Week 8 Abnormal Psychology Flashcards
What is a psychological disorder?
Abnormal - generally refers to behavior. Components:
Personally distressing (for the individual)
Typically personally dysfunctional (causes problems, maladaptive)
Behavior being culturally deviant, others judge it to be inappropriate
What is a syndrome?
Grouping of signs and symptoms based on their frequent co-occurrence that may suggest common underlying pathogenesis, course, familial pattern or treatment selection
Theoretical perspectives on psychological disorders
Psychodynamic/psychoanalytic Cognitive, behavioural and cognitive-behavioural Biological (brain structure) Systems Theories Evolutionary theories
List some psychological disorders
Anxiety Depressive and bipolar Schizophrenia Eating Substance related Personality Dissociative
Treatment options for psychological disorders:
Group therapies
Humanistic therapies
Family and couples
Biological
Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: Psychotic Disorders involve disturbances in:
Thought (delusions, no logical connection in language)
Perception (hallucinations)
Language (disconnected words that don’t make sense)
Affect (experiencing the wrong affect e.g. talking about something positive but crying about it)
Behaviour (bizarre behaviour including catatonia, strange repetitive behaviour, generally disorganized behaviour)
Symptoms of psychosis
Positive - something is there that shouldn’t be there (hallucinations, delusions)
Negative - things that should be there but they’re not (lack of emotion or complex thought)
Symptoms of psychosis
Positive - something is there that shouldn’t be there (hallucinations, delusions)
Negative - things that should be there but they’re not (lack of emotion or complex thought)
Schizophrenia:
Most well known psychotic disorder
People diagnosed with schizophrenia may have very different symptoms of prognosis
Etiology of schizophrenia
People have some degree of a vulnerability, but it is dependant on life stressors if they will go onto develop the disorder
Someone without a genetic disposition may never develop the disorder even with environmental factors
Define diathesis
a tendency to suffer from a particular medical condition.
Biological basis of Schizophrenia:
Diathesis - stress model: schizophrenia develops in people with an underlying biological vulnerability that is compounded by stress
Neural atrophy - neuron loss in the brain may result in diminished volume of the brain
Environmental contributors play a role in the course and relapse
Psychical sexual abuse and childhood trauma may play a role
List two Mood Disorders:
Depressive
Bipolar
Two Depressive disorders
Major depressive disorder
Persistent depressive disorder
Major depressive disorder
A person is very depressed for relatively short period of time (minimum 2 weeks to be diagnosed
Intense sadness or antadonia (lack of pleasure)
Increased apetite or loss of appetite
Increased sleeping or difficulty sleeping
Energy is the same
Persistent depressive disorder
Also known as dysthymia
Longer term disorder (minimum 2 years to be diagnosed)
Chronicity determines which diagnosis they get
How is bipolar disorder characterised
Typically (but not always) alternating with periods of mania and hypomania
What is mania (when referring to bipolar)?
mental illness marked by periods of great excitement or euphoria, delusions, and overactivity.
What is hypomania (when referring to bipolar)?
Hypomania: A condition similar to mania but less severe. The symptoms are similar with elevated mood, increased activity, decreased need for sleep, grandiosity, racing thoughts, and the like.
3 Bipolar disorders:
Bipolar 1
Manic episodes
May or may not have major depressive episodes
Bipolar 2
Hypomanic (but not manic) episodes
Major depressive episodes
Cyclothymia
Two years of ups and downs that do not become full manic, hypomanic, or depressive episodes
Three theories of bipolar disorder:
A high genetic component
Environmental factors play a role too
Therapies for bipolar try to regulate people’s social rhythms
What are anxiety Disorders?
People experience intense irrational anxiety
Frequently occuring category in general population include phobias and social anxiety
Women are more likely to be diagnosed with most of these
High rate of comorbidity with depressive disorders
Comorbidity
a disease or medical condition that is simultaneously present with another or others in a patient.
Specific phobias
an irrational fear of an object or situation (e.g an animal, enclosed spaces, heights, blood, injury etc)
Social anxiety
referred to as social phobia, a fear of negative evaluation by others (e.g someone fears public speaking or fear of talking to people in general)
Panic disorder
Intense attacks of fear, terror or anxiety that are unexpected
Agoraphobia
A fear of being in places or situations from which it may be difficult to escape
Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD):
excessive worry, and physiological symptoms of anxiety
Obsessive compulsive disorder:
recurrent obsessions and or compulsions that cause distress and interfere with people’s daily life
Difference between obsessions and compulsions?
Obsessions : persistent irrational thoughts, ideas or images
Compulsions: intentional behaviors typically performed in response to an obsession
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD):
characterized by flashbacks and recurrent thoughts of a traumatic event
Acute stress disorder:
Acute stress disorder is diagnosable when symptoms persist for a minimum of three days and last no more than one month after a traumatic experience. If symptoms persist after a month, the diagnosis becomes post-traumatic stress disorder.
Adjustment disorders
Viewed as milder disorders in relation to milder environmental stressors
Viewed as a temporary thing unless stressor is ongoing
Eg a child whose parents are getting a divorce
What are somatic symptom and related disorders?
disorders that focus on somatic (bodily) components
Somatic symptoms disorder:
A person has often several somatic complaints
Conversion disorder:
Neurological disorder that cannot be explained by physiological functioning
Illness anxiety disorder:
Defined by the preoccupation with acquiring an illness even though there is not enough medical evidence to support it
What are Dissociative disorders?
a group of disorders where there is a disconnection of usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, motor control, behavior.
Depersonalisation/derealisation disorder:
Someone experiences episodes of depersonalisation(they may feel disconnected from their body, it may look or feel different in frightening ways) or derealisation (their environment may look different
Is not caused from taking drugs
Can be very frightening and unpleasant
Dissociative amnesia:
Psychological in origin
Usually associated with stressful events
Can range from being minor where people are unable to remember small things, or extreme where people have no memory of their life
Not caused by injury, drugs, or alcohol
Dissociative fugue
People may end up somewhere else and don’t remember how they got there
May have a separate identity set up
Is a subset of social amnesia
Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder)
Defined in the DSM as a presence of more than one identity state
People with DID have comorbidity of the other dissociative disorders
Definition of psychopathology
Problematic patterns of thought, feeling or behaviour that disrupt an individuals sense of wellbeing or social or occupational functioning
Labelling Theory
Argues that the diagnosis is a way of stigmatising deviants.
Mental Health
A state of emotional and social wellbeing in which individuals realise their own abilities
Definition of Neuroses
Problems with living such as phobias, constant self-doubt and repetitive personal problems such as trouble with authority figures
Definition of Neuroses
Problems with living such as phobias, constant self-doubt and repetitive personal problems such as trouble with authority figures
