Mood Disorders (Textbook) Flashcards
mood disorders
- disabling disturbances in emotion, from the sadness of depression to the elation and irritability of mania
- very heterogenous (people with same disorder can vary significantly)
depression
- an emotional state marked by great sadness and feelings of worthlessness and guilt
- may include other symptoms like loss of pleasure, withdrawal, etc.
- often has paradoxical symptoms
- often results in somatic complaints in children (ie. stomachaches) or memory loss in older adults
- prevalence varies cross-culturally (ie. more common in North America than China)
psychologizers
people with depression who emphasize the psychological symptoms
mania
an emotional state or mood of intense but unfounded elation accompanied by irritability, hyperactivity, talkativeness, flight of ideas, distractibility, and impractical, grandiose plans
2 major mood disorders in DSM-5
- major depressive disorder
- bipolar disorder
symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder
- 5 of the following for at least 2 weeks (in addition to depressed mood or loss of interest/pleasure)
- sleeping difficulties
- change in activity level (lethargic or agitated)
- changes in appetite/weight
- loss of energy
- negative self-concept
- difficulty concentrating
- thoughts of death/suicide
why is depression more common in women than men?
- females ruminate/brood more
- females more likely to “silence the self” (keeping their concerns to themselves to preserve relationships)
- objectification theory: being scrutinized by others has a more negative effect on women’s self-esteem than on men’s
predictive factors of depression
being female, never married, two or more medical conditions, limits on activity, and reduced contact with family
theories of depression:
- psychoanalytic: depression results from negative emotions towards a dead loved one that someone internalizes (introjection) and dependency on others (anaclitic)
- cognitive:
- Beck: due to negative schemas/views of self, world, and future (negative triad) and dysfunctional attitudes about approval, achievement, etc.
- cognitive bias: pay more attention to and can better remember negative things
- learned helplessness: passivity; sense of being unable to control their own lives
- interpersonal: sparse social support networks, elicit negative emotions in others,
Beck: 2 things associated with depression
sociotropy (being dependent on others) and autonomy (achievement orientation)
Beck: 4 principal cognitive biases of depression
- Arbitrary inference: conclusion drawn without evidence (ie. feeling worthless because it rains the day you’re hosting an outdoor party)
- Selective abstraction: conclusion drawn based on only one element of a situation (ie. feeling like a failure if a group project doesn’t do well)
- Overgeneralization: sweeping conclusion drawn on basis of one event (ie. poor performance on one exam as evidence of stupidity)
- Magnification and minimization: exaggerations in evaluating performance (ie. maximizing negative events or minimizing positive ones)
issues with Beck’s theory
- unsure if depressed people truly think in the negative ways he suggests
- directionality -> depressed because of negative thoughts, or negative thoughts because of depression?
depressive paradox
feeling helpless yet blaming yourself
attributions - depression
people who attribute negative things to be global, stable, and internal more likely to be depressed
depressive predictive certainty
if the perceived probability of the future occurrence of negative events becomes certain
theories of bipolar disorder
- life stress
- elevated levels of dysfunctional attitudes
- behavioural activation system dysregulation
biological theories of mood disorders
- bipolar disorder very heritable (genetic diathesis)
- polygenic (many genes involved)
- serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine may influence mood disorders (low in depression, high in mania)
- overactive HPA axis may play a role (high cortisol)
suicide basics
- gender paradox: women have less deaths but more attempts
- Suicidal ideation: thoughts of killing yourself
- Suicide attempts: unsuccessful self-injury attempting to cause death
- Suicide gestures: self-injury with no intent to die
- Suicide: behaviour causing death
- more likely amongst males with low education, psychiatric diagnoses (esp. comorbid), history of assaultsm
suicide myths
- people who discuss suicide won’t do it
- suicide is committed without warning
- suicidal people clearly want to die
- motives for suicide are easily established
- all who commit suicide are depressed
- improvement in emotional state means less risk of suicide
Durkheim’s sociological theory of suicide
- 3 types:
- Egoistic suicide: is committed by people who have few ties to family, society, or community
- Altruistic suicide: a response to societal demands (sacrificing self for good of society)
- Anomic suicide: due to sudden change in a person’s relationship to society (ie. successful exec who loses all his money)
4 suicide risk factors
- Predisposing factors: enduring factors that make a person vulnerable to suicidal behaviour (e.g., psychological disorder, abuse, early loss).
- Precipitating factors: acute factors that create a crisis (e.g., end of a relationship, job loss, loss of stature, rejection, pressure to succeed).
- Contributing factors: increase exposure to predisposing or precipitating factors (e.g., physical illness, sexual identity issues, isolation).
- Protective factors: decrease the risk of suicidal behaviour (e.g., personal resilience, adaptive coping skills, positive future expectations, and perceived social support).
suicide theories
- Freud: aggression turned inward
- Baumeister: to escape aversive self-awareness (painful awareness of your shortcomings)
- perfectionism and social disconnection
- Joiner: due to 2 interpersonal constructs - thwarted need to belong and perceived burdensomeness
- Sneidman: suicide is solution to “psychache” -> intense psychological pain
- cognitive: problem-solving deficits, negative cognitive styles, neuroticism, etc.
- physical: brain trauma/CTE
Perfectionism Social Disconnection Model (Hewitt)
interpersonal perfectionism (ie. needing to look perfect in front of others) creates a sense of alienation and isolation that amplifies hopelessness and self-loathing of typical perfectionism
