Psychological Disorders Flashcards
Biomedical approach to psychological disorders
Takes into account only the physical and medical causes of a psychological disorder. Thus, treatments in this approach are of a biomedical nature.
Biopsychosocial approach
Considers relative contributions of biological, psychological, and social components to an individual’s disorder. Treatment also falls into these three areas
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Used to diagnose psychological disorders. It’s current version is DSM-5. It categorizes mental disorders based on symptom patterns.
Why psychological disorders are very common in the population?
Anxiety, depressive, and substance abuse disorders
Schizophrenia
Prototypical disorder with psychosis (Psychosis is a condition that affects the way your brain processes information. It causes you to lose touch with reality. You might see, hear, or believe things that aren’t real) as a feature. It has negative and positive symptoms.
Positive symptoms of Schizophrenia
Add something to behavior, cognition, or affect and include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and disorganized behavior
Negative symptoms of Schizophrenia
Loss of something from behavior, cognition, or affect and include disturbance of affect and avolition (lack of motivation to do things)
Depressive disorders
Include major depressive disorder and seasonal affective disorder
Major depressive disorder
Contains at least one depressive episode
Persistent depressive disorder
It is Dysthymia which is defined as a low mood occurring for at least two years, along with at least two other symptoms of depression. It does not meet the criteria for major depressive disorder.
Seasonal affective disorder
Colloquial name for major depressive disorder with seasonal onset, with depression occurring during winter months
Bipolar and related disorders
Have manic or hypomanic episodes
Bipolar I disorder
Contains at least one manic episode
Bipolar II disorder
Contains at least one hypomanic episode and at least one major depressive episode
Cyclothymic disorder
Hypomanic episodes with dysthymia
Manic episode
Manic episodes may include symptoms such as high energy, reduced need for sleep, and loss of touch with reality.
Hypomania
Hypomania is a milder form of mania. If you’re experiencing hypomania, your energy level is higher than normal, but it’s not as extreme as in mania.
Anxiety disorders
Generalized anxiety disorder, specific phobias, social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, panic disorder
Generalized anxiety disorder
Disproportionate and persistent worry about many different things for at least six months. People with GAD may anticipate disaster and may be overly concerned about money, health, family, work, or other issues.
Specific phobias
Irrational fears of specific objects or situations
Social anxiety disorder
Anxiety due to social or performance situations
Agoraphobia
Fear of places or situations where it is hard for an individual to escape
Panic disorder
Marked by recurrent panic attacks: intense, overwhelming fear and sympathetic nervous system activity with no clear stimulus. It may lead to agoraphobia.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Characterized by obsessions (persistent, intrusive thoughts and impulses) and compulsions ( repetitive tasks that relieve tension that cause significant impairment in a person’s life)
Body dysmorphic disorder
Characterized by an unrealistic negative evaluation of one’s appearance or a specific body part. The individual often takes extreme measures to correct the perceived imperfection.
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder PTSD
Characterized by intrusion symptoms (reliving the event, flashbacks, nightmares), avoidance symptoms (avoidance of people, places, objects associated with trauma), negative cognitive symptoms (amnesia, negative mood, and emotions), and arousal symptoms (increased startle response, irritability, anxiety).
Dissociate disorders
Dissociative amnesia, dissociative identity disorder, depersonalization/derealization disorder
Dissociate amnesia
Inability to recall past events without an underlying neurological disorder.
Extreme form of dissociative amnesia results in
Dissociative fugue (formerly called psychogenic fugue) is a psychological state in which a person loses awareness of their identity or other important autobiographical information and also engages in some form of unexpected travel
Dissociative identity disorder
Occurrence of two or more personalities that take control of a person’s behavior
Depersonalization/derealization disoder
Involves feelings of detachment from the mind and body or from the environment
Somatic symptom and related disorders
Involve significant bodily symptoms
Somatic symptom disorder
Somatic symptom disorder involves a person having a significant focus on physical symptoms, such as pain, weakness or shortness of breath, that results in major distress and/or problems functioning. The individual has excessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors relating to the physical symptoms.
Illness anxiety disorder
Preoccupation with thoughts about having, or coming down with, a serious medical condition
Conversion disorder
Unexplained symptoms affecting motor or sensory function and is associated with prior trauma
Personality disorders
Patterns of inflexible, maladaptive behavior that causes distress or impaired functioning in at least two of the following: cognition, emotions, interpersonal functioning, or impulse control.
The three clusters of personality disorders
Cluster A: odd, eccentric
Cluster B: Dramatic, emotional, erratic
Cluster C: anxious, fearful
Cluster A personality disorders
Paranoid, shizotypal, and schizoid PDs
Cluster B personality disorders
Antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic PDs
Cluster C personality disorders
Avoidant, dependent, obsessive-compulsive PDs
Paranoid Personality disorder
Pervasive distrust and suspicion of others
Schizotypal Personality disorder
Ideas of reference, magical thinking, and eccentricity (strange)
Schizoid Personality disorder
Detachment from social relationships and limited emotion
Antisocial Personality disorder
Disregard for the rights of others
Borderline Personality disorder
Instability in relationships, mood, and self-image. Splitting is characteristic, as well as recurrent suicide attempts.
Splitting
For people with borderline personality disorder (BPD), ‘splitting’ is a commonly used defense mechanism that is done subconsciously in an attempt to protect against intense negative feelings such as loneliness, abandonment and isolation.You can identify splitting most commonly through the language of a person with BPD. They’ll often use extreme words in their characterizations of self, others, objects, beliefs, and situations, such as: “never” and “always” “none” and “all”
Histrionic Personality disorder
Constant attention-seeking behavior
Narcissistic Personality disorder
Grandiose sense of self-importance and need for admiration
Avoidant personality disorder
Extreme shyness and fear of rejection
Dependent personality disorder
Continouous need for reassurance
Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder
Perfectionism, inflexibility, and preoccupation with rules
Biological basis of schizophrenia
Genetic factors, birth trauma, adolescent marijuana use, and family history. There is high levels of dopaminergic transmission.
Biological basis of depression
High levels of glucocorticoids and low levels of norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine
Biological basis of bipolar disorders
High levels of norepinephrine and serotonin. Highly heritable.
Biological basis of Alzheimer’s dieases
Genetic factors, brain atrophy, decreases in acetylcholine, senile plaques of β-amyloid and neurofibrillary tangles of hyperphosphyrlated tau protein.
Parkinson’s disease
Associated with bradykinesia (slowness of movement), resting tremor, pill rolling tremor (A pill rolling tremor is a tremor named for how it appears. If you have a pill rolling tremor, it looks like you are trying to roll a pill or another small object between your thumb and index finger), masklike facies (An expressionless face with little or no sense of animation; a face that is more like a mask than a normal face), cogwheel rigidity (muscular rigidity in which passive movement of the limbs (as during a physical examination) elicits ratchet-like start-and stop movements through the range of motion), and shufffling gait (Shuffling gait appears as if the person is dragging their feet as they walk. )
Biological basis for Parkinson’s disease
Decreased production of dopamine by cells in substantia nigra
