Abnormal Psychology

Abnormal Psychology Concerned with understanding the nature of individual pathologies of mind, mood and behavior

Criteria for “Abnormal” Label • Distress or disability • Maladaptive • Irrationality • Unconventionality and statistically rare • Violation of moral and ideal standards • Unpredictability • Observer discomfort

Mental health • Should be thought of on a continuum

Phileppe Pinel (1745-1826) • People were sick not possessed • Medical model • Disorders classified by similarities • Emil Kraepelin (1855-1926) • Put first type of system together

Frans Mesmer(1734-1815) • Psychological disorders were caused by disruptions in flow of animal magnetism • Used hypnotism for the first time

Jean Charcot(1825-1893) • Used hypnotism with hysteria • Freud’s teacher

Etiology • Causes or factors related to the development of a disorder

Etiology • Biological approach • Structural brain abnormalities, genetic factors, or brain injury

Etiology • Psychological approaches • Psychodynamic theory • Freud, unconscious • Behavioral • Skinner external reinforcement • Cognitive • Way people perceive reinforcement • Sociocultural • cultural

Diagnosis • Label given to a psychological abnormality by classifying and categorizing the observed behavior pattern into an approved diagnostic system

Goals • Quick and clear understanding among professionals • Understanding of etiology • Treatment plan

DSM-IV-TR(1994) TR(2004) • “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders • Classifies and describes over 200 disorders • Description of patters and symptoms • DSM I (1952) DSM II (1968) DMS III-R (1987) • Five axes

Dropped 1980 DSM III • Neurotic disorders • Person does not have signs of brain abnormalities and does not display grossly irrational thinking or violate basic norms but does experience subjective distress

Dropped 1980 DSM III • Psychotic disorders • Person experiences impairments in reality testing manifested through thought, emotional or perceptual difficulties

Others removed • Homosexuality (1973) • Insanity • Legal term, not clinical • State of mind of an individual judged to be legally incompetent

Comorbidity • Experience of more than one disorder at the same time • 56% of the time

Psychopathological functioning • Disruptions in emotional behavior or thought process that lead to distress or block one’s ability to achieve important goals

Relationships • The Love Story of Ralph And EdnaJust because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have. Ralph and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool. Ralph suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there.Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled him out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.When she went to tell Edna the news she said, 'Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged, since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love. I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness. The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead.'Edna replied, 'He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?'Happy Mental Health Day!

Anxiety Disorders • Physiological arousal, feelings of tension and intense apprehension without apparent reason.

Anxiety Disorders • Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) • Individual feels anxious and worried most of the time • Minimum of six months • Not threatened by any specific danger or object • Muscle tension, fatigue, restlessness, poor concentration, irritability, sleep disturbances

Anxiety Disorders • Panic disorder • Experience unexpected, severe panic attacks that begin with a feeling of intense apprehension fear or terror • Other symptoms • Anxiety, rapid heart rate, dizziness, faintness, chocking, smothering

Anxiety Disorders • Agoraphobia • Extreme fear of being in public places or open spaces from which escape may be difficult or embarrassing

Anxiety Disorders • Phobias • Persistent and irrational fear of a specific object, activity or situation that is excessive and unreasonable, given the reality of the threat • Social • Persistent and irrational fear of a specific object, activity or situation that is excessive and unreasonable, given the reality of the threat • Specific • Response to specific types of objects or situations

Anxiety Disorders • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) • Obsessions • Thoughts, images, impulses • Compulsions • Repetitive, purposeful • Person knows their acts are irrational but cannot stop

Anxiety Disorders • Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) • Persistent reexperience of traumatic events through distressing recollections, dreams, hallucinations or dissociative flashback • Usually suffer from depression substance abuse and sexual dysfunction • Approx. 8% • More women than men

Anxiety Disorders • Causes • Biological • Psychodynamic (unconscious) • Behavioral • cognitive

Mood Disorders • Disturbance such as severe depression or depression alternating with manic

Mood Disorders • Major Depressive Disorder • Intense feelings of depression over an extended time • No manic behavior • Characteristics • Dysphoric (sad) Motor activity • Appetite Suicide • Sleep Guilt • Concentration

Mood Disorders • Bipolar Disorder • Alternating periods of depression and mania, can be irritable • Manic episode • Periods of extreme elation unbounded euphoria without sufficient reason and grandiose thoughts or feelings about persons ability • Inflated self-esteem • Special abilities or powers

Mood Disorders • Causes • Biological • Drugs work • PET scans of brains • Cerebral glucose levels higher during manic episodes • Genetic • Twin studies 67% • SAD • Lighting due to seasons

Mood Disorders • Cognitive • Aaron Beck (1988) • “Set” • Pattern of seeing the world • Negative view of self, ongoing experience and future

Mood Disorders • Martin Selifman • Learned Helplessness • General pattern on nonresponding in the presence of noxious stimuli that often follows after an organism has previously experienced non contingent inescapable aversive stimuli • Motivation deficits • Emotional deficits • Cognitive deficits

Mood Disorders • Gender • Women twice as often • Think about causes • Men distract themselves

Mood Disorders • Suicide • 50%-80% of people who attempt suffer from depression

Personality Disorder • A chronic, inflexible, maladaptive patter of perceiving, thinking and behaving that seriously impairs an individual’s ability to function in social or other settings • Ten types

Personality Disorder • Paranoid- distrustful and suspicious • Histrionic- excessive emotionality and attention seeking • Narcissistic- grandiose sense of self-importance, fantasy or power • Antisocial- sociopath, long pattern of law breaking • Borderline- inability to keep relationships

Dissociative Disorders • Disturbance in the integration of identity, memory or consciousness • Usually due to severe abuse

Dissociative Disorders • Dissociative Identity Disorder • Formerly multiple personality disorder • Two or more distinct personalities exist within the same individual • The host –main • The alters- others

Dissociative Disorders • Dissociative Amnesia • Inability to remember important personal experiences caused by psychological factors • Dissociative Fuge • Memory loss with flight

Schizophrenia • Severe form of psychopathology characterized by breaking down of integrated personality functioning with-drawl from reality, emotional distortions and disturbed thought process • Less than 1% • Chronic

Schizophrenia • Hallucination • False perceptions that occur in the absence of objective stimuli

Schizophrenia • Delusions • False or irrational beliefs maintained despite clear evidence to the contrary

Schizophrenia • Language distorted • “word salad” • Acute phase • Active or positive symptoms

Schizophrenia • Types • Disorganized • Displays incoherent patters of thinking and grossly bizarre and disorganized behavior

Schizophrenia • Catatonic • Disruption in motor activities • Frozen in stupor

Schizophrenia • Paranoid • Delusions of persecution • Spied on, plotted against • Delusions of grandeur • Believe that they are important or exalted beings • Delusions of jealousy • Mate is unfaithful

Schizophrenia • Undifferentiated • Grab-bag, hodge-podge of symptoms • Residual • Free of major symptoms but had episodes in the past

Schizophrenia • Causes • Genetic links- twin studies • Diathesis- stress hypothesis • Genetic factors predispose an individual to a certain disorder but that environmental stress factors must impinge in order for potential risk to manifest itself • Family Structure

Mental Illness Stigma • Negative reaction of people to an individual or group because of some assumed inferiority or source of difference that is degraded

Abnormal Psychology