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Abnormal Psychology
Mental Illness
• Misleading term
• Stigma associated with term
• Psychological Disorder:
– A “harmful dysfunction” in which behavior is
judged to be atypical, disturbing, maladaptive,
and unjustifiable
Abnormal Behavior
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Dysfunction
 Distress
 Deviance
 Dangerousness
Causes
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Biological
Psychodynamic
Behavioral
Cognitive
Etc.
Diagnosis
Factors:
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Reported symptoms
Past history
Family history
Observed behavior
Testing
• Objective inventories: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Inventory (MMPI), Beck Depression Inventory
• Projective or subjective inventories: I.e. Rorschack Ink Blot
Test
Diagnosis
• Factors
– Drug use
• Illegal
• Legal
– Reactions to medications
– Physical health
– Faking illness (secondary gain)
Diagnosis
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM IV TR)
– Must meet a certain # of criteria from this to
receive diagnosis
– Criticized because:
• Illnesses listed can change based on who sits on the
diagnostic panel, what is currently politically
correct, etc.
• The potential of labeling of individuals
Schizophrenia
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A thought disorder involving major disturbances of perception, language,
thought, emotion, and behavior
Usually experiences either / or (sometimes both):
– Positive symptoms: (added)
• may include delusions, auditory and/or visual hallucinations,
disorganized thinking or behavior
– Negative symptoms (lessened)
• includes flat, unresponsive affect, lack of appropriate emotion,
decreased fluency or productivity of speech, social difficulties, and
inability to initiate and persist in goal directed activities
Schizophrenia
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Causes may include:
– Heredity (genetic predisposition)
– Stress on those predisposed to the illness
– Brain abnormalities
• Size of cerebral ventricles and fissures in brain are enlarged
• Too much dopamine around certain receptor areas
Male onset averages in the late teens / early twenties
Female onset averages in late twenties / early thirties
Effects approx. 1 in 100 individuals
Anxiety Disorders
• Most common mental illness diagnosis
– High comorbidity (often occurs with other
illnesses)
• Characterized by:
– unrealistic, irrational fear, or long term feelings
of worry, apprehension, and dread
– cause people to lead restricted lives in order to
avoid these things
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Long-lasting, continuous, seemingly
uncontrollable anxiety or worry that is not
necessarily focused on an object or situation
• Feelings of foreboding or dread
Panic Disorder
• Brief, but often recurring attacks of intense fear, anxiety,
or panic called panic attacks
– Can last minutes or hours
– Often described as feeling like a heart attack or that the
individual is about to die
Phobias
• Phobias are strong irrational fears of objects or situations
– Go beyond fears due to the level of impairment
• Three main categories
– Social phobias are tied to situations (stage fright)
– Specific phobias are tied to objects (knives, etc.)
– Agoraphobia: the fear of being alone in public place or being away
from one’s safe place
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD)
• Usually the result of disturbing or traumatic events in an individuals
life (or have been witnessed)
• Characterized by continuing to experience all or parts of the event
through flashbacks and / or dreams
– Can include sights, sounds, smells, feelings (emotional and
physical)
• Can re-occur after being dormant for long periods of time
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
(OCD)
• Obsessions
• characterized by images and thoughts. (e.g. number sequences,
counting uncontrolled anxiety related to recurring thoughts)
• Increase anxiety
• Compulsions
• impulses to exert some action (e.g. hand-washing)
• Often develop to decrease anxiety produced by obsessions
Mood Disorders
• Characterized by extreme disturbances in
emotional states
• Two main types:
– Major Depressive Disorder
– Bipolar Disorder
Euphoric Mood
Depressed Mood
Major Depressive Disorder
• Often referred to as the “common cold” of mental
disorders
• Refers to prolonged intensely reduced mood sometimes
without an obvious cause
• Interferes with ability to function and to enjoy life
• Occurs 2 to 3 times more often in women than men
Major Depressive Disorder
• Symptoms may include:
– Changes in:
• Emotion: often sadness. hopelessness, low self esteem, or numbness
• Behaviors: decrease in motivation and participation in interests,
decrease or increase in sleep, isolation
• Physiological functioning: decreased energy, decrease or increase in
appetite
– Homicidal or Suicidal thoughts
Bipolar Disorder
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Refers to alternating states of reduced mood (depression) and mania
(expansive or elated mood)
Used to be called Manic Depression
Mania is often accompanied by:
• Grandiosity
• Spending sprees
• Promiscuity
• Paranoia
• Psychosis
• Very little if any sleep
Occurs equally in men and women
Dissociative Identity Disorder
(DID)
• Characterized by the presence of two or more distinctive personality
systems in the same individual at different times
– Each may have distinctive memories and characteristics
• Believed to be the result of an individual protecting themselves from
extreme stress, shock, or trauma
• Used to be known as Multiple Personality Disorder
• Controversial in that its critics believe it is more the result of
suggestion than fact.
Personality Disorders
• Characterized by rigid,
maladaptive traits that
cause great distress with
or inability to get along
with others
• Usually has drastic effects
on relationships
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
• Named for Narcissus in
mythology who fell in love with
his reflection
• Involves:
– an exaggerated sense of self
importance and selfabsorption
– often demands constant
attention or admiration
Borderline Personality Disorder
• Involves severe relationship issues through life along with severe
inability to handle emotions;
• Will often attach to one person in a love/hate kind of relationship
• Often is involved in self harm behaviors such as burning themselves
with cigarettes, cutting on self, etc.
• Partially the result of relationship with primary caregiver who was
dependant on the child for emotional support not allowing the child to
learn how to self nurture
Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Characterized by angry and disruptive or violent behavior
• Seemly has no conscious or remorse for behaviors
• The terms psychopath or sociopath is often used when referring to
people with this disorder
• Individuals with this disorder reportedly account for approx. 50% of all
crime in the U.S.
Eating Disorders
• Anorexia Nervosa
– Characterized by self imposed restriction of food resulting in
extreme weight loss
– Often involves:
• Extreme body distortion
• Irrational fear of weight gain
• Eventual cognitive disability
• Death
Eating Disorders
• Bulimia Nervosa
– Characterized by intake of extreme amounts of food (binging),
followed by extreme measures to get rid of food and avoid weight
gain by vomiting (purging), exercise, laxatives, etc.
– Also have body distortions and fear of gaining weight but usually
not as severe as anorexics
– Usually very private in their behaviors
– Can die as a result of hemorrhaging of the esophagus due to its
lining thinning from stomach acids
Addictions
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A compulsion to use a specific substance or engage in a certain activity
repeatedly
– Abuse: large, periodic consumption
– Dependence: must use to maintain functioning
Two main theories:
– Disease Concept or Biological Model
• An individuals genetic pre-disposition
– Behavioral or Learning Concept
• Addictions are learned behavior or habit as a way to cope or meet
some need
Treatment
• Two main theoretical models of treatment
– Medical Model
• Diseases, including psychological disorders, have physical
causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and controlled or cured
(in most cases).
• May include need for hospitalization.
– Bio-psycho-social Model (perspective)
• All behavior, including mental illness, is the result of the
interaction between the biological, psychological, and social
Treatment
• Biomedical
– may administer medication to improve abnormal behavior
– Drug classes include:
• Antianxiety drugs
– Many (not all) of these are addictive
• Antipsychotic drugs improve thought processes
– Can have major adverse side effects
• Antidepressant drugs
• Mood stabilizers
Treatment
• Medications are sometimes given in combination depending on the
problem
• Problems and concerns:
– Side effects
– Dependence issues
– Compliance
– Time
– Individual differences: what works for one individual may not
work for another