Psychopathology: Mental disorders Flashcards
What are the three mental disorders?
Phobias
Depression
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
What are the three classes of characteristics?
Emotional
Cognitive
Behavioural
What is a phobia?
A type of anxiety disorder. It is a strong, irrational fear of something that poses little or no actual danger. There are many specific phobias. Acrophobia is a fear of heights.
What is depression?
A mood disorder where an individual feels sad or lacks interest in their usual activities. They may have negative thoughts, raised or lowered activity levels.
What is OCD?
An anxiety disorder where anxiety arises from both obsessions and compulsions. Compulsions are in response to obsessions and the person believes compulsions will reduce anxiety.
What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias?
Avoidant, anxiety response: Confrontation with feared objects and situations produces a high anxiety response, efforts are made on the part of the individual to avoid the feared objects and situations in order to reduce the chances of anxiety occurring. For example, if someone is afraid of ghosts, they would avoid taking a short cut through a graveyard at night.
Disruption of functioning: Anxiety and avoidance responses are so extreme that they can severely interfere with the ability to conduct everyday work and social functioning. For example, a person with a social phobia will find it very difficult to socialise with others.
What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?
Persistent, excessive fear: Anxiety is produced from the presence of or anticipation of feared objects/situations
Fear from exposure to phobic stimuli: Phobias produce an immediate fear response (e.g. panic attacks) due to the presence of the phobic object/situation
What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?
Recognition of exaggerated anxiety: People who suffer from phobias are consciously aware that the anxiety levels they experience in relation to their feared object or situation are overstated (over exaggerated)
What are emotional characteristics of depression?
Sadness: A very common feeling associated amongst depression sufferers (along with feelings of emptiness). People may feel worthless, and hopeless, and have low self-esteem (generally suffer from negative emotions).
Loss of interest/pleasure: In usual hobbies and activities. Such behaviour is often associated with the feeling of losing control.
Anger: Directed towards others or turned inwards on the self.
What are cognitive characteristics of depression?
Negative self-concept: An individual may feel guilt or that they are worthless/don’t matter.
Negative view of the world: An expectation that things are always going to turn out badly rather than positively.
Negative view of the future: Depression sufferers believe that negative situations are never going to change.
What are the behavioural characteristics of depression?
A shift in activity levels: Individuals may see a reduction or increase in their activities. Many individuals experience reduced energy levels, a sense of tiredness and a need to sleep all of the time. Some become increasingly agitated and restless and may pace around the room.
Sleep: Some individuals sleep more whilst other individuals sleep less. (Insomnia/hypersomnia)
Appetite: There is a great variation in this factor, some individuals eat more whilst others eat less. (Binge eating)
What are the emotional characteristics of OCD?
Extreme Anxiety: Persistent and inappropriate or forbidden ideas create excessively high levels of anxiety (e.g. if I become contaminated with germs I will become seriously ill).
Distress: The recognition that compulsive behaviours cannot be consciously controlled can lead to distress.
What are the cognitive characteristics of OCD?
Recurrent and persistent thoughts: Sufferers experience constantly repeated obsessive thoughts and ideas of an intrusive nature.
Obsessions: Urges involve completing acts that they feel will reduce anxiety caused by obsessive thoughts (e.g. cleaning and removing contamination)
Furthermore, sufferers of OCD know that their obsessions and compulsions are irrational and experience selective attention directed towards the anxiety-generating stimuli (similar to the selective attention found in phobias).
What are the behavioural characteristics of OCD?
Hinder everyday functioning: Having obsessive ideas of a forbidden or inappropriate type creates such anxiety that the ability to perform everyday tasks is severely hindered for example, being able to work effectively (e.g. may need to carry out a number of checks before leaving the house that will make an individual late for work).
Social Impairment: Anxiety levels generated are so high as to limit the ability to conduct meaningful, interpersonal relationships (e.g. may not be able to enter into a public place due to the fear of contamination which will have a direct effect on social interaction).
Compulsions: Sufferers feel compelled to repeat behaviours as responses to their obsessive thoughts, ideas and images.
