional state that we observe
- Type: normal mood, dysphoric, euphoric, anxious
- Range: full(normal) vs restricted, blunted, or flat, labile
- Congruency: does it match the mood-congruent vs incongruent
- Stability: stable vs labile
What is the MSE thought process?
- Describes the rate of thoughts, how they flow and are connected
- Normal: tight, logical and linear, coherent and goal directed
- Abnormal: associations are not clear, organized, or coherent. Examples: flight of ideas
What are personality tests?
They are administered by clinicians to assess various aspects of personality, such as: motives, defenses, conflicts, self- image, and thought processes
What are the two most common types of personality tests?
Projective tests and personality inventories
What are projective personality tests?
The basic assumption is that people project their own internal dispositions into their responses to ambiguous stimuli. They are used mainly in an intuitive and clinical fashion by more psychodynamically-orientated therapists
What is the Rorschach test?
- Projective method
It involved showing a series of symmetrical stimuli to people who then are asked what the figures represent to them
What is the Thematic Appreciation Test (TAT)?
It consists of a series of pictures about which a person is asked to write a story about
What are personality inventories?
It consists of a large number of statements to which the person is asked to respond in terms of fixed categories such as Yes, No, or Cannot Say
- They are usually divided into various subscales to measure different aspects of the personality
Which is the most widely used personality inventory?
The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is the most widely used personality inventory in the field of abnormal psychology
