Preoccupation & Obsession Flashcards
Somatic symptoms
problems that appear to be
medical but are due to psychosocial factors
Conversion disorder
a psychosocial conflict or
need is converted into dramatic physical
symptoms that affect voluntary or sensory
functioning
(Symptoms often seem neurological, such as paralysis, blindness, or loss of feeling)
They are diagnosed in women twice as
often as in men
most conversion disorders begin
between late childhood and young adulthood
They usually appear suddenly and are
thought to be rare
Factitious symptoms
- Patients may be malingering:
intentionally faking illness to
achieve external gain (e.g.,
financial compensation, military
deferment) - Patients may be manifesting a
factitious disorder: intentionally
producing or faking symptoms
simply out of a wish to be a patient
Munchausen syndrome
is the extreme and long-term form of factitious disorder
In Munchausen syndrome
by proxy
parents make up or produce physical
illnesses in their children
Health anxiety
“health-related fears and beliefs, based on
interpretations, or perhaps more often,
misinterpretations, of bodily signs and
symptoms as being indicative of serious
illness
Obsessions
Persistent thoughts, ideas,
impulses, or images that
seem to invade a person’s
consciousness
Compulsions
Repetitive and rigid
behaviors or mental acts
that people feel they must
perform to prevent or
reduce anxiety
behavioural causes of somatic symptoms
Behavioral theorists
propose that physical
symptoms bring rewards
to sufferers
- May remove individual from
an unpleasant situation
- May bring attention from
other people
- In response to such
rewards, people learn to
display symptoms more
and more
Common forms of OCD
- Cleaning
- Checking
- Order or balance
- Touching, verbal, and/or
counting
Cognitive cause of somatic symptoms
Some cognitive theorists propose that somatic
symptoms are a form of communication,
providing a means for people to express difficult emotions
Conversion Disorder Causes
- Traumatic event leads to conflict =
anxiety - Repression of conflict (unconscious)
- When anxiety becomes conscious,
person converts it to physical symptoms - Person gets attention
Hoarding Disorder
- Appears as a separate disorder in DSM-5
- Hoarding starts early in life; gets worse
- Can be hazardous
- Patients come for treatment after age 50
- Cognitive-behavioural therapy given
Trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder)
- Disorder has severe social
consequences - 1%–5% college students: more in
females
Excoriation (skin-picking disorder)
- Scabs, scars, open wounds common
- Treatment: habit reversal training
- Afflicts 1%–5% of general population
Treatment of Somatic Symptom and
Illness Anxiety Disorder
Hard to treat
-Cognitive-behavioural therapy
(CBT):
- Reduce stress
- Minimize help-seeking behaviours
- Relating to others
