Download Abnormal Psychology

Psychopathology
 Psychopathology – Any
pattern of emotions,
behaviors, or thoughts
inappropriate to the
situation and leading to
personal distress or the
inability to achieve
important goals.
 AKA – Mental Illness,
Mental Disorders
Psychopathology
 300+ forms of psychopathology have been identified
 3 classic symptoms of severe psychopathology:
 Hallucinations – False sensory experiences. (Different
than illusions)
 Delusions – Extreme Disorders of thinking, involving
persistent false beliefs. They are the hallmark of
paranoid disorders.
 Affective Disturbances – Refers to mood or emotion.

Depression, anxiety, or mania
Psychopathology
 More subtle indicators of psychopathology:
 Distress
 Maladaptiveness
 Irrationality
 Unpredictability
 Unconventionality and undesirable behavior
Changing Concepts of Psychological
Disorders
 Historical Roots
 The Greeks and the Humors (Bile, Blood, etc.)
 The medical model – The view that mental disorders are
diseases that, like ordinary physical diseases, have
objective physical causes and require specific
treatments.
 Social-cognitive-behavioral approach – A psychological
alternative to the medical model that views
psychological disorder through a combination of the
social, cognitive, and behavioral perspectives.
 Biopsychology View – Biology plays a part in mental
disorders.
Perspectives on Psychological
Disorders
 Medical Model – The concept that diseases, in this
case psychological disorders, have physical causes that
can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured
often through treatment in a hospital.
 Biopsychosocial approach – The idea that all behavior,
regular or abnormal, is a result of the interaction of
nature and nurture.
How Are Psychological Disorders
Classified?
 DSM-IV-TR – The classification system most widely
accepted for classifying psychological disorders.
 Neurosis – Before the DSM-IV, this term was used as a
label for subjective distress or self-defeating behavior
that did not show sigs of brain abnormalities or grossly
irrational thinking.
 Psychosis – A disorder involving profound
disturbances in perception, rational thinking, or affect.
Anxiety Disorders
 Anxiety Disorders – Psychological disorders
characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or
maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety.
 Generalized Anxiety Disorder
 Panic Disorder
 Phobias
 Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
 Post-traumatic stress disorder
Anxiety Disorders
 Generalized Anxiety Disorders – A psychological
problem characterized by persistent and pervasive
feelings of anxiety, without any external cause.
Anxiety Disorders
 Panic disorder – A disturbance marked by panic
attacks that have no obvious connection with events in
the person’s present experience.
 Unlike generalized anxiety disorder, the victim is usually
free of anxiety between panic attacks.
Anxiety Disorders
 Phobias – A group of anxiety disorders involving a
pathological fear of a specific object or situation.
 Agoraphobia – A fear of public places and open spaces,
commonly accompanied by panic disorder.
Anxiety Disorders
 Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – A condition
characterized by patterns of persistent, unwanted
thoughts and behaviors.
Anxiety Disorders
 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – An anxiety disorder
characterized by haunting memories, nightmares,
social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and/or insomnia
that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic
experience.
 Post-Traumatic Growth – Positive psychological
changes as a result of struggling with extremely
challenges circumstances and life crises.
Factors that Influence Anxiety
Disorders




Fear Conditioning
Observational Learning
Genetics
The Brain
 Involves overarousal of
brain areas involved in
impulse control and
habitual behaviors.

Anterior cingulate cortex.



Monitors our actions and
checks for errors. Is
hyperactive in people
with OCD.
Amygdala
P. 575
Somatoform Disorders
 Somatoform disorders –
Psychological disorder in
which the symptoms take
a somatic (bodily) form
without apparent physical
cause.
Somatoform Disorders
 Conversion Disorder – A rare somatoform disorder
in which a person experiences very specific genuine
physical for which no physiological basis can be found.
 Unexplained paralysis
 Unexplained blindness
 Inability to swallow
Somatoform Disorder
 Hypochondriasis – A
somatoform disorder in
which a person interprets
normal physical
sensations as symptoms
of a disease.
Dissociative Disorders
 Dissociative Disorders
– Disorders in which
conscious awareness
becomes separated
(dissociated) from
previous memories,
thoughts, and feelings.
Dissociative Disorders
 Dissociative Amnesia – A psychologically induced loss
of memory for personal information, such as one’s
identity or residence.
Dissociative Disorders
 Dissociative Fugue – Essentially the same as
dissociative amnesia, but with the addition of “flight”
from one’s home, family, and job.
Dissociative Disorders
 Depersonalization Disorder – An abnormality
involving the sensation that mind and body have
separated, as in an “out-of-body” experience.
Dissociative Disorders
 Dissociative Identity
Disorder – A rare
dissociative disorder in
which a person exhibits
two or more distinct and
alternating personalities.
 AKA – Multiple
Personality Disorder.
Mood Disorders
 Mood Disorders –
Psychological disorders
characterized by
emotional extremes.
Mood Disorders
 Major Depressive Disorder – A mood disorder in
which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or
a medical condition, two or more weeks of significant
depressed moods, feelings of worthlessness, and
diminished interest or pleasure in most activities.
Mood Disorders
 Seasonal Affective Disorder – Mood disorder that is
believed to be a form of depression caused by
deprivation of sunlight.
Mood Disorders
 Mania – A mood disorder
marked by a hyperactive,
wildly optimistic state.
Mood Disorders
 Bipolar Disorder – A
mood disorder in which
the person alternates
between the hopelessness
and lethargy of
depression and the
overexcited state of
mania.
 AKA – Manic –
Depressive Disorder
Understanding Mood Disorders
 Many behavioral and cognitive changes accompany





depression.
Depression is widespread.
Compared with men, women are nearly twice as vulnerable
to major depression.
Most major depressive episodes self-terminate.
Stressful events related to work, marriage, and close
relationships often precede depression.
With each new generation, depression is striking earlier,
now often in the late teens, and affecting more people.
Eating Disorders
 Anorexia Nervosa – An eating disorder involves
persistent loss of appetite that endangers an
individual’s health and stems from emotional or
psychological reasons rather than from organic causes.
 Bulimia Nervosa – An eating disorder characterized by
eating binges followed by “purges” induced by
vomiting or laxatives; typically initiated as a weight
control measure.
Schizophrenia
 Schizophrenia – “Split mind.” Refers not to a
multiple-personality split but rather to a split from
reality that shows itself in disorganized thinking,
disturbed perceptions, and inappropriate emotions
and actions.
 The thinking of a person with schizophrenia is
fragmented, bizarre, and often distorted by false beliefs
called delusions.
Schizophrenia
 Paranoid –
Preoccupation with
delusions or
hallucinations, often with
themes of persecution or
grandiosity.
Schizophrenia
 Disorganized –
Disorganized speech or
behavior, or flat or
inappropriate emotion.
Schizophrenia
 Catatonic – Immobility,
extreme negativism, and
/ or parrotlike repeating
of another’s speech or
movements.
Schizophrenia
 Undifferentiated – Many and varied symptoms.
Schizophrenia
 Residual – Withdrawal,
after hallucinations and
delusions disappeared.
Personality Disorders
 Personality Disorders – Conditions involving a
chronic, pervasive, inflexible, and maladaptive pattern
of thinking, emotion, social relationships, or impulse
control.
Personality Disorders
 Narcissistic Personality Disorder – Characterized by a
grandiose sense of self-importance, a preoccupation
with fantasies of success or power, and a need for
constant attention or admiration.
Personality Disorders
 Borderline Personality Disorder – An unstable
personality given to impulsive behavior.
Personality Disorders
 Antisocial Personality Disorders – A personality
disorder in which the person (usually a man) exhibits a
lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends
and family members.
 May be aggressive and ruthless or a clever con artist.
Developmental Disorders
 Autism – A developmental disorder marked by
disabilities in language, social interaction, and the
ability to understand another person’s state of mind.
Developmental Disorders
 Dyslexia – A reading disability, thought by experts to
involve a brain disorder.
Developmental Disorders
 Attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder –
A psychological disorder
marked by the appearance
by age 7 of one or more of
three key symptoms:
extreme inattention,
hyperactivity, and
impulsivity.
Insanity
 Insanity – A legal term, not a psychological or
psychiatric one, referring to a person who is unable,
because of a mental disorder or defect, to conform his
or her behavior to the law.
Jail or Hospital?
 Andrea Yates
 Drowned her five children shortly after being taken off
antipsychotic medication.
 Children were ages 7, 5, 3, 2, and 6 months.
 One jury found her guilty
 2nd jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity.
 What do you think?