Tuesday, February 4, 2014 - 0 Talk Back(s)

Psychological Disorders

Psychological Disorder:  A harmful dysfunction in which behavior is judged to be atypical, disturbing, maladaptive and unjustifiable. 
                                                                                    
                                                                                  Current Perspectives
  • Medical Perspective: psychological disorders are sicknesses and can be diagnosed, treated and cured
  • Bio-Psycho-Social Perspective: assumes biological, psychological and sociocultural factors combine to interact causing psychological disorders. (Used to be called Diathesis-Stress Model: diathesis meaning predisposition and stress meaning environment.)

DSM-IV: Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
  • The big book of disorders
Neurotic Disorders
  • Distressing but one can still function in society and act rationally
Psychotic Disorders
  • Person loses contact with reality, experiences distorted perceptions
  • "These are the people you really need to worry about"
I. Anxiety Disorders

  • A group of conditions where the primary symptoms are anxiety or defenses against anxiety.
  • The patient fears something awful will happen to them.
  • They are in a state of intense apprehension, uneasiness, uncertainty, or fear
    1. Phobias
    • A person experiences sudden episodes of intense dread,
    • Must be an irrational fear
    • Agoraphobia: Fear of public or open spaces

                                 2. Generalized Anxiety Disorder
      • An anxiety disorder in which a person is continuously tense, a apprehensive and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.
      • The patient is constantly tense and worried, feels inadequate, is oversensitive, can't concentrate and suffers from insomnia.
                                  3. Panic Disorder

      • An anxiety disorder marked by a minute-long episode of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking and other frightening sensations.
                                   4. Obsessive-compulsive disorder
      • Persistent unwanted thoughts (obsessions) cause someone to feel the need (compulsion) to engage in a particular action.
      • Obsession about dirt and germs may lead to compulsive hand washing.
                                  5. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
      • Flashbacks or nightmares following a person's involvement in or observation of an extremely stressful event.
    II. Somatoform Disorders

  • Occur when a person manifests a psychological problem through a physiological symptom.
  • Two Types
      1. Hypochondriasis
        • Has frequent physical complaints for which medical doctors are unable to locate the cause.
        • They usually believe that the minor issues (headache, upset stomach) are indicative of more severe illnesses.
                                                         2. Conversion Disorder
        • Report the existence of severe physical problems with no biological reason.
        • Like blindness or paralysis.

III. Dissociative Disorders

  • These disorders involve a disruption in the conscious process
  • Some type of
    1. Psychogenic Amnesia
    • A person cannot remember things with no physiological basis for the disruption in memory.
    • Retrograde Amnesia
    • Not organic amnesia (permanent)
    1. Dissociative Fugue
    • People with psychogenic amnesia find themselves in an unfamiliar environment
    1. Dissociative Identity Disorder
    • Used to be known as Multiple Personality Disorder
    • A person has several rather than one integrated personality
    • Usually connected with a history of childhood abuse or trauma


IV. Mood Disorders

  • Experience extreme or inappropriate emotion
    1. Major Depression
    • unipolar depression
    • Unhappy for at least two week with no apparent cause
    1. Seasonal Affective Disorder
    • Experience depression during the winter months
    • Based not on temperature, but on the amount of sunlight
    • Treated with light therapy
    1. Bipolar Disorder
    • Formally manic depression
    • Involves periods of depression and manic episodes
    • Manic episodes involve feelings of high energy (but they tend to differ a lot…some get confident and some get irritable


v. Personality Disorders

  • Well-established, maladaptive ways of behaving that negatively affect people's ability to function.
  • Dominates their personality
    1. Antisocial Personality Disorder
    • Lack of Empathy
    • Little regard for other's feelings
    • View the world as hostile and look out for themselves
    1. Dependent Personality Disorder
    • Rely too much on the attention and help of others
    1. Histrionic Personality Disorder
    • Needs to be the center of attention
    1. Narcissistic Personality Disorder
    • Having an unwarranted sense of self-importance
    • Thinking that you are the center of the universe.


VI. Schizophrenic Disorders

  • About 1 in every 100 persons are diagnosed with schizophrenia
  • Symptoms of Schizophrenia
                              1. Disorganized Thinking
    • Often very bizarre, fragmented, no rationalizing
    • The thinking of a person with Schizophrenia is fragmented and bizarre and distorted with false beliefs
    • Disorganized thinking comes from a breakdown in selective attention - they cannot filter out information
                             2. Delusions (false beliefs)
    • Delusions of Persecution
      • Someone is chasing them
    • Delusions of Grandeur
    • Disturbed Perceptions
      • Hallucinations - sensory experience without sensory stimulation
                             3. Inappropriate Emotions and Actions
    • Laugh at inappropriate times
    • Flat effect
    • Senseless, compulsive acts
    • Catatonia - motionless for hours
Positive v. Negative Symptoms
Positive

    1. Hallucinations
    2. Disorganized
    3. Diluted in their talk
      1. Talk about random stuff (Sally)
      2. "A word Sally" they put very loose connections together
    1. Inappropriate laughter, tears, or rage
    2. Presence of inappropriate symptoms
Negative

    1. Toneless voice, very monotone
    2. Expressionless face
    3. Mute
    4. Have a very rigid body
    5. Absence of appropriate ones

Types

  • Disorganized Schizophrenia
    • Always emotion the worst
    • Disorganized speech or behavior, or flat or inappropriate emotion
    • Clang associations
    • "Imagine the worst Systematic, sympathetic, quite pathetic, apologetic
  • Paranoid Schizophrenia
    • Preoccupation with delusions or hallucinations
    • Somebody is out to get me!!
  • Catatonic Schizophrenia
    • Flat effect
    • Waxy flexibility
    • Parrot like repeating of another's speech and movements
  • Undifferentiated Schizophrenia
    • Many and varied symptoms
    • The symptoms do not match one specific type of schizophrenia
Posted by Chisom A. at 5:38 AM

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