Mental illness Flashcards
What are three of the most common mental disorders?
- phobias
- OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)
- depression
What are phobias?
- phobic disorders are within the ‘anxiety disorders’ category because it shares the primary symptom of extreme anxiety
- irrational fear that produces a conscious avoidance of the feared object/situation
- includes: acrophobia, social phobias (fear of people), or specific phobias (e.g a fear specifically about spiders)
What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?
fear that is:
• marked and persistent
• excessive and unreasonable
• anxiety, panic
fear caused by:
• presence or anticipations of a specific object or situation (e.g spiders, heights, seeing blood) that are out of proportion to the actual danger posed
What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias?
In terms of fight, flight, or freeze
• avoidance (when faced with whatever causes their fear their immediate response is to avoid it) e.g social phobia = avoid talking to people, going out
- interferes with everyday life + causes distress
or:
• freeze, faint (adaptive response - predator may think you’re dead [playing dead in animals])
What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?
• irrational thinking + resistance to rational arguments e.g ‘it’s just a spider’
• rational arguments do not help the fear ‘flying is the safest form of transport’
• people typically know their fear is excessive and unreasonable (sometimes not in children)
- awareness is what distinguishes these fears from a delusional mental illness (such as schizophrenia) where they are unaware + lack a sense of reality
What is depression?
• mood disorder - DSM-V distinguishes between major depressive disorder and and persistent depressive disorder (persistent and/or reoccurring)
What are the emotional characteristics of depression?
- diagnosis requires presence of at least 5 symptoms and must include sadness or loss of interest/pleasure in normal activities
• sadness or feeling empty
• low self esteem,worthlessness, hopelessness
• loss of interest and/or pleasure in everyday activities
• lack of control
• anger at others or yourself
What are the behavioural characteristics of depression?
- energy/activity changes -increase of decrease e.g tiredness or restlessness and agitation
- sleeping changes - insomnia or over sleeping
- appetite changes - loss of appetite or overeating
What are the cognitive characteristics of depression?
negative emotions related to negative thoughts
• low self esteem = negative self beliefs and hating yourself
• negative perception of the world (hopeless)
• pessimism
• usually irrational beliefs
What is OCD?
- like phobias, it is also classified as an anxiety disorder
- typically begins in young adult life
OBSESSIONS (obsessive, persistent thoughts)
COMPULSIONS (repetitive behaviour)
- compulsions (behaviours) usually release the anxiety caused by the obsessions (intrusive, persistent thoughts)
What are the emotional characteristics of OCD?
- anxiety which causes the obsessions and in turn the compulsions
- sufferers are aware their behaviour is excessive and may feel embarrassed and shameful
- common fear of germs can lead to feelings of disgust
What are the behavioural characteristics of OCD?
- compulsions are behaviours performed in order to reduce the anxiety created by the obsessions
- repetitive and unconcealed behaviours such as repetitive hand washing, or mental acts such as repetitive counting
- patients feel like they MUST perform these actions or something bad may happen (causes anxiety)
- behaviours are not realistically connected to what they’re supposed to neutralise (may not make sense) and are excessive
