Psychological Disorders

Question 1

Define abnormality

Answer 1

Definitions of abnormality include deviation from the average, deviation from the ideal, a sense of personal discomfort, the inability to function effectively, and legal conceptions.

Question 2

Discuss perspectives on abnormality

Answer 2

• Although no single definition is adequate, abnormal behavior can be considered to be behavior that causes people to experience distress and prevents them from functioning in their daily lives. Most psychologists believe that abnormal and normal behavior should be considered in terms of a continuum.
• The medical perspective views abnormality as a symptom of an underlying disease.
• Psychoanalytic perspectives suggest that abnormal behavior stems from childhood conflicts in the unconscious.
• Behavioral approaches view abnormal behavior not as a symptom of an underlying problem, but as the problem itself.
• The cognitive approach suggests that abnormal behavior is the result of faulty cognitions (thoughts and beliefs). In this view, abnormal behavior can be remedied by changing one’s flawed thoughts and beliefs.
• Humanistic approaches emphasize the responsibility people have for their own behavior, even when such behavior is seen as abnormal.
• Sociocultural approaches view abnormal behavior in terms of difficulties arising from family and other social relationships.

Question 3

Classify abnormal behavior

Answer 3

The most widely used system for classifying psychological disorders is the DSM-5—Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition.

Question 4

Discuss anxiety disorders

Answer 4

Anxiety disorders are present when a person experiences so much anxiety that it affects daily functioning. Specific types of anxiety disorders include phobic disorder, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. In obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), people experience persistent, unwanted thoughts or ideas that keep recurring (obsessions) or feel driven to carry out particular actions (compulsions).

Question 5

Discuss somatic symptom disorders

Answer 5

Somatic symptom disorders are psychological difficulties that take on a physical (somatic) form, but for which there is no medical cause. Examples are illness anxiety disorder and conversion disorders.

Question 6

Discuss dissociative disorders

Answer 6

Dissociative disorders are marked by the separation, or dissociation, of different facets of a person’s personality that are usually integrated. Major kinds of dissociative disorders include dissociative identity disorder, dissociative amnesia, and dissociative fugue.

Question 7

Discuss mood disorders

Answer 7

Mood disorders are characterized by emotional states of depression or euphoria so strong that they intrude on everyday living. They include major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.

Question 8

Explain schizophrenia

Answer 8

• Schizophrenia is one of the more severe forms of mental illness. Symptoms of schizophrenia include declines in functioning, thought and language disturbances, perceptual disorders, emotional disturbance, and withdrawal from others.
• Strong evidence links schizophrenia to genetic, biochemical, and environmental factors. According to the predisposition model, an interaction among various factors produces the disorder.

Question 9

Discuss personality disorders

Answer 9

People with personality disorders experience little or no personal distress, but they do suffer from an inability to function as normal members of society. These disorders include antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and narcissistic personality disorder.

Question 10

Discuss childhood disorders

Answer 10

Childhood disorders include major depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism spectrum disorder.

Question 11

Discuss the prevalence of psychological disorders

Answer 11

About half the people in the United States are likely to experience a psychological disorder at some point in their lives: 30 percent experience a disorder in any specific year.

Question 12

Discuss the societal and cultural context for psychological disorders

Answer 12

• Society and the culture in which one lives provide the context for the interpretation of psychological disorders.
• The signals that indicate a need for professional help include long-term feelings of psychological distress, feelings of inability to cope with stress, withdrawal from other people, thoughts of inflicting harm on oneself or suicide, prolonged feelings of hopelessness, chronic physical problems with no apparent causes, phobias and compulsions, paranoia, and an inability to interact with others.

Question 13

Explain psychodynamic approaches to therapy

Answer 13

• Psychotherapy (psychologically based therapy) and biomedical therapy (biologically based therapy) share the goal of resolving psychological problems by modifying people’s thoughts, feelings, expectations, evaluations, and ultimately behavior.
• Psychoanalytic approaches seek to bring unresolved past conflicts and unacceptable impulses from the unconscious into the conscious, where patients may deal with the problems more effectively. To do this, therapists use techniques such as free association and dream interpretation.

Question 14

Explain behavioral approaches to therapy

Answer 14

Behavioral approaches to treatment view abnormal behavior as the problem, rather than viewing that behavior as a symptom of some underlying cause. To bring about a “cure,” this view suggests that the outward behavior must be changed by using methods such as aversive conditioning, systematic desensitization, observational learning, token systems, and contingency contracting.

Question 15

Explain cognitive approaches to therapy

Answer 15

Cognitive approaches to treatment consider the goal of therapy to be to help a person restructure his or her faulty belief system into a more realistic, rational, and logical view of the world. Two examples of cognitive treatments are rational-emotive behavior therapy and cognitive therapy.

Question 16

Discuss the humanistic approaches to therapy

Answer 16

Humanistic therapy is based on the premise that people have control of their behavior, that they can make choices about their lives, and that it is up to them to solve their own problems. Humanistic therapies, which take a nondirective approach, include person-centered therapy.

Question 17

Illustrate interpersonal therapy

Answer 17

• Interpersonal therapy considers therapy in the context of social relationships.
• It concentrates on improving a client’s current relationships.

Question 18

Explain group therapy, family therapy, and self-help groups

Answer 18

In group therapy, several unrelated people meet with a therapist to discuss some aspect of their psychological functioning, often centering on a common problem.

Question 19

Assess the effectiveness of psychotherapy

Answer 19

• Most research suggests that, in general, therapy is more effective than no therapy, although how much more effective is not known.
• The more difficult question of which therapy works best is harder to answer, but it is clear particular kinds of therapy are more appropriate for some problems than for others.
• Because no single type of psychotherapy is invariably effective, eclectic approaches, in which a therapist uses a variety of techniques, integrating several perspectives, are sometimes used.

Question 20

Discuss options for drug therapy

Answer 20

Antipsychotic drugs such as chlorpromazine very effectively reduce psychotic symptoms. Antidepressant drugs such as Prozac reduce depression so successfully that they are used very widely. Antianxiety drugs, or minor tranquilizers, are among the most frequently prescribed medications of any sort.

Question 21

Explain electroconvulsive therapy

Answer 21

In electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), used in severe cases of depression, a patient receives a brief electric current of 70-150 volts

Question 22

Offer perspective on biomedical therapies

Answer 22

Biomedical treatment approaches suggest that therapy should focus on the physiological causes of abnormal behavior, rather than considering psychological factors. Drug therapy, the best example of biomedical treatments, has brought about dramatic reductions in the symptoms of mental disturbance.

Question 23

Discuss the community psychology movement

Answer 23

The community psychology approach encouraged deinstitutionalization, in which previously hospitalized mental patients were released into the community.