Transcript Mental disorder - Rochester Community Schools

Abnormal Psychology
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MENTAL DISORDERS
Psychopathology
 The study of mental
illness and disease
Mental Illness
 A harmful dysfunction in
which behavior is judged
to be unjustifiable,
maladaptive, atypical, and
disturbing (UMAD)
 What is another way we
can define this?
Mental Illness
 Classified by the DSM IV (Diagnostic Statistical
Manual)
 1: Primary Mental disorder, clinical syndrome
 2:Personality Disorder
 3:Medical condition
 4:Info on patient’s life circumstances
 5:Global assessment of functioning scale
What makes people Mentally Ill
 What are examples from the film?
 Do you believe it is more nature or nurture?
 Do you think someone can make you mentally ill?
Why or why not?
Two Categories of Mental Illness
 Neurosis:


A psychological disorder
that is distressing but
allows one to think
rationally and function
socially
What is an example of
neurosis?
 Psychosis:


A psychological disorder
in which a person loses
contact with reality,
experiencing irrational
ideas and distorted
perceptions
What is an example of
psychosis?
Pros and Cons of labeling
 Pros

Helps professionals
communicate and do
research
 Cons



Self-fulfilling prophecy
Affects how others see us
May lead to stigmatization
Your Turn
 At you tables you are going to read through and
discuss 11 scenarios.
 As a group determine
 Whether or not this person has a mental illness
 Why your group felt they had a mental illness
 If they had one what category would you put this
illness in
 Neurosis or Psychosis
Lets look at this disorders
 Anxiety Disorders :
 Generalized
Anxiety Disorders- continuous,
unexplainable anxiety
 Panic Disorders- sudden episodes of intense dread
(physiological response)
 Found you Oprah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oNQtjf7iaI&feature=related
Anxiety Disorders Continued
 Specific Phobias
 Agoraphobia-
fear of having a panic attacks in
the wrong place or fear of open spaces (usually
stays home)
 Social Phobia- fear of being scrutinized by others,
avoiding speaking up, eating out, going to parties
 Other phobias:
Anxiety Disorders Continued
 Obsessive Compulsive Disorder- repetitive thoughts
or actions
 Compulsions are a release of anxiety brought on by
the obsessive thought

OCD
 Post
Traumatic Stress- recurring and
intermittent episodes of anxiety following a
traumatic event
Symptoms:
haunting memories, nightmares, social
withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and depression
Quick Review
 Read the following case studies, in your notes tell me
which of the anxiety disorders discussed yesterday
they are suffering from
 Case Study 1

Zelda is extremely concerned with cleanliness. In fact, before
she retires at night, she goes through a cleaning ritual of her
clothes and body that sometimes lasts for up to 2 hours. If she
misses a step in the ritual or performs part of it imperfectly,
she starts the ritual all over again.
Quick Review
 Case Study 2

Alex periodically suffers from extremely high levels of anxiety but he
cannot pinpoint the source or otherwise say why he is so anxious. He
is terrified at times, his heart often races, he feels wobbly, and has
difficulty concentrating.
 Case Study 3

Terry complains that he is experiencing recurrent episodes of
lightheadedness, rapid breathing, and dizziness, especially as he
attempts to leave his house. The symptoms have become so severe
that, in fact, he is leaving his house less and less frequently. He now
only goes the grocery store in the company of his sister. Once in the
store, he checks immediately for the exits and windows.
What would a doctor do?
 What would a behavioral psychologist (Watson) say
about anxiety disorders?




Fear is conditioned. We learn to associate certain things
with anxiety-causing events from our past.
Generalization – we may generalize. (bit by dog so you fear
dogs; over time, you generalize and begin to fear cats too)
Reinforcement – escaping feared situation makes you feel
better; this is reinforcing the fear behavior
Observational – we can learn fears from our parents and
friends
What would a doctor say
 What would a biopsychologist say about anxiety
disorders?




People quickly acquire fears of some things (spiders, snakes,
heights) and rarely acquire fears of other things (guns,
electricity)
Compulsions are usually survival skills (grooming, checking
locks, etc)
Twin studies support biological perspective
PET scans support biological perspective (higher activity in
frontal lobe in OCD patients
Somatoform Disorders
 Somatoform Disorders
 Experiencing physical symptoms of a disease for which there is
no apparent physical cause
 known as hysteria in Freud’s time
 2 Types

Conversion and hypochondriac
Somatoform Disorders
 Conversion
 Psychological loss of a specific voluntary body function (thought to
be an attempt to avoid a conflict); For example, a woman who lives in
terror of blurting out things that she does not want to say may lose
the power of speech
 Hypochondriac
 Becoming preoccupied with imaginary ailments; unrealistically
interpret normal aches and pains as symptoms of a more serious
illness.
 May be associated with senioritis
Factitious Disorder
 Factitious Disorder (Munchausen’s Syndrome) –
 Patients or care taker fake physical or emotional illness in
order to assume the role as patient
 Patients have added sugar to urine samples, used sandpaper,
chemicals, or heat to create rashes and lesions, drank animal
blood so they could vomit blood, swallowed corrosive
chemicals, overdosed on psychoactive drugs
 Disease is difficult to diagnose and often requires being
“caught” in the act.
 When the care taker is the culprit is the parent or guardian it is
called Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy
Dissociative Disorder
 Dissociative Disorders
 a breakdown in a person’s normal conscious
experience, such as a loss of memory or identity
 some believe dissociative disorders are an attempt to
escape from a part of the self that one fears; allows
them to reduce anxiety by forgetting stressful events
or aspects of their personality
 DID sufferers usually suffered sever physical,
psychological, or sexual abuse as a child
 Existence of DID is highly controversial
Dissociative Disorder
 Dissociative amnesia – inability to recall important events or




information; usually associated with stressful events; this is
basically amnesia with no physical cause and is distinct from
repression because it typically involves forgetting basic knowledge
of oneself (like their name, where they live and work, their family…)
Dissociative fugue – a person suddenly and unexpectedly travels
away from home or work and is unable to recall the past (amnesia
plus flight); lasts for days to decades; when individual comes out of
fugue, he/she has no memory of the fugue period.
Dissociative identity disorder (previously known as multiple
personality disorder) – person exhibits two or more distinct
identities that take control at different times.
DID sufferers usually suffered sever physical, psychological, or
sexual abuse as a child
Existence of DID is highly controversial
Controversy
You be the Doctor
 What would a behavioral psychologist say about
DID?


How does and individual dissociate from “themselves”
How did Sybil’s doctor look at her illness?
 What would a biopsychologist say about DID?
Schizophrenia
 Schizophrenia – lots of different disorders fall into




this category
characterized by confused and disconnected
thoughts, emotions, and perceptions
nearly 1 in 100 people will develop
typically strikes in late adolescence
can appear suddenly (“acute schizophrenia”) or
gradually (“chronic schizophrenia”); chronic
schizophrenia associated with lower rates of recovery
Schizophrenia
 Symptoms (may have some or all)
 Disorganized thinking
 Delusions
 “word salad” – jumping from one idea to another in
totally nonsensical pattern
 paranoia
 hallucinations (most commonly auditory)
 inappropriate reactions (laughing when mother dies, “flat
affect
Types of Schizophrenia
 Types of schizophrenia
 Paranoid – preoccupied with hallucinations or delusions
 Disorganized – disorganized speech or behavior;
inappropriate emotions
 Catatonic – immobility, parrot-like repeating of another’s
speech or movements
 Undifferentiated – Varied symptoms
 Residual – withdrawal after hallucinations and delusions
have disappeared
Schizophrenia
 20/20
What would doctor say?
 DOPAMINE
autopsies of schizophrenia patients revealed increased
levels of dopamine receptors in brain
 drugs that reduce dopamine (antagonists) relieve
symptoms, particularly hallucinations and delusions
 drugs that increase dopamine (cocaine, amphetamines)
intensify symptoms
 BRAIN STRUCTURE ABNORMALITIES
 enlarged, fluid filled areas found in CT scans of
schizophrenic patients
 lowered frontal lobe activity
 shrinkage of parts of the limbic system

Causes
 A VIRUS?
 prenatal problems (possible virus during gestation?): low birth
weight and birth complications are risk factors for disease
 There is increased risk of schizophrenia if country experienced a
flu epidemic during fetal development
 GENETICS?
 higher rates of schizophrenia for people with sibling or
parent with disease (1 in 100 in general population, 1
in 10 if sibling or parent has disease, 1 in 2 if identical
twin has disease – regardless of whether or not they
were raised together or apart)
Mood Disorders
 Depression is the number 1 reason people seek
mental health services
 Mild depression (as we all experience occasionally) is
adaptive – when times are tough, depression slows
us down, avoids attracting predators, forces us to
reassess our lives, and evokes support.
 Depression is considered a mental illness when it
ceases to be adaptive -- when the behavior interferes
with our survival.
Mood Disorders
Dysthymic disorder
a long-term, low-level depression; while not
debilitating, it is characterized by low self-esteem
and a sense of hopeless all day almost every day for
at least two years
 People with dysthmia may also experience low
energy, indecisiveness, insomnia or excessive
sleeping, and a change in appetite.
Mood Disorders
Major Depressive Disorder
 signs of depression (feelings of worthlessness, loss of
interest in family, friends, and activities, lethargy,
change in eating patterns, thoughts of death,
inability to concentrate, sense of hopelessness,
dissatisfaction with your life) last 2 weeks or more.
 Usually goes away (even without treatment, although
treatment can speed up recovery) in under 6 months
Mood Disorder
Bipolar Disorder
 person alternates between periods of major
depression and mania
 occurs in less than 1% of population
 occasionally associated with psychosis (such as
hallucinations and delusions); severe forms like
these are occasionally misdiagnosed as
schizophrenia
Mood Disorder
 Jane Pauley Bi-Polar Disorder
Mood Disorders
 Biological Perspective
 Mood
disorders run in families
 Twins studies indicate genetic influence on the
disease
 Decreased levels of nor epinephrine, serotonin,
and dopamine are all associated with depression
 Frontal lobe activity is decreased in depressed
patients and increased in manic patients
Mood Disorders
 Social-Cognitive Perspective –
 Depression causes negative thinking AND negative
thinking causes depression.
 self-defeating beliefs (we believe were are worthless,
we begin to act like we are worthless)
 may arise from learned helplessness
 Depression is less common is collectivist cultures

Interesting experiment – After watching their basketball team
lose, fans were more likely (than after a win) to predict not
only that the team would fair poorly in future games, but also
that they would fair poorly at several tasks (throwing darts,
solving puzzles, getting a date)
Anti-Social Personality Disorders
 Antisocial Personality Disorder- is a pattern of disregard
for and violation of the rights of others.
 Borderline Personality Disorder - is a pattern
of instability in interpersonal relationships, selfimage, and affects, and marked impulsivity.
 Histrionic Personality Disorder - is a pattern
of excessive emotionality and attention seeking.
 Narcissistic Personality Disorder - is a pattern
of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of
empathy.
Borderline Personality
 Most common personality disorder, occurring in
about 2% of the population 75% of those diagnosed
with BPD are women
Unstable personal relationships.
 Unstable self-image.
 Unstable emotions.
 Poor impulse control

 3/4 of people with BPD attempt suicide or display
self-mutilating behaviors like cutting themselves
with razors or burning themselves
Antisocial Personality

Displays 3 or more of these characteristics
 Displays heightened levels of deceitfulness to others
 Inability to abide by the social norms and thus violating law
 Displays aggressiveness and often tends to get into fights
 Displays complete lack of empathy for others and their





situation for which they are responsible
Displays no feelings or shallow feelings
Displays impulsive behavior which is indicated by the inability
to plan for the future
Displays no concern for safety of others around them or self
Inability to sustain a consistent behavior
Displays promiscuous behavior
Antisocial Personality
 Psychopath
 Has many of the same qualities of a sociopath
 They differ in the planning and organization stage
 Psychopaths are organized, planners, and very meticulous
 Not impulsive
You be the doctor
 What would a behavioral psychologist say about
someone with an antisocial personality disorder?
 What would a social-cognitive psychologist say about
a person with asp?