Abnormal Psychology

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 • Dysfunction • Distress • Deviance • Dangerousness

Causes • Biological • Psychodynamic • Behavioral • Cognitive • Etc.

Diagnosis Factors: • 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 • 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 • 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 • 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 self-absorption • 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 • 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

Abnormal Psychology