Mental Disorder
-A persistent disturbance or dysfunction in behavior, thoughts, or emotions that cause significant distress or impairment.
Medical Model
-abnormal psychological experiences are conceptualized as illness that, like physical illness, have biological and environmental causes, defined symptoms, and possible cures.
-Conceptualizing the symptoms is the first step towards diagnosis.
Diagnosis
-Clinicians seek to determine a person's severity of mental disorder by assessing sings and symptoms which suggest an underlying illness.
Differences between Disorder, Disease, Diagnosis
-Disorder = Common set of signs and symptoms.
-Disease = Known pathological process affecting the body.
-Diagnosis = A determination as to whether a disorder or disease is present. Does not mean we know the disease.
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
-A classification system that describes the features used to diagnose each recognized mental disorder and indicates how the disorder can be distinguished from another, similar problems.
-Early model developed a 'language' to speak about the disorders but
Comorbidity
-The co-occurance of two or more disorders in a single individual.
-More 50% of americans report having this occurrence.
Medical Model Suggests 2 Things
-Knowing a person's diagnosis is useful because any given category of mental illness is likely to have a distinctive cause.
-Each category is likely to have a common prognosis, a typical course over time and susceptibility to treatment.
Biopsychosocial Perspective
-Explains mental disorders as the result of interactions among biological, psychological, and social factors.
-Biologically focused genetic functions, biochemical imbalances, abnormalities in the brain structure.
-Psychologically focuses on maladaptive le
Diathesis-Stress Model
-Suggests that a person may be predisposed for a psychological disorder that remains unexpressed until triggered by stress.
-Diathesis = Internal predisposition.
-Stress = External Trigger
Research Domain Criteria Project (RDoC) - Biological, Psychological, and Social Domains
-A new initiative that aims to guide the classification and understanding of mental disorders by revealing the basic processes that give rise to them. Focuses on...
-Biological Domain = Arousal, sleep patterns.
-Psychological Domains = Learning, attention
RDoC proposed by the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) - What is their goal?
-Want to shift from studying DSM categories and towards the study of dimensional biopsychology which will lead to more mental disorders.
-Classify disorders to their underlying causes, rather than observed symptoms.
Anxiety Disorder
-The class of mental disorder in which anxiety is the predominant feature.
Phobic Disorders
-Disorders characterized by marked, persistent, and excessive fear and avoidance of specific objects, activities, or situations.
-Patient recognizes the fear as irrational but can't help the fact that it influences their day to day life.
Specific Phobia
-A disorder that involves an irrational fear of a particular object or situation that markedly interferes with an individual's ability to function.
-5 Categories..
1. Animals
2. Natural Environments
3. Situations
4. Blood, Injections, and injury.
5. Other
Social Phobia
-A disorder that involves an irrational fear of being publicly humiliated or embarrassed.
-High phobia suggests a predisposition to certain fears that propose real threat.
Preparedness Theory
-The idea that people are instinctively predisposed towards certain fear.
-Abnormalities in serotonin and dopamine levels are reported in people with phobias more than those without phobias.
Panic Disorders
-A disorder characterized by the sudden occurrence of multiple psychological and physiological symptoms that contribute to a feeling of stark terror.
-Hard to diagnose because they display symptoms for multiple disorders.
-22% of americans will report hav
Agoraphobia
-A specific phobia involving a fear of public places.
-Usually in compliance with panic disorders.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
-A disorder characterized by chronic excessive worry accompanied by 3 or more of the following symptoms; restlessness, fatigue, concentration problems, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance.
-Generalized because the unrelated worries are not
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
-A disorder in which repetitive, intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and ritualistic behaviors (compulsions) designed to fend off those thoughts interfere significantly with an individual's functioning.
-Typically produced by anxiety.
-Fears are derived from
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
-A disorder characterized by chronic psychological arousal, recurrent unwanted thoughts or images of the trauma, and avoidance of things that call the traumatic event to mind.
-Heightened activity in the amygdala, decreased activity in the prefrontal cort
Mood Disorders
-Mental disorders that have mood disturbance as their predominant feature and take two main forms: depression and bipolar depression.
Major Depressive Disorder (Unipolar Depression)
-A disorder characterized by a severely depressed mood and/or inability to experience pleasure that lasts 2 or more weeks and is accompanied by feelings of worthlessness, lethargy, and sleep and appetite disturbance.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
-Recurrent depressive episodes in a seasonal pattern.
-Commonly begins in fall or winter remaining until spring due to less light over these seasons.
-Higher in women than men (22% vs 14%)
Biological Factors of Depression
-Low levels of neurotransmitters have been known to cause depressive episodes/moods but is not always the case. There have also been higher levels of norepinephrine activity in individuals as well.
-Nature vs. nurture play a role in the depression of indi
Psychological Factors of Depression
-Aaron T. beck noted depressed people maintained this distorted view in their day to day life, seeing everything as unhappy.
Helplessness Theory
-The idea that individuals who are prone to depression automatically attribute negative experiences to causes that are internal, stable, and global.
-Those with depression may be more likely to view a situation negatively.
Bipolar Disorder
-A condition characterized by cycles of abnormal, persistent, high mood (manic) and low mood (depression).
-Depression is often very similar to major depression.
-Mania must last at least one week to be classifiable.
Rapid Cycling Bipolar Disorder
-Characterized by at least 4 mood episodes every year.
-More common in women then men.
Biological Factors of Bipolar Disorder
-Most likely polygenic, arising from the interactions of multiple genes, making it more difficult to make a diagnosis.
-Epigenetic changes can influence bipolar and related disorders.
Psychological Factors of Bipolar Disorder - Expressed Emtion
-People living with family members high on expressed emotion = a measure of how much hostility, criticism, and emotional over involvement are used when speaking about a family member with a disorder; are more likely to relapse than those living with a sup
Schizophrenia
-A psychotic disorder characterized by the profound disruption of basic psychological processes; a distorted perception of reality; altering or blunted emotion; and disturbances in thought, motivation, and behavior.
-Diagnosed when 2 more more symptoms em
(Schizophrenia) Positive Symptoms (PS)
-Thoughts and behaviors not seen in those without the disorder.
(PS) Hallucinations
-False perceptual experiences that have compelling sense of being real despite the absence of external stimulation.
-Hearing, seeing, tasting.
(PS) Delusions
-Patently false beliefs, often bizarre and grandiose, that are maintained in spite of their irrationality.
-May believe they are someone else but this is not multiple personalities. Additionally they do not realize they have lost control of their minds.
(PS) Grossly Disorganized Behavior - Catatonic Behavior
-Behavior that is inappropriate for the situation or ineffective in attaining goals, often with specific motor disturbances.
-Catatonic Behavior = Marked decrease in all movement or an increase in muscular rigidity and overactivity - individual may refuse
(Schizophrenia) Negative Symptoms (NS)
-Deficits or disruptions to normal emotions and behaviors.
-Emotional withdrawal, apathy, etc.
(NS) Cognitive Symptoms
-Deficits in cognitive abilities, specifically executive functioning, attention, and working memory.
-Play a major role in patients inability to function in normal society.
-Occurs in about 1% of the population.
-More common in men than women.
Biological Factors of Schizophrenia - Dopamine Hypothesis
-Genetic relatedness plays a role in who gets Schizophrenia.
-Dopamine Hypothesis = The idea that Schizophrenia involves an excess of dopamine activity.
-Research suggests that those with Schizophrenia have lost a significant portion of their brain due to
Psychological Factors of Schizophrenia
-Adopted children adopted into a family where someone who has Schizophrenia are more likely to develop the same disorder than those who are not.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
- A condition beginning in early childhood in which a person shows persistent communication deficits as well as restricted and repetitive patters of behaviors, interests, and activities.
-Includes Asperger's disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, an
Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
-A persistent pattern of severe problems with inattention and/or hyperactivity or impulsiveness that causes significant impairments in functioning.
-Must display hyperactivity for at least 6 months to a point that it is interfering with day to day life.
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Conduct Disorders
-A persistent pattern of deviant behavior involving aggression against people or animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness or theft, or serious rule violations.
-9% of people report this. More males then females.
-To qualify for this disorder the ch
Personality Disorders
-Enduring patterns of thinking, feeling, or relating to others or controlling impulses that deviate from cultural expectations and cause distress or impaired functioning.
-Odd/Eccentric
-Dramatic/Erratic
-Anxious/Inhibited
Antisocial Personality Disorder (ADD)
-A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolesence and continues into adulthood.
-Sociopath and psychopath used to describe these individuals.
-Many people with ADD land in jail.
Suicide
-Intentional self-inflicted death.
-10th leading cause of death in the USA ad 2nd leading cause in people between 15 and 24.
Suicide Attempt
-Self-inflcted injury from which a person has at least some intention of dying.
-Men commit suicide more often than women but women have more suicidal attempts and suicidal thoughts.
Nonsuicidal Self-Injury
-The direct, deliberate destruction of the body tissue in the absence of any intent to die.
-Research suggests those who self harm have very strong emotional responses to negative events.