Psychological Disorders Flashcards
Psychogenic Amnesia
Condition wherein a person cannot remember things but no physiological basis for the disruption in memory can be identified.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Condition wherein a person experiences constant, low-level anxiety.
Such a person constantly feels nervous and out of sorts.
Antisocial Personality Disorder
Condition wherein a person has little regard for the feelings of others. They view the world as a hostile place where people need to look out for themselves.
Criminals seem to manifest a high incidence of antisocial personality disorder.
Paranoid Personality Disorder
Sufferers feel constantly persecuted.
Dependent Personality Disorder
Sufferers rely too much on the attention and help of others.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Sufferers see themselves as the center of the universe (narcissism means self-love).
Somatic (Body) Symptom Disorders
Occur when a person manifests a psychological problem through a physiological symptom.
Such a person experiences a physical problem in the absence of any physical cause.
One somatic symptom disorder is conversion disorder.
Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
Sufferers may be overly concerned with certain thoughts and performing certain behaviors, but they will not be debilitated to the same extent that someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder would.
Major Depressive Disorder
The most common mood disorder. Often referred to as the common cold of all psychological disorders.
One key diagnostic factor is the length of the depressive episode.
People who are clinically depressed remain unhappy for more than two weeks in the absence of a clear reason.
Other common symptoms of depression include loss of appetite, fatigue, change in sleeping patterns, lack of interest in normally enjoyable activities, and feelings of worthlessness.
Histrionic Personality Disorder
Sufferers exhibit overly dramatic behavior (histrionics).
Dopamine Hypothesis
States that high levels of dopamine seem to be associated with schizophrenia.
Seasonal Affective Disorder
Condition wherein a person experiences depression but only during certain times of the year, usually winter, when there is less sunlight.
Delusions of Grandeur
Belief that you enjoy greater power and influence than you do.
Delusions of Persecution
Belief that people are out to get you.
Schizophrenic Disorders
Schizophrenia is one of the most severe and debilitating psychological disorders. It tends to strike people as they enter young adulthood.
The fundamental symptom of schizophrenia is disordered, distorted thinking often demonstrated through delusions and/or hallucinations.
Delusions are beliefs that have no basis in reality.
Hallucinations are perceptions in the absence of any sensory stimulation.
Social Anxiety Disorder
Fear of a situation in which one could embarrass oneself in public, such as when eating in a restaurant or giving a lecture.
Waxy Flexibility
A characteristic of catatonia.
Sufferers allow their bodies to be moved into any alternative shape and will then hold that new pose.
Diathesis-Stress Model
Often applied to schizophrenia but can be more widely applied to many psychological and physical disorders.
Environmental stressors can provide the circumstances under which a biological predisposition for illness can express itself.
Helps explain why even people with identical genetic makeups (i.e., monozygotic twins) do not always suffer from the same disorders.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Involves flashbacks or nightmares following a person’s involvement in or observation of an extremely troubling event such as a war or a natural disaster.
Personality Disorders
Well-established, maladaptive ways of behaving that negatively affect people’s ability to function.
Rosenhan Study
In 1978, David Rosenhan conducted a study in which he and a number of associates sought admission to a number of mental hospitals.
All claimed that they had been hearing voices; that was the sole symptom they reported. All were admitted to the institutions as suffering from schizophrenia.
At that time, they ceased reporting any unusual symptoms and behaved as they usually did.
None of the researchers were exposed as imposters, and all ultimately left the institutions with the diagnosis of schizophrenia in remission.
Psychological Disorder
Disorders are defined by four criteria:
- Maladaptive (harmful) and/or disturbing to the individual. For example, someone who has agoraphobia, fear of open spaces and is thus unable to leave his or her home experiences something maladaptive and disturbing.
- Disturbing to others. For example, zoophilia, being sexually aroused by animals, disturbs others.
- Unusual, not shared by many members of the population. For example, in the United States, having visions is atypical, while in some other cultures, it occurs more commonly.
- Irrational; it does not make sense to the average person. For example, feeling depressed when your family first moves away from all your friends is not seen as being irrational, while prolonged depression due to virtually any situation is.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM)
Reference book that describes the symptoms of everything currently considered to be a psychological disorder.
The current version of the DSM is the DSM-5.
Anxiety Disorders
Category of psychological disorders.
Includes the diagnoses for specific phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder.
