Abnormal Psychology

1. Abnormal Psychology JiYun Roh IB Psychology Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Bulimia

2. Symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder intrusive memories, inability to concentrate, hyperarousal lower back pain; headaches; stomach ache and digestion problems; insomnia; passivity; nightmares; flashbacks; exaggerated startle response

3. Etiology of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder • Biological Level of Anlysis • Increase level of noradrenaline • Geracioti (2001) tested participants by stimulating their adrenaline system. The stimulated patients induced a panic attack in 70 per cent of patients and flashbacks in 50 per cent of patients • Result showed that increase sensitivity of noradrenaline receptors in patients with PTSD

4. Etiology of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder • Cognitive Level of Anlysis • Development of PTSD is associated with a tendency to take personal responsibility for failures and to cope with stress by focusing on the emotion, rather than the problem • Brewinet al 1996argue that these flashbacks stimulate sensory and emotional aspects of the memory, and subsequently causing pain • Sutkeret al 1995

5. Etiology of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder • Sociocultural level of Analysis  • Racisms, and Oppression contributes in developing PTSD • Roysircar (2000) Vietnam veterans 20.6 per cent of black and 27.6 per cent of Hispanic veterans met more criteria for PTSD than 13 per cent of white veterans • common cause of PTSD for girls - fear of rape • common cause of PTSD for children - domestic violence

6. Biomedical Treatment for PTSD • Antidepressants and Tranquilizers treat people suffering from PTSD • Common prescribed tranquilizers: Valium and Xanax • Modulate neurotransmitter that regulates anxiety levels • Antidepressants are commonly used because improvement in depression will lead to improvement in PTSD since most of PTSD patients suffer from depression

7. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Treatment for PTSD • Foa (1986) the expert of PTSD works as the basis of CBT • CBT includes exposure therapy and psycho-education • Expose PTSD sufferers to the traumatic events by asking them to search their memory and describe the event over and over again • Four goals for CBT:1. Create a safe environment that shows that the trauma cannot hurt them2. Show that remembering the trauma is not equivalent to experiencing it again3. Show that anxiety is alleviated over time4. Acknowledge that experiencing PTSD symptoms does not lead to a loss of control

8. Group Therapy for PTSD • Friedman and Schnurr (1966) looked at the role of group therapy on Vietnam War • They looked at 325 veterans as a group who had psychosocial deficits (anger management, social anxiety and conflict resolution) • They did trauma-focused therapy: exposure to the traumatic memories, cognitive restructuring, and coping skills development • Result: 27 percent compared to 17 percent = patients who worked through the trauma focused therapy had a higher rate of improvement

9. Pros and Cons of Treatments

10. Most Efficient Treatment • Behavioral symptoms: flashbacks, nightmares • CBT will be most efficient for these symptoms because CBT allows patients to describe about their trauma event over and over • This makes them realize that “talking about the trauma” is not the same as experiencing the trauma • Allows the anxiety to alleviate over time • Allows them to acknowledge that experiencing PTSD symptoms does not lead to a loss of control

11. Etiology  Treatment

13. Affective Symptoms of Bulimia • Cognitive feelings of inadequacyand guilt • Somatic negative self-image; poor body image; tendency to perceive events as more stressful than most people would; perfectionism • Behavioral • swollen salivary glands, erosion of tooth enamel; stomach or intestinal problems • Extreme cases: heart problems recurrent episodes of binge eating; use of vomiting; laxatives, exercise or dieting to control weight

14. Etiology of Bulimia • Biological level of analysis • Increase serotonin stimulate medial hypothalamus and decrease food intake • Carraso (2000) and Smith et al (1990)When serotonin levels were reduced in recovered bulimic patients, they engaged in cognitive patterns related to eating disorders, such as feeling fat

15. Etiology of Bulimia • Cognitive explanations Body image distortion hypothesis (Bruch 1962) showed that bulimia people overestimate their own body size • Polivyand Herman - cognitive dis inhibition • Milkshake experiment: non dieters and dieters given a chocolate milkshake and later they were asked to have ice creams as much as they'd like and in resultdieters ate more than non dieters.  • Because dieting causes cognitive control of eating to override physiological control of eating, making the dieter more vulnerable to disinhibition and subsequent binge eating

16. Etiology of Bulimia Sociocultural explanations • Social pressure - media coverage, (magazines, tv shows) promote thinness • Jaeger et al. 2002 Cross-cultural differences in body dissatisfaction westernized countries seemed to show more amount of body dissatisfaction than non-westernized countries • the explanations of disorders should be considered at a macro-level (society) rather than as originating solely within the individual (micro-level)