Week 7-8 Flashcards
When does extreme or quirky become maladaptive? What constitutes as abnormal behaviour?
- Atypical behaviour
- Maladaptive
- Distressing to the person who exhibits it or their friends and family
- Socially unacceptable
What did Rosenhan’s pseudopatients discover?
Normal behaviour was interpreted as pathological
Doctors rarely respond to questions
Patients are treated as thought they are not there
Note taking was seen as deviant behaviour
Many real patients were not fooled
DSM-5
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
System for diagnosing psychopathology
Goals:
- provide a system for diagnosing disorders based on observable behaviours
- improve timing and reliability of diagnoses
- make diagnoses consistent with research evidence and practical experience
Anxiety Disorders
Class of disorders classified by feelings of excessive fear and apprehension
May be related to a particular situation/object
Accompanied by increased physiological arousal
Generalized anxiety disorder
Chronic, high level anxiety that is not tied to any specific threat
Almost continuous anxiety for six months
Difficulty concentrating
Fatigue
Not common
Panic disorder
Characterized by many recurring panic attacks that come on suddenly and unexpectedly
Many panic attacks
Not common
Impending doom, irrational thoughts/feelings
Phobic disorder
Fear: excessive, irrational, avoidance of specific objects or situations.
Agoraphobia
Fear of public spaces that we can’t easily escape from
May result in severe panic disorder and person avoiding going out at all
Social Anxiety Disorder
Most common of phobias
Anxiety involving a fear of and a desire to avoid situations where one might be scrutinized by others.
Specific phobias
4 subtypes:
- animal fears
- blood-injection/injury fear and disgust
- natural environment fear (like heights)
- situation fear (like the dentist)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Persistent, uncontrollable thoughts that cause compulsive rituals that interfere with daily life
Obsessions: uncontrollable thoughts
Compulsions: behaviours we MUST engage in, we have no choice
Uncommon
Reduction in anxiety around obsession is temporary
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Symptoms:
- re-experiencing event
- heightened arousal
- avoidance
- negative thoughts and feelings
Common in sexual assault survivors, military, and mass casualty survivors
Persona can’t stop thinking about event, flashbacks or replaying event in mind. Always looking for threats and trying to avoid threats.
Inherited ____ may be a risk factor for anxiety disorders.
Inherited temperament may be a risk factor for anxiety disorders.
The brain’s _____ may underlie anxiety
The brain’s neurotransmitters may underlie anxiety.
Etiology of anxiety disorders: environment factors
Conditioning and learning
Stress
Mood Disorders
Class of disorders marked by emotional disturbances that may spill over to disrupt physical, perceptual, social, and thought processes.
May include delusions
May be triggered by specific event or have no identifiable cause
Major Depressive Disorder
Persistent feelings of sadness and despair, loss of interest in previous sources of pleasure, sleep and appetite difficulties.
More common in women than in men.
Bipolar Disorder
People with the disorder vary between 2 extremes:
- Manic phase: rapid speech, inflated self-esteem, impulsiveness, euphoria, decreased need for sleep.
- Depressed phase: gloomy mood, hopelessness, loss of energy.
Mood disorders are correlated with lowers levels of two neurotransmitters in the brain:
- norepinephrine
2. serotonin
Schizophrenia
Class of disorders marked by disturbances in thought that spill over to affect perceptual, social, and emotional processes.
Positive symptoms
addition of abnormal behaviour
Negative symptoms
subtraction of normative behaviour
Schizophrenia: Positive Symptoms
Delusions: -grandeur -persecution Hallucinations: -auditory most common Disordered behaviour Disorganized speech
Schizophrenia: Negative Symptoms
Flat affect Alogia: -no sign of engagement in conversations Avolition: -inability to initiate goal-directed behaviour
