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PSYCHOLOGICAL
DISORDERS
True or False
Very few people are actually affected by
psychological disorders.
People sometimes forget a very traumatic
event as a way of coping with the
psychological stress of the trauma.
People whose illnesses are “all in their head”
do not really have symptoms of disease.
Depression is the most common type of
psychological disorder.
Some people do not feel guilty, even when they
commit serious crimes.
Psychological Investigation:
Playing psychologist
What does it really mean to be
“normal” and “abnormal”?
Notion of normality is
incredibly subjective and
fluid
As society changes so do
the concepts of normal and
abnormal
The concepts are culturally
relative
A look at the word: Normal
“Norm”

a statistical measure
roughly equivalent to the
average or median.
American Psychological
Association
Once viewed
homosexuality as an
illness or abnormal.
Today most
psychologists view
homosexuality to not
be a deviant or
abnormal condition.
Defining Disorders
Potential symptoms of
abnormality:



Mental disorders as a violation of
cultural standards
Mental disorders as maladaptive
or harmful behavior
Mental disorders as emotional
distress
A history of “abnormality”
Those who behaved abnormally were
possessed by spirits or demons.
 Treatments
Exorcism- drive out demons by prayer,
starvation, laxatives, or bloodletting.
Flagellants- “saviors” of the church and
morality who would whip or scourge
demons out of a person for a price.
Trephining- a hole is bore into the skull
allowing the evil that inhabited the brain to
escape (most patients died).
The real deal about
“abnormality”
Mental Disorders
 Any behavior or emotional state
that causes an individual great
suffering or worry, is self-defeating
or self-destructive, or is
maladaptive and disrupts the
person’s relationship to the larger
community,
Diagnosing Disorders:
Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual IV (DSM-IV)
1952: APA agreed upon a
standard system for classifying
abnormal behavior
It has been revised four times;
the most recent version is the
1994.
Concerns About Diagnostic
System
•The danger of over
diagnosis
•The power of
diagnostic labels
•Confusion of
serious mental
disorders with
normal problems
•The illusion of
objectivity
DSM-IV Descriptions
Essential features (primary) of
the disorder
Associated features
(secondary) present
Diagnosis criteria
Testing for Disorders
Observation and intake information
Inventories
 Standardized objective questionnaires
requiring written responses; they typically
include scales on which people are asked
to rate themselves.
Rorschach Inkblot Test
 A projective personality test that asks
respondents to interpret abstract,
symmetrical inkblots.
Types of Disorders
Complete the
graphic organizer by
filling in the missing
information.
Cognitive Disorders
Eating Disorders
Mood Disorders
Somatoform Disorders
Disassociative Disorders
Anxiety Disorders
Psychotic Disorders
Personality Disorders
Sexual Disorders
Impulse Control Disorders
Video Recap:
An Overview of
Disorders