Psych Ch. 15 Flashcards
What is Trepination?
Drilling holes in the head in order to release the demons causing ‘abnormal’ behavior
What are Asylums
Residential facilities for the mentally ill, though often applying brutal “treatments”
When did the modern area of psychological treatment come? What was the cause?
18-19th century. A medical model comeing from the discovery of syphilis’ impact on the brain
Phillippe Pinel?
French physician, late 18th century
* Thought the mentally ill were still human, treatments involve kindness, sunny rooms, exercise, baths Philippe Pinel
Dorothy Dix?
American activist, 19th century
* Raised money for hospitals for mentally ill, advocated for humane treatment Dorothea Dix
What happened in the 20th century?
overcrowding and desintitutionalization of
mental hospitals
* Some successes, but also some
failures
Thomas Szasz: argued that
mental illness is a social construction
What are the three main misconceptions
- Disorders are incurable (in reality,
the majority get better) - Mentally ill are violent and
dangerous (the vast majority are
not) - The mentally ill are bizarre and
different (vast majority, not true)
How do we know there are cultural impacts of how we view mental health?
Some disorders do not exist in each culture (Taijin Kyofusho)
What are the three critera one could use to classify mental disorder?
- Deviance
- Personal distress
- Maladaptive behavior
What is Deviance?
Is this really unusual/atypical?
What is a mental disorder?
Any behavior or emotional state that causes an individual great suffering, is self destructive, seriously impairs the persons ability to work or get along with others, or endangers others or the community”
it’s important to have ________ and ______
criteria for mental illness
reliable; valid
What is the DSM?
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
What is an etiology
causes for different conditions
How many mental disorders were in the first DSM?
106
Homosexuality was officially considered a mental illness in the DSM until______
1973
What are the five axis about mental disorder?
I: Is a major mental disorder present?
II: Is a personality disorder or mental retardation present
III: Is there a relevant medical condition
IV: Psychosocial and environmental factors?
V: What is the global level of assessment
Each diagnoses from the DSM contain which three pieces of information?
- A set of symptoms and the number of symptoms that must be met in order to have the disorder
- The etiology of symptoms (i.e., the best current evidence for what causes it)
- A prognosis or prediction of how these symptoms will persist or change over time
What are some advantages of labeling mental disorders?
Reliability, attention to culture bound-syndromes, attention to genetic or biological factors
What are the concerns of labeling mental disorders?
- Diagnoses based on consensus on arbitrary clusters of symptoms, not on actual research
- Unclear rationale for the number of symptoms necessary for diagnosis
- Potential stigma of labels
- Overdiagnosis of conditions (e.g., ADHD)
- The illusion of objectivity and universality
Define insanity?
Legal term only involving mental illness and whether person is aware of consequences and can control their behavior
What is anxiety?
A general state of apprehension or psychological tension
What is an anxiety disorder?
When fear and anxiety become detached from actual danger
What are anxiety disorders in general?
A category of disorders involving fear or nervousness that is excessive, irrational, and
maladaptive
How many Canadians are impacted by an anxiety disorder?
1 in 8
is there a genetic component to anxiety?
si
What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?
A disorder involving frequently elevated levels of anxiety, generally from the normal challenges and stresses of everyday life
What are the symptoms of Generalized Disorder?
Feeling tense, racing heart, shaking, bias for negative informing
What is panic disorder?
An anxiety disorder in which a person experiences recurring panic attacks, feelings of impending doom or death, accompanied by physiological symptoms such as rapid breathing and dizziness
What is an anxiety disorder?
A category of disorders involving fear or nervousness that is excessive, irrational, and
maladaptive
What is a phobia?
A severe, irrational fear of a very specific object or situation
What are specific (simple) phobias?
Pathological fear of specific animals, objects, or situations
What is classical conditioning?
by coincidence a negative association is formed between an object or neutral situation and an anxious response
Operant conditions ____________ phobias
maintains
How do phobias occur
Social learning and Personality factors
Social learning in phobias
modeling by another person (e.g., a parent) displaying fear of something
Personality traits in phobias
shy and inhibited people are more prone to phobias
What is social anxiety disorder?
A very strong fear of being judged by others or being embarrassed or humiliated in public
People with social anxiety have a lowered…
Threshold for amygdala activity
What is agoraphobia?
An intense fear of outside spaces or having a panic attack in public where escape is difficult
What is the cycle of anxiety?
anxiety- biological and behavioral responses
What is obsessive compulsive disorder?
Presence of unwanted, inappropriate, and persistent thoughts (obsessions), and tendency to engage in repetitive, almost ritualistic, behaviors (compulsions) designed to reduce anxiety
OCD is characterized by…
Unwanted thoughts & dysfunctional actions
What are obsessions?
persistent and unwanted thoughts, ideas, or images
What are compulsions?
actions that people feel compelled to do to relieve anxiety
Appriasal in OCD
The primary stress appraisal (“Is this stimulus
threatening?”) is hypersensitive to particular classes of stimuli
Attribution in OCD
OCD patients tend to misattribute negative life events to their failure to perform OCD
behaviors enough
OCD patients show increased activity in the…
orbitofrontal cortex and prefrontal cortex
The __________________________ becomes hyperactive during OCD – also structural differences
anterior cingulate cortex
What is Posttramautic Stress Disorder
Characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia lingering for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience
Research suggests that patients with
PTSD show a distinct pattern of
neurological activity characterized by
an overactive ___________________________
and ____________________________________________________________
amygdala (reliving fear); left hippocampus (memory for the event)
After being exposed to a terrifying event, at least ___% of people do not experience post-
traumatic stress syndrome
80
What is posttramautic growth
Most people who undergo trauma ultimately feel that the experience has made them stronger, wiser, more mature, more tolerant and understanding, or in some other way a better person
What is Major depression?
A disorder marked by prolonged periods of sadness, feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, social withdrawal, and cognitive and physical sluggishness
__% of women and __% of men suffer from major depression at some point in their life.
25% 13%
substationtal increase in psychological issues in teens began in the _____
2010
What is the depressive explanatory style?
Internalizing (my fault)
Stablizing (always)
Globalizing (applies to everything)
Two primary brain regions of interest related to depression:
*The limbic system, which is active in emotional responses and processing
*The dorsal (back) of the frontal cortex, which generally plays a role in controlling thoughts and concentrating
Neurotransmitters associated with depression
seretonin, dopamine, norepinephrine
What is bipolar disorder?
A mood disorder characterized by extreme highs and lows in mood, motivation, and energy
What are some characteristics of mania?
- Increased energy
- Increased activity
- Increased distractibility
- Excessive engagement in
pleasurable behaviors that may
lead to painful consequences
What are cognitive changes associated with mania?
Inflated self-esteem: Belief that they have unusual ability, talent, powers, or skills
* Racing thoughts: Rapid thoughts with little association between them – can become easily distracted
Physical changes in Mania
- Heightened verbal activity
- Increased energy
- Decreased eating and sleeping
- Increased energy + grandiosity + irritability =
Can lead to risky behaviors
Impacts of Bipolar on the brain
- Reduced activity in brain regions
related to emotional regulation - Increased activity in areas related
to emotional reactivity (amygdala
and surrounding regions)
What is Schizophrenia?
A psychotic disorder marked by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized and incoherent speech, disorganized and inappropriate behavior, and cognitive impairments
Schizophrenia is a state of _______, which is…
psychosis; distorted perceptions of reality
and irrational behavior
What does the “split” part of schizophrenia refer to?
is a brain disease that causes the person to experience significant breaks from reality, a lack of integration of thoughts and emotions, and problems with attention and memory
men to women ratio in developing schizophrenia
7:5
When is schizophrenia usually diagnosed?
Frequently diagnosed in late adolescence or young adulthood
Chronic Schizophrenia
- Form of schizophrenia in which symptoms usually appear by late adolescence or early adulthood
- As people age, psychotic episodes last longer and recovery periods shorten
Acute schizophrenia
- Form of schizophrenia that can begin at any age
- Often a response to an emotionally traumatic event
- Has extended recovery periods
What are the three phases of schizophrenia?
-prodromal phase
-Active case
-Residual phase
What is the prodromal phase
People may become easily confused and have difficulty organizing their thoughts – lose interest or withdraw from friends and family, lose their typical motivations
What is the active phase?
delusional thoughts and hallucinations – disorganized patterns of thoughts, emotions
and behavior
What is the residual phase?
predominant symptoms have disappeared or lessened, though the patient may still be withdrawn or have trouble concentrating
What are positive symptoms of schizophrenia?
Overt, added experiences that should not be
present (Not referring to positive in a “good” sense)
-hallucinations
-delusions
-disorderderd thinking and speech
-cognitive, emotional, behavioral excesses
What are the negative symptoms of anxiety?
An absence of functioning or lack of characteristics that should be present
* Lack of speech
* Lack of emotional expression (flat
affect)
* Lack of energy or motivation
* Anhedonia
* Asociality
What is a hallucination?
Alterations in perception, such that a person hears, sees, smells, feels, or tastes something that does not actually exist, except in that person’s own mind
What is a delusion?
Beliefs that are not based on reality
What is a Delusions of grandeur?
Being important, sometimes a historical figure like Jesus
What is a delusion of persecution
e.g., that the government is out to get you
What is a delusion of reference?
an individual’s experiencing innocuous events
or mere coincidences and believing they have strong personal significance
WWhat are thoughts of insertion?
aliens or government are inserting thoughts
into one’s head
What is thought broadcasting?
that other people can read one’s thoughts
what is incoherant speech in schizophrenia called?
word salad
What is disordered thinking?
A deficit in utilizing “executive functions”, such as attention, rule-switching, forming associations, or dealing with abstractions
What is poverty of speech?
Brief, empty replies in conversation
What is emotional flatness
Unresponsive facial expressions, poor eye contact, diminished emotionality
Loss of motivation?
diminished ability to initiate typical activities
Anhedonia
decreased enjoyment or pleasure in everyday events or things that one used to find pleasurable
Are subtypes involved in the DSM-5
-catatonic
-paranoid
-disorganized
-disorganized
-undifferetiated
-residual
What is the neurodevelopmental hypothesis?
The adult manifestation of what we
call “schizophrenia” is the outgrowth of disrupted neurological
development early in the person’s life
What is the dopamine hypothesis?
schizophrenia is associated with over activity of dopamine in at least some brain areas (especially the Substantia nigra—striatum pathway)
What is a dissociative disroder?
A category of mental disorders characterized
by a split between conscious awareness from feeling, cognition, memory, and identity
What is dissociative fugue?
A period of profound autobiographical memory loss
What is dissociative amnesia?
A severe loss of memory, usually for a specific
stressful event, when no biological cause for amnesia is present
What is depersonalization disorder?
An out-of-body experience
What is dissociative identity disorder?
A person experiences a split in identity such that they feel different aspects of themselves
as though they were separate from each other
What are the two possible causes of DID?
Posttraumatic model (defense mechanism)
Sociocognitive Iatrogenic: Intense and
suggestive interview techniques
What is a personality disorder?
Particularly unusual patterns of behavior (relative to one’s cultural
context), that are maladaptive, distressing to oneself or others, and
resistant to change
What are the symptoms of BPD?
Paranoid ideas
* Relationship instability
* Angry outbursts
* Impulsive behavior
* Suicidal behavior
* Emptiness
What are the poteintial causes of BPD
Genetics (runs in families)
* Abusive or neglectful parenting
* Brain abnormalities related to
aggression and emotional
regulation
Histrionic personality disorder
Characterized by excessive attention seeking and dramatic behavior
antisocial personality disorder is characterized by…
- (1) a profound lack of empathy or
emotional connection with others, - (2) a disregard for others’ rights or
preferences, and - (3) a tendency toward inserting their
own desires, often violently, onto
others regardless of the consequences
for others
What is psychopathy?
Characterized by lack of remorse, empathy, anxiety, and other social emotions, the use of deceit and manipulation, and impulsive thrill seeking
What is the ADP
Characterized by a lifelong pattern of irresponsible, antisocial behaviour such as law-breaking, violence, and other impulsive, reckless acts
Factors that influence psychopoathy and ADP
- Abnormalities in the central nervous system
- Impaired frontal lobe functioning
- Genetic influences
- Environmental events
Paranoid personality disorder
Sees threats where others do not; difficulty
trusting others. cluster A
Schizoid personality disorder
Difficulty forming close relationships; desire to be left alone; restricted emotional expression. Cluster A
schizoidtypal disoder
Eccentric, odd, superstitious, or
grandiose ways of thinking or expressing
oneself. (e.g., “delusions of reference”) cluster A
Avoidant personality disorder
Social inhibition, feelings of
inadequacy, and hypersensitivity
to negative evaluation. Fear of
rejection. Embarrassment. cluster C
Depentant personality disorder?
A pattern of submissive and
clinging behavior related to an
excessive need to be taken care
of. Difficulty making decisions
without the help of others. Low
self-confidence. Cluster C
Obsessive compulsive personality disorder?
A pattern of preoccupation with
orderliness, perfectionism, and
control. High expectations for
others and oneself – very upset if
those standards aren’t met. Cluster C
