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Psychological Disorders
Psychological disorders chapter summary from the book
Course
Human Behavior (PSYCH 100)
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Students shared 54 documents in this course
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Lahore University of Management Sciences
Academic year: 2019/2020
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Psychological Disorders
Diagnosing mental disorders
- One leading definition: mental disorder is a harmful dysfunction. It involves behavior or an emotional state that it harmful to oneself or others (as judged by the community or culture) and dysfunctional because it is not performing its evolutionary function.
- Our definition: any condition that causes a person to suffer, is self-destructive, seriously impairs a person’s ability to work or get along with others or makes a person unable to control the impulse to endanger others.
- Classifying: DSM: manual used to diagnose. Primary aim is descriptive- provide clear diagnostic categories so that clinicians and researchers can agree on which disorders they are talking about and then can study and treat these disorders.
- Includes attention-deficit orders, disorders due to brain damage from disease or drugs, eating disorders, problems w sexual identity or behavior, impulse control, personality disorder etc.. Lists symptoms. Used worldwide. DSM 5 is the most recent
- Limitations: a) Danger of overdiagnosis. (eg: ADHD is over diagnosed) b) Power of diagnostic labels. Person viewed in terms of that label. c) Confusion of serious mental disorder with normal problems. d) Illusion of objectivity.
Dilemmas of Determination:
- Projective tests: ambiguous pictures, sentences or stories that the test taker completes. Psychodynamic: that the persons unconscious will be projected onto the test and revealed in the persons responses. Can help open up, but lack reliability and validity- makes them inappropriate for most common uses. Lack reliability bec the clinician may be making their own assumptions. Validity because they fail to measure what they aim to measure- affected by sleepiness, hunger, medication etc. Rorschach inkblot test. Used to also see if a child is abused in childhood by giving them detailed dolls. However, again lacked validity because not tested on control group. They in fact increase the risk of false reports of touch.
- Objective tests: standardized questionnaires ask about the test taker’s behavior and feelings. Beck depression inventory for depression, and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventor for personality and emotional disorders. Has 4 additional validity scales.
Anxiety Disorders:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder: excessive, uncontrollable anxiety or worry. Occurs on majority of the days for a 6-month period. Some don’t need a cause, have genetic predisposition to experience it. Sweaty palms, racing heart, shortness of breath in unfamiliar and uncontrollable situations. Abnormalities in the amygdala.
May also stem from experience. Some have a history starting in childhood of being unable to control or predict their environments.
Panic Disorder: recurring attacks of intense fear or panic. Last a few minutes to several hours. Trembling, shaking, dizziness, chest pain or discomfort, rapid heart rate, feelings of unreality, hot and cold flashes, sweating and a fear of dying. Occur in the aftermath of stress, prolonged emotion, specific worries.
Fears and Phobias:
- Phobia is an exaggerated fear of a specific situation, activity or thing.
- Social phobia: extreme anxiousness in situations where they will be observed by others.
- Agoraphobia: panic and its imagined disastrous consequences-being trapped in a public space where escape might be difficult etc.
Trauma and OCD:
- PTSD: insomnia, flashbacks, agitation etc. if symptoms persist for 1 month or longer. Symptoms include reliving the trauma in recurrent, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks or nightmares.
- May involve a genetic predisposition towards it. Also linked to certain personalities.
- Hippocampus is smaller than average. Involved in autobiographical memory.
Obsessions and Compulsions:
- Recurrent, persistent, unwished-for thoughts or images and by repetitive, ritualized behavior that a person feels must be carried out in order to avoid disaster.
- Thoughts are frightening or repugnant. Eg thought of killing a child.
- Compulsions: handwashing, counting, touching and checking,
- Abnormalities in an area of the prefrontal cortex creates cognitive rigidity, an inability t let go of intrusive thoughts, and behavioral rigidity- an inability to alter compulsive behavior.
- Hoarding disorder: pathological hoarding of useless material.
Depressive and Bipolar Disorders:
- Depression: Major depression involves emotional, behavioral, cognitive and physical changes- enough to disrupt a person’s ordinary functioning. Episodes can last as long as 20 weeks, subside and later reoccur.
- Unable to do daily functioning activities.
- Occurs twice as often among women as among men. Men are probably underdiagnosed because they express lesser than females.
- Bipolar Disorder: opposite of depression is mania. Abnormally high state of exhilaration. Person is excessively wired and often irritable.
- When alternated w depression: bipolar.
Origins of depression:
- Vulnerability-Stress model of depression. How vulnerability (genes) interact with stressful events. Major depression is moderately heritable, hence genes are involved. Genes regulate serotonin. However, low levels of serotonin does not alleviate depression. Environment also plays a role where a child’s upbringing can cause or counter depression.
metabolism of alcohol- ppl who lack this enzyme respond to alcohol with unpleasant symptoms such as flushing, nausea.
- Addictions may also result from a abuse of drugs- not because their brain led them to abuse, but because abuse led their brains to change.
- Learning model: examines the role of the environment, learning and culture n encouraging or discouraging. a) Addiction patterns vary according to cultural practices. b) Policies of total abstinence tend to increase rates of addiction rather than reducing it. c) Not all addicts have withdrawal when they stop taking the drug. d) Addiction does not depend on properties of the drug alone, but also on the reasons for taking it. Eg: social drinking vs abuse. Decisions took to either abuse or let go.
Dissociative Identity Disorder:
- MPD. Apparent emergence within one person of two or more distinct identities, each with its own name, memory etc.
- Believed that it originates from childhood d=trauma or abuse which produces a mental splitting. Alter personality copes with bad situations.
- Dissociative amnesia- supposedly causes traumatized children to repress their ordeal and develop several identities as a result lacks historical or empirical support,
- Evidence suggests that it is a homegrown culture-bound syndrome.
- Socio-cognitive explanation: extreme form of the ability to present different aspects of our personalities to others.
- Also accounts for criminal behavior- “the other personality did it”
Schizophrenia
- Personality loses its unity. Ppl do not have a split or multiple personalities, though.
- Fragmented condition in which words are split from meaning, actions from motives, perceptions from reality.
- Example of psychosis- mental condition that involves distorted perceptions of reality and an inability to function in most aspects of life.
- Criteria: a) Bizarre delusions- believing they are Moses for e. Paranoid delusions. Ordinary objects are something else. b) Hallucinations: false sensory experiences that seem intensely real. Most common is hearing voices. c) Disorganized, incoherent speech. Illogical words, words salads. Some make empty, brief replies in conversations. d) Grossly disorganized or catatonic behaviors. Childlike silliness to unpredictable and violent agitation. Frenzied, purposeless behavior. e) Negative symptoms: lose motivation or ability to take care of themselves. Don’t bathe etc.
- Signs may emerge early, but first full-blown episode occurs in late adolescence.
- Reduced volumes of gray matter in the prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes, abnormalities in the hippocampus and in neurotransmitters, neural activity and disrupted communication between neurons in areas involving cognitive functioning such as decision making and emotional
processing. Enlargement of ventricles (spaces in brain that are filled with cerebrospinal fluid). More likely than nonschizo to have abnormalities in the thalamus. Deficiencies in the auditory cortex- speech perception and processing.
- Contributing factors: a) Genetic predispositions. Twin studies- if identical twin develops, person has much chances, even if reared apart. b) Prenatal problems or birth complications. Damage to the fetal brain increases likelihood. If mother suffers from malnutrition et. c) Biological events during adolescence- brain undergoes natural pruning-away synapses. Makes brain more efficient normally, but schizo brains prune away too many synapses.
Was this document helpful?
Psychological Disorders
Course: Human Behavior (PSYCH 100)
54 Documents
Students shared 54 documents in this course
University: Lahore University of Management Sciences
Was this document helpful?
Psychological Disorders
Diagnosing mental disorders
-One leading definition: mental disorder is a harmful dysfunction. It involves behavior or an
emotional state that it harmful to oneself or others (as judged by the community or culture) and
dysfunctional because it is not performing its evolutionary function.
-Our definition: any condition that causes a person to suffer, is self-destructive, seriously impairs
a person’s ability to work or get along with others or makes a person unable to control the
impulse to endanger others.
-Classifying: DSM: manual used to diagnose. Primary aim is descriptive- provide clear diagnostic
categories so that clinicians and researchers can agree on which disorders they are talking about
and then can study and treat these disorders.
-Includes attention-deficit orders, disorders due to brain damage from disease or drugs, eating
disorders, problems w sexual identity or behavior, impulse control, personality disorder etc.. Lists
symptoms. Used worldwide. DSM 5 is the most recent
-Limitations:
a) Danger of overdiagnosis. (eg: ADHD is over diagnosed)
b) Power of diagnostic labels. Person viewed in terms of that label.
c) Confusion of serious mental disorder with normal problems.
d) Illusion of objectivity.
Dilemmas of Determination:
-Projective tests: ambiguous pictures, sentences or stories that the test taker completes.
Psychodynamic: that the persons unconscious will be projected onto the test and revealed in the
persons responses. Can help open up, but lack reliability and validity- makes them inappropriate
for most common uses.
Lack reliability bec the clinician may be making their own assumptions. Validity because they fail
to measure what they aim to measure- affected by sleepiness, hunger, medication etc.
Rorschach inkblot test.
Used to also see if a child is abused in childhood by giving them detailed dolls. However, again
lacked validity because not tested on control group. They in fact increase the risk of false reports
of touch.
-Objective tests: standardized questionnaires ask about the test taker’s behavior and feelings.
Beck depression inventory for depression, and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventor for
personality and emotional disorders. Has 4 additional validity scales.
Anxiety Disorders:
-Generalized Anxiety Disorder: excessive, uncontrollable anxiety or worry. Occurs on majority of
the days for a 6-month period. Some don’t need a cause, have genetic predisposition to
experience it. Sweaty palms, racing heart, shortness of breath in unfamiliar and uncontrollable
situations. Abnormalities in the amygdala.
-May also stem from experience. Some have a history starting in childhood of being unable to
control or predict their environments.
