Download PsychAP Notes pt 11

PsychAP Notes pt 11
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More known as Psychological Disorders rather than Abnormal Psychology because we need to define
normal to have something abnormal. Also, if psychological disorders are so common, how can it be
abnormal? The AP still refers to Psychological Disorders as Abnormal Psychology. Just something to take
note of.
Defining abnormal behaviors and psychological disorders: we have to start with understanding what
makes things psychologically abnormal.
One way to define it is through the Statistical Frequency Approach, which would imply that something
is abnormal if the behavior happens infrequently in relation to the general population. You have to be
careful about this. Being a CEO, living in North Dakota, having a bird as a pet, meaning everything is
abnormal. That is the danger in the statistical frequency approach.
Here’s the second way to define it. The Social Norms Approach. We’re working the word normal into
there. What deviates from accepted social standards. Thus, being a CEO and earning a PhD are not
abnormal because they are socially accepted. However, it changes and there are cultural differences.
Some cultures in Europe men hug and kiss each other when they meet. In some tribes stealing from your
neighbor gives you status. In certain cultures jealousy is a good thing. The norm changes from a cultural
standpoint. Time, too. 40 or 50 years ago you didn’t see people wearing earrings. In the 80’s there were
a lot more people wearing them.
The best way to describe a disorder is if you can’t function in society. This is the Maladaptive Behavior
Approach. The other two are problematic. If the behavior interferes with the person’s ability to function
as a person or in society. If someone washes their hands every five minutes and their hands are bleeding
and they can’t focus for more than five minutes, then it’s maladaptive. When alcohol addiction becomes
maladaptive, it qualifies as a psychological disorder.
There are words we want to avoid: crazy, nuts, psycho, deranged, etc. We want to use mentally ill,
unstable, suffering from a psychological disorder.
The client is suffering from a psychological disorder. It says that it’s temporary or curable. It says that
it’s a person who is suffering rather than a crazy guy.
The word insane is only used in a legal setting. It is a legal term for mentally disturbed people who are
not considered responsible for their criminal actions. It is not used in a clinical setting. You should not
see this word at any point in your book or on the AP unless you are specifying a legal situation. Those
found insane often spend more time in mental institutions than they would have in prison. If they’re
insane, it’s a severe psychological problem. Maybe it’s a person in a mental institution that their
insurance ran out. They left the mental institution and found themselves unable to function in society
and rob a convenience store. Do they end up in a mental institution for the criminally insane?
Models of the Causes of Psychological Disorders – different that defining abnormal psychology. We’re
going to talk about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) to think about these models. Correlated
with repetition, making everything neat. We need to differentiate obsessions and compulsions.
Obsessions are more of a thought, compulsions are more of an act. If a guy meets a woman and falls in
love with her it does not qualify as an obsession. OCD is dealing with intrusive and reoccurring
thought, and typically unwanted. People who suffer know that they don’t need to but they believe that it
is out of their control. It’s an anxiety disorder. People who wash their hands 100 times a day have
anxiety issues about germs. Hoarding is considered a compulsion. People who are secretaries
sometimes have OCD because they know where everything goes.
The Biological Model. In this model, mental disorders are diseases. They are caused by physiological
disfunctioning. OCD seems to be associated with low levels of serotonin. So they give people serotonin to
deal with OCD. It can also be caused by head trauma or epilepsy. You can be genetically predisposed to
getting OCD. A psychiatrist is most likely to use this.
The Psychoanalytic Model (Freud unconscious conflicts). OCD is seen as a control issue. It suggests
that unconscious events or conflicts have led to the disfunctioning. If a child has a lot of conflict with
getting potty trained, the person may be overcontrolling later in life. Frued thought that OCD was selfinduced, that people were punishing themselves because of their inability to poop. The secretary earlier
is described as being anal-retentive. When it becomes maladaptive it is considered a disorder.
The Cognitive-Behavioral Model entails how we think and learn. Distorted thinking and learning
processes. Disorders are the result of learning maladaptive ways of behaving and thinking. Distorted
learning processes have led to the disorder. Specifically with OCD, maybe it relieves anxiety. This
conditioning leads to a continuation of doing.
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The Diathesis-Stress Model is the one we talk about the least. It has to do with a biological
predisposition to disorder which is triggered by stress. This model does not apply to all disorders. There
is a genetic predisposition to Schizophrenia. A traumatic life will trigger that genetic predisposition. If
they get assaulted or are in a car accident or take a lot of drugs, it may trigger the disorder.
The Systems Theory (biopsychosocial model) is a model in which biological, psychological, and social
risk factors combine to produce psychological disorder. Did that person have a biological predisposition
and did they think about it a lot? These factors combine to produce a disorder.
Diagnosing and the DSM. The DSM is the primary and only diagnostic manual. It is used for diagnosing
mental disorders. It is currently the DSM IV TR (4th edition, Text revision). The new revision will come
out by the time the 2013 AP, and will be called the DSM 5. It is as important to psychiatrists as the U.S.
constitution is to Americans and the bible is to Catholics. It is about diagnosing everything. It does not
speculate the causes. It is strictly the diagnosis of it. The clinician should know the past causes. It’s an
important book, but is also controversial. Psychologists have certain viewpoints and can disagree. It
doesn’t leave room for the grayness of psychology.
Once a diagnosis is forced upon a clinician, the insurance companies will back their patient. Stereotyping
and trying to find insurance follows. Suddenly when someone is diagnosed as clinically depressed, they
get this label on them that can get a person or other people thinking in different ways. Things you see in
the book are not things of mental illnesses. It has to do with trouble falling asleep. The more it’s
structured, the more controversial it gets.
If everyone is using the same book, it creates a medium for knowing what the symptoms of some thing
are. It puts researchers and clinicians on the same page. The article from the reading was the lead writer
on the DSM. In the article he says that it’s bullshit. He says that you can’t diagnose. These concepts are
virtually too impossible to draw bright lines. The way they defined some disorders, the diagnosis for
some diseases skyrocketed. The main guy expressed his regrets. He points how the guy who wrote the
part on bipolar disorders gets a lot of money from pharmaceutical companies.
Mood Disorders. If we’re going to talk about anxiety disorders, we have these subgroupings. Mood
Disorders include Depression. As it turns out there is no diagnosis of depression in the DSM. All
diagnoses of depression start with what’s called a major depressive episode. The word depressed gets
thrown around. Sad, dejected, feeling bad. It is an intense, unrealistic sadness affected numerous aspects
of a person’s functioning. This unrealistic intense sadness needs to be occurring for two weeks to be a
major depressive episode. A couple things that are changed by this depression: sleep (not wanting to
wake up every day), appetite (weight gain or weight loss. If a person already gets a lot, it’s not an issue.
It a person eats a lot more and stops eating, we have a change of appetite), motivation, sociability
(isolating oneself more), focus (decision making, cognitive functioning), lack of energy, loss of
pleasure (they don’t like to do the things they like to do), suicidal ideation (thoughts of suicide. If a
person has reoccurring thoughts and belief that they wouldn’t be there anymore).
The BIG FOUR are Sleep, Appetite, Social Isolation, and Suicidal Ideation. Changes in those ideas.
If a person has one or more depressive episodes in their lifetime, then from a technical aspect, they have
major depressive disorder. Let’s say a person has one. And they get the diagnosis and they get the
treatment and don’t have an episode. Technically they’ve met the criteria for a major depressive
disorder. A person has been detoxing from heroin use. They’re going to have these issues, but it’s not
from depression, it’s from something out. The important one is greivement. Maybe someone close died.
Maybe it’s from trauma.
When we talk about depression and major depression, neither of those are a technical clinical term. The
clinical term is called the major depressive disorder.
Some people have a milder depression. It’s longer lasting. It’s similar symptoms but not as intense.
Dysthymic Disorder is another type of mood disorder. It is less intense, but over a period of two years.
How is depression commonly treated? Therapy and medication. These medications increase serotonin.
SSRI’s increase serotonin. They inhibit the uptake so serotonin is more active. For someone who is on
medication, these symptoms may be alleviated.
Therapy: changes in lifestyle. Hygiene, eating, exercise. The therapy for depression is a cognitive
therapy: changes in thinking. Other than low levels of serotonin, this can happen from other things.
Failing a course can make people believe that they are failures in life and will make them sad. Then it
starts a chain that people don’t want to hang out with him because he is depressed. Cognitive Therapy
wants to break that cycle. If a person has gotten into an expectation of failure, cognitive therapy is
supposed to catch that and stop it. Typically SSRI’s take 2 weeks. Some of the feelings could be alleviated
by more than one treatment.
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What is the advantage of anti-depressants? Fast, work within two weeks, cheaper. Best practice would
ideally include both. Do you need to be on medication the rest of your life to feel not depressed? No. It’s
to get through an episode. That’s where these things go hand in hand. One theory is that one person
going into anti-depressants and then at some point they start to think differently with cognitive therapy.
Then once the person is off medications they can continue cognitive therapy for a while. Antidepressants are not physiologically addictive.
Van Gough, Dickens, Beethoven, Hemmingway. There is evidence that they suffered from Bipolar Mood
Disorder. It consists of two parts.
People who have been diagnosed have had at least one major depressive episode (lasting two weeks).
They will have also had a manic episode (lasting one week), periods of mania (high energy levels, high
confidence, conquer anything, etc). A person in a manic episode has increased energy, a less of a need
for sleep, an increased self-esteem, better mood, higher distractibility, racing thoughts, unusual
talkativeness (probably the most noticeable change), reckless behavior ++ (particularly financial or
sexual, often the tipping point). You need three or more of these in a one-week period.
People with bipolar mood disorder have times where things are normal. There are alternating periods
of depressive and manic episodes mixed in with regularity. Bipolar Mood Disorder is referred to Manic
Depression, more common in women than men, a very strong biological component.
Beginning in the 1980’s there were studies with the Amish community. The Amish don’t drink and they
do drugs. The symptoms of BMD are similar to those of alcohol. The overlap of drug use and BMD is
common.
Lithium is the most common treatment for BMD. Some people don’t like to stay on their medication.
They see the major depressive episode when they go internal with the turmoil within and the manic
episode is when they come out and produce their killer work. Some artists have been fueled by all these
things. Lithium has a 75% success rate.
Here comes more anxiety disorders.
Characterized by anxiety or behaviors that reduce anxiety.
Unexpected recurring panic attacks: Panic Disorder. A Panic Attack is like an episode but much more
finite. People experience panic attacks. It entails a period of apprehension or terror accompanied by
increased heart rate, shortness of breath, dizziness, trembling, nausea, and sweating. This seems very
similar to a sympathetic nervous system reaction. The psychological symptoms include the fear of dying
and the fear of losing control. Panic attack is the clinical term. Anxiety attack is probably more
widespread but it’s not right. It can last up to an hour, peaks within ten minutes, and are unexpected and
predictable: attached to a certain situation or object. There might be certain stressors or certain times of
the year when it comes up more often but if it always occurred when a person went to the beach, it
would probably be a phobia of beaches or sharks. Some people have one and don’t have another one
again. To have the disorder, you must have reoccurring panic attacks.
What is a phobia? An intense irrational fear. Things that people often fear are things not at all that bad.
There are lots of different types of phobias. It is disproportionate to the actual danger. It must last at
least six months to be a clinically diagnosed phobia. When is it maladaptive enough that it must be
diagnosed? This guy who has a fear of elevators and heights and gets offered a job in the big city on the
67th floor.
There are specific phobias: used to be known as simple phobias. It is triggered by an object or situation.
It could be animals, snakes, sharks, natural environment (water, sunlight, heights, pollution), childhood
onset, blood, needles, injections, (situational) bridges, airplanes, claustrophobia, etc. There are several
hundred phobias. The DSM only rattles off specific phobias. The person recognizes that the phobia is
unnatural. If someone believed that sharks are out to get him or her it would be another diagnosis.
Shark attacks are unrealistic.
None of this is in the DSM. Ballistophobia is the fear of bullets. Chromophobia is the fear of certain colors.
Latin is generally pretty important. Ergophobia is the fear of work. Hemotophobia is the fear of blood.
Ombrophobia is the fear of rain. Sphyllophobia is a fear of Syphillis. None of these are in the DSM.
A Social phobia is a phobia having to do with the presence of people. If you are worried about being
judged, it is a social phobia. If someone were afraid of spiders only when they are in the presence of
people, then that fear would be a social phobia. The most common situations: eating in the presence of
other people, public speaking, and meeting new people. Your knees might shake, you might tremble, it’s
all about feeling this anxiety and the fear of scrutiny. These people find great discomfort in social
situations.
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7% of people who live in western cultures will sometime experience a phobia over a period of six
months and 12% will experience it sometime in their life. On Handout 14-11, people with scores closer
to 100 potentially have social phobias. If you have a social phobia around eating you wouldn’t go to the
Hill School. A lot of people with social phobias with eating eat in their own rooms.
The fear of public places is Agoraphobia: the fear of having panic attacks in a situation where they
cannot escape. It makes people afraid to leave home or a small radius around their home. It would
happen in crowded places: elevators, airplanes, trains, etc. In NYC there is this person who can get
anything they need in the 3-block radius. That person doesn’t want to go to the dentist because the
dentist is too long of a walk and they are afraid of being away from home. If something happens within
that 3-block radius they can get back to safety within 5 minutes. They are often unwilling to leave their
home or a small range around their home. If a person has a spouse that is willing to do all the grocery
shopping then it works out.
Another anxiety disorder is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Lots of people experience
posttraumatic stress with anxiety. When does it become a disorder? First, it’s a traumatic experience
where a person has experienced or witnessed a death or serious injury. It was first noted after WWI and
they had “shell shock,” that loud noises would get the soldiers on edge. It is noted in combat situations. A
key part to it becoming a disorder is 1) it lasts for 1 month and 2) an aspect of reliving the experience:
in dreams or in flash-memories. They see visions of their combat friends. Intrusive recollections. The
anxiety disorders cross over in OCD if they obsess about visions about their mangled friends, the fact
that it’s reliving the event makes it PTSD rather than OCD. It can be triggered from internal and external
cues. Other symptoms: potential suicidal ideation, hyper vigilance, etc.
The book talks about post-traumatic growth. A person has a traumatic experience and it changes their
viewpoint and it makes them a new person. A post-trauma anyone is going to have issues. If you were in
a car accident, it would be reasonable that you would be on edge for a while. Post-trauma stress would
happen to anyone. Growing and evolving from it is different. They call this a heightened startle
response.
HANDOUT 14-7: 405 intro psych students took it, the average was 48.8 (3 in the middle). Women scored
on average higher than men.
All anxiety disorders involve a sense of worrying. When worrying is the main issue then it is
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). It involves prolonged, vague, and intense fears. Unrealistic
worries: maybe the sense that something bad is going to happen. They know it is disproportionate to the
actual event. People may have difficulty focusing. Acacdemics
Thoughts on disorders: PTSD and GAD have similarities. They are both hyper-vigilant but one literally
lives through an event. For PTSD there is an exaggerated startled response. There are no panic attacks
in GAD, only excessive worrying, with no previous trauma.
With OCD the acts and thoughts reduce anxiety. A mother is tormented that she might get germs on
food (obsession). She uses rubber gloves, boils and sterilizes everything. Ritualistic – on his way to bed
each night, the child walks a certain way to ensure that something doesn’t happen to his mother.
Our third category is the schizophrenic disorders. Schizophrenia means “split mind.” It is not split in
personality. For a while they mixed it with personality disorders. It is a split between emotional and
intellectual uses in functioning. A person who goes through bizarre behaviors and cognitions as well
as a significant departure from reality may be going through schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is known
to be one of the most debilitating psychological diseases.
Disorders of thought, perception, and movement: think back to Jerry and the movements the other
men were doing. Symptoms occur for at least 6 months.
THOUGHT: grandiose ideas (wanted to go to medical school), unorganized, delusions and unfounded
false beliefs. If a person doesn’t talk about it then it’s not a problem. “The painting had a headache.”
PERCEPTIONS: perhaps hallucination. Jerry didn’t talk about it. Hallucinations are generally, in
schizophrenia, auditory (hearing voices). There are instances of visual, olfactory, and tactile
hallucinations. There are in order of prevalence. Auditory comes out the most.
MOVEMENT: some were rocking, playing with hair, lack of movement. There was catatonic movement
(not doing anything, remaining immobile).
A positive symptom: when something is happening that wasn’t happening before. It’s added. The
talking, disorganized thoughts, mannerisms, confused thinking.
Negative Symptoms: something’s missing: a deficit. Not oving, intellectual impairment, lack of speech,
not wanting to be around people, a volition means a lack of motivation, loss of pleasure, lack of emotion.
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Positive symptoms have more of a prognosis. A person with positive symptoms typically respond to
medication better.
Sybtypes: grouping of symptoms of things.
o Paranoid Schizophrenia: a person does not have to fall into one of the these subtypes. Mostly
disorders in perception and thought: using common sense, having delusions of people trying to
get you (persecution). Delusions of grandeur – angry, suspicious, argumentative. If you’re
hearing things then you may be paranoid. If you’re in a big city and you see a homeless person
talking to themselves, they will meet the criteria as a paranoid schizophrenic. They believe that
the second coming is near. They are on the streets because of their symptoms. =
o Disorganized Schizophrenia: higher functioning: more like child behavior. Confused,
incoherent speech. Jerry wasn’t incoherent. Although it didn’t make sense it connected. Word
salad: these people mix feelings and senses in a really disorganized sentence. Inappropriate
smiling and giggling at things. The disorganized behavior (-) extreme neglect of appearance or
hygiene. Bizarre ideas of one’s body: melting bones or kryptonite in side them.
Disorganized Schizophrenia is harder to recover from. Childlike behavior, childlike speech, disorganized
movement.
When you think of catatonic, you think of not moving. There was this guy hunching over and still. That’s
the hallmark; issues of immobility. There are periods of excessive and random movement. In some cases
the person doesn’t speak. Catatonic Schizophrenia has different symptoms. One way to tell if a person
has catatonic schizophrenia versus some other neurological disorder (or faking it). Waxy flexibility is
the idea that you can move someone’s arm and they will stay in that position. They are a wax doll.
If you were to ask someone with disorganized, “how do you comb your hair?” A person with
schizophrenia will use their hand as a comb when it is clear that you have handed them a comb.
Undifferentiated Schizophrenia does not fit any subtype. It is the most common diagnosis because it is
a mix of everything: a pick and choose.
Schizophrenia is not a disease of nurture by any means. The disorganized thought and speech, the idea
about bizarre thing. There is some sort of statistic.
1 in 100 may develop schizophrenia at some point in their lives. In theory, 5 people at the Hill School
should develop Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia has a tremendous genetic factor. If anyone in their
immediate family has it, they have a 10-12% chance of getting it. In the general population it is in
families. Don’t send your potentially Schizophrenic kid to the Hill School with STRESS. They need to be
monitored and less stressed than what goes on in boarding schools. Families with schizophrenia don’t
stay in the upper class at all. People become schizophrenics toward the late teens and the early twenties.
There are differentiating levels of severity. You have come across people who have had issues with
schizophrenia but who have had mild flare-ups. Because the levels of severity are so wide-ranging. 4.5
Million were diagnosed in the United States in 2000. If it’s not in the family, it’s not going to happen.
Schizophrenia does not seem to be limited to a certain cultural component, as much as it is with autism
or depression. It is cross-cultural.
Why is it happening and what causes it? The two things:
Levels of Dopamine: connected with pleasure but not limited to it. It is a reason that people don’t like
the medication because the medication decreases the total levels of dopamine. The medication helps
treat the positive symptoms.
You have these sacs in your brain full of fluid called ventricles. For whatever reason, enlarged
ventricles seem to be common for people with schizophrenia. There are lots of theories as to why it
may be but it is more of a correlation.
What kind of treatment do we give? Anti psychotics, neuroleptics (the most common being
Thorazine and Haloperidal). There are lots of different uses including a tranquilizing effect. High levels
of thorazine is used for convulsions. Withdrawal of alcohol: has a common effect.
The Psychiatric ward we saw: we can assume all of them are on thorazine. Finding the right therapeutic
level: at high levels it can sedate them. Have the symptoms been alleviated or is the person just drugged
up on high levels? Running a psychiatric ward would be a tough job. If you gave a lot of medication, it
would calm things down. There is controversy over treating the symptoms or numbing people. The
appropriate therapeutic dose is a fine line. Appropriate use can have anti-psychotic effects.
Rule of Thirds and Rule of Quarters: the idea that a percentage of people will need to stay in a ward their
entire lives. A percentage of people can live outside (in and out of a ward) and a percentage of people
can run a normal life.
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Dissociate Disorders: there is a separation from reality that happens. Disorders in which some part of
the personality seems separated from the rest. It might be a psychogenic disruption of memory and
identity not due to an accident or some medication. It is characterized by a person having a disruption,
split, or breakdown in his or her normal integrated self. It is often in response to extreme stress (sounds
like PTSD and Schizophrenia). In PTSD the person relives the trauma. In a Dissociative disorder, their
memory would disappear completely for a period of time: escaping from trauma.
Dissociative Disorders include other disorders: dissociative amnesia, the loss of memory without a
physical cause (psychogenic). It is beyond normal forgetness. It includes in the inability to recall
important person information or events. WALTER WHITE said that he has dissociative amnesia when he
goes out and wants his wife not to know.
Whoops, this is the one that Walt had. Dissociative Fugue: disturbance marked by suddenly and
unexpectedly traveling away from home or place of work and being unable to recall one's past. It
involves flight from home and adoption of a new identity and amnesia for past events.
What is actually a problem is Dissociative Identity disorder. It is commonly referred to as multiple
personality disorder. People have different ways of thinking. There are different IQ scores. The person
has several distinct personalities that emerge at different times. Two or more distinct identities or
personality states, each with its own patter of perceiving, thinking about, and relating to the world.
Sometimes one personality knows about the other. The first personality is typically the person’s true
identity.
Is something validated if it is in the DSM? No, just a handful of people believe in it. Those who believe that
Dissociative Identity Disorder does not exist believe that it is an extension of your existing self: that you
act differently in different situations. Some people believe that it should be under the umbrella of PTSD.
It comes out due to stress, etc.
So far we have done: anxiety, mood, schizophrenic, dissociative, and now we are at somatoform disorders.
First, we need to get into psychosomatic symptoms: real physical illness with psychological causes such
as stress or anxiety. It’s real and medically viable. Research indicated that most, if not all, illnesses may
have a psychosomatic component.
Next, Somatoform Disorders are physical symptoms without any physical cause. It’s in the person’s
head. If the doctor does all the tests and there’s nothing that comes up wrong about the person, then it
becomes and feels real for the person. It is marked by a pattern of recurring, multiple, and significant
bodily (somatic) symptoms that extend over several years. The assumption is that the person is not
faking it.
Conversion disorder is a key term in the book. In popular culture it is referred to as psychosomatic. It is
a very dramatic, specific disability without physical cause (no organic cause can be identified). It refers
to changing anxiety or emotional distress into physical, motor, sensory, or neurological symptoms. In
theory, the person feeling a lot of psychological stress has a converting of that stress into a perceived
physical stress. Their brains are firing in a way as though they are actually feeling pain. There is no
indication that they are feeling pain. But it’s not just pain. What’s key with conversion disorder (very
rare), not faking it, is that it’s often ONE specific thing. It might be unexplained blindness. Paralysis of
certain body limbs, impaired balance. It’s in one area. It’s not like they’re jumping around from one area
to another. The question is, is it in the person’s head?
Hypochondriasis is something much more common. With this disorder minor symptoms are interpreted
as a sign of a serious illness. A person may really have a sore throat, but they think they have throat
cancer. The medical diagnosis does not back what they think they really have. It persists and these
people go to different doctors. In some cases they might not want to go to a doctor because they don’t
want to know that it’s illegitimate. There is some overlap with OCD.
Know that somatoform disorders are areas in which the medical evidence is negligible. There are some
more somatoform disorders that’s not necessary to get in to.
Potential Causes of Somatoform Disorders
o Psychoanalytic - Frued: symptoms related to traumatic experience in the past. If you believe
that’s the case then the person needs to explore his/her unconscious. It would be hard to treat if
there is no medical diagnosis.
o Cognitive behavioral: the people like the attention. A clinician will examine what the
reinforcement is and how it is being rewarded.
o Biological perspective: may be real physical illness that are misdiagnosed or overlooked. Maybe
the person is blind but they couldn’t figure it out and Dr. House figures it out. BOOM.
Personality disorders is are final category. Obviously with multiple personality disorders it’s more
chronic. It’s the way the person is and it’s not healthy. The way they act on a normal basis annoys other
people. It’s not a flare-up. Personality disorders are hard to describe.
 There are six types of disorders. There are 10 personality disorders, you don't need to know all ten.
 The only one you need to know is Anti-Social Personality Disorder. You should know what makes
something a disorder.
 A personality disorder is a disorder in which inflexible thinking and maladaptive ways of thinking and
behaving (learned in early life) cause distress in the person and/or conflicts with others. Ther words
pervasive and longstanding come to mind. It’s hard to diagnose that there’s a problem. A person does
not believe that there is a problem.
 About 3% of men and 1% of women have a personality disorder. The rate among prisoners is close to
50%. A lot of prisoners have anti-social disorder.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Not on the test
 There are three clusters of personality disorders
o Eccentric
 Paranoid Disorder
 Schizoid Disorder: a loner who does not want to be in relationships
 Schizotypal Disorder
o Fear-Based
 Avoidant Disorder
 Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder – it’s part of their personality
 Dependent Personality Disorder – lots of different things
o Dramatic
 Histrionic: Regina George
 Narcissistic: self-important, manipulative, Regina George.
 Borderline – between psychotic and neurotic
 Antisocial Personality Disorder – disregarding and violating the rights of others.