Psychopathology: Mental disorders Flashcards
What is a phobia?
an anxiety disorder, a group of mental disorders characterised by high levels of anxiety in response to a particular stimulus or group of stimuli —> a strong irrational fear of something that poses little to no actual danger.
What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?
marked and persistent fear that’s excessive and unreasonable. Coupled with feelings of anxiety/panic these emotions are cued by the presence of anticipation of a specific object or situation and are out of proportion to actual danger prosed.
What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias?
avoidance of object/ situation e.g. a person with a phobia of spiders avoids being near them. An opposite characteristic is to freeze or faint —> fight, flight or freeze. Freezing is an adaptive response because a predator may think the prey is dead.
What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?
Cognitive characteristics – irrational thinking and resistance to rational arguments. Recognition of excessive and unreasonable fear may be absent in children.
What is depression?
a mood disorder where an individual feels sad or lacks interest in their usual activities. Individuals may have negative thoughts, raised or lowered activity levels and problems with concentration, eating and sleeping.
What are the emotional characteristics of depression?
Sadness along with feelings of emptiness. People may feel worthless and hopeless and may have low self esteem (generally suffering from negative emotions). Loss of interest/ pleasure in usual hobbies and activities —> such behaviour is often associated with the feeling of loosing control. Anger towards others or turned inwards on oneself.
What are the behavioural characteristics of depression?
shift in activity levels —> individuals may see a reduction or increase in their activities. Many individuals experience reduces activity levels due to a sense of tiredness while some become increasingly agitated and restless and may pace around the room.
Sleep —> some individuals experience insomnia (sleep more) while some individuals sleep less (hypersomnia).
Appetite —> great variation in this factor as some individuals eat more (binge eating) while others eat less.
What are the cognitive characteristics of depression?
Negative self-concept —> an individual may feel guilt or that they’re worthless/ don’t matter.
Negative view of the world —> an expectation that things will always turn out badly rather than positively.
Negative view of the future —> believe that negative situations aren’t going to change.
What is Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
also classed as an anxiety disorder where anxiety arises from both obsessions (persistent thoughts) and compulsions (overly repeated behaviour). Compulsions are a response to obsessions and the individual believes that they will reduce anxiety.
What are the emotional characteristics of OCD?
Extreme anxiety —> persistent and inappropriate ideas create excessively high levels of anxiety (e.g. if I become contaminated with germs I will become seriously ill).
Distress —> the recognition can’t be consciously controlled and can lead to distress.
What are the behavioural characteristics of OCD?
compulsive behaviours are performed to reduce anxiety.
They’re repetitive and unconcealed e.g. hand washing or they be mental acts such as praying or counting.
Patients feel that they must preform these actions as they may feel that something bad will happen if they don’t which creates anxiety.
Behaviours/ compulsions may not be realistically connected with what they’re trying to neutralise or prevent.
What are the cognitive characteristics of OCD?
recurrent and persistent thoughts —> sufferers experience constant, repeated, obsessive thoughts and ideas of an intrusive nature.
Obsessions —> urges involve completing acts that they feel will reduce anxiety caused by obsessive thoughts
