Unit 12 (Chapters 13 & 14) Flashcards
Symptom
A physical or mental feature that may be regarded as an indication of a particular condition or psychological disorder. A symptom does not constitue the disorder itself.
Syndrome
A cluster of physical or mental symptoms that are typical of a particular condition or psychological disorder that tend to occur simultaneously.
Prevalence
How widespread a disorder is.
Point prevalence
Percentage of people in a given population who have a given psychological disorder at a particular point in time.
Lifetime prevalence
Percentage of people in a certain population who will have a given psychological disorder at any point in their lives.
Generally, in Canada, about 40%.
DSM-5 definition of a psychological disorder
- Clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning.
- Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress in social, occupational, or other important activities. An expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved
one, is not a psychological disorder. - Socially deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) and conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are not psychological disorders unless the deviance or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above.
- How much disturbance before it’s considered “clinically significant”?
- Line around “common stressor or loss” is fuzzy.
- Socially acceptable behaviour varies across time and cultures (ex: in 1970s, homosexuality was a disorder)
Cultural variations in disorders and diagnoses
- Psychological disorders are largely a cultural construct
- Cultural beliefs and values play a role in determining whether a particular set of symptoms is a disorder or variation in “normal” behaviour
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Disorder that involves impulsivity, hyperactivity (e.g., fidgeting, inability to sit still), and difficulty shifting attentional focus.
- Most common psychological disorder in children
- Twice as common in boys
- 4% of adults
- May relate to deficiency in brain areas related to attention and executive function (prefrontal cortex; related to impulse control, attention, decision-making).
ADHD controversies
- Increased diagnosis & treatment. Growing awareness? Better diagnostic practices? Overdiagnosis & cultural obsession with academic performance? (Mismatch betweed ADHD and kids being kids and unable to focus.)
- Is there too much emphasis on individual interventions instead of structural societal changes?
- More opportunities for play, accommodation for range of temperaments & behaviours. Depriving children of “rough and tumble play” in academic settings makes it harder for them to thrive in.
- Labels carry stigma, can contribute to social exclusion, stereotyping, discrimination, shift in self-concept & potential for self-fulfilling prophecies. Once a label is applied, all subsequent behaviour is interpreted through that lens.
- Pharmacological treatments may pose risk of side-effects: ADHD treated with stimulant methylphenidate (activated inhibitory circuits that enable impulse control), which can be addictive and pose long-term side effects.
Clinical assessment
Procedure for gathering the information to evaluate an individual’s psychological functioning and to determine
whether a clinical diagnosis is warranted.
The initial diagnosis of a patient may change!!!
Clinical interview
Interview in which a clinician asks the patient to describe their problems and concerns.
- Usually the first step in assessment
- More open-ended
The initial diagnosis of a patient may change!!!
Self-report measures
Standardized clinical assessment consisting of fixed set of questions that a patient answers.
- More structured
The initial diagnosis of a patient may change!!!
Projective tests
A form of clinical assessment in which a person responds to unstructured or ambiguous stimuli; it is thought that responses reveal unconscious wishes and conflicts.
- Usefulness and validity of some of these tests have been called into question, but some still remain in use.
E.g., Rorschach Inkblot Test
Diathesis-stress model
A model of clinical disorders suggesting that certain factors provide a susceptibility for a disorder that will manifest as symptoms only in certain circumstances (under certain levels of
stress).
- Diatheses and stressors vary in their origin and form. It’s not necessarily genetics: it can be ways of thinking, early life conditions, and pre-natal conditions.
Anxiety
Feeling of intense worry, nervousness, or unease. Involves anticipation of danger (not equal to fear, which is more focused on the present).
- Maladaptive exaggeration of what is normally a useful response (we need some anxiety to avoid doing risky, stupid things).
- Most prevalent of all psychological disorders
- Typically, aware that anxiety is irrational, but unable to control it (doesn’t impair people’s ability to think realistically).
Common causes of anxiety disorders
- High degree of comorbidity among the different anxiety-related disorders (they often coocur).
- Genetic component: concordance rate 5 times higher for identical twins than for fraternal twins or ordinary siblings (related to heretibility studies)
- Two types of risk factors involved: general and specific risk factors
Concordance rate
Probability that a person with a particular familial relationship to a patient has the same disorder as patient.
Comorbidity
Occurrence of two or more disorders in a single individual at a given point in time.
Specific phobia
A pronounced fear of or anxiety about a particular object or situation (e.g., spiders, snakes, heights, blood, flying). The subject typically has some realistic potential for harm.
- May have significant impact on the life of a person as they develop elaborate strategies to avoid the object or situation.
- Women twice as likely as men to have a specific phobia, although rates vary by phobia
- Scope of a phobia may increase over time (generalization)
Potential causes and predisposing factors of specific phobias
Classical conditioning:
- Learning: ~40% of people with phobias report a traumatic situation where they first acquired the fear (ex: bitten by a dog)
- Fear may then become generalized (ex: to all dogs)
Observational learning
- May develop phobias through observation & imitation
- Preparedness: may be biologically predisposed to form connections between certain stimuli (e.g., spiders, snakes) that have historically posed a threat & fear
- Ex: Monkeys fearing snakes after seeing a videos of another monkey scared of a snake.
Social anxiety disorder
An anxiety disorder characterized by extreme fear of being watched, evaluated, and judged by others.
- Typically emerges in childhood or adolescence
- Places individuals at increased risk for depression and substance abuse
- Women and men are equally affected
Ex: Not being able to eat in restaurants.
Panic disorder
Anxiety disorder characterized by repeated panic attacks & debilitating fear of future attacks.
- More common in women than men
Panic attack
Sudden episode of intense, uncontrollable anxiety & autonomic arousal in the absence of real threat.
- Bodily symptoms: laboured breathing, choking, dizziness, tingling hands and feet, sweating, trembling, heart palpitations, chest pain, nausea.
- Symptoms can be really unsettling, and are sometimes even compared to having a heart attack or even dying.
Agoraphobia
Fear of being in situations in which help might not be available or escape might be difficult or embarrassing.
- Common outcome of panic disorder, as one may fear having a panic attach in public places.
E.g., fear of being outside of home or other designated “safe” places, using
public transportation, standing in line or in a crowd.