Transcript Unit 6

Psychological Disorders
1.5 million people are hospitalized in the
U.S. for mental disturbances. An
additional 4 to 5 million people annually
seek psychological help of one sort or
another.
 Psychological
 Not trust people
 Stress
 Sociocultural Background
 Biological Nature
 Combination
 Person may suffer from discomfort
more or less continuously.
 Person may have a bizarre fashion.
 Person many be very inefficient.
 Unable to perform their life roles properly
 Have trouble getting along with others
and are typically inflexible.
 Person constantly see a threatening
environment.
A book published by the American
Psychiatric Association that classifies the
symptoms of mental disorders into formal
categories
Inattention, distractibility impulsiveness,
and or excessive activity, and restlessness
 Trouble in school is usually the first
sign
 3 to 5 % of the population of children
 80% males
 Most common reason children are
referred to a mental health professional
 Average age 8 and 10 years
 Malfunction in the pre-fontal brain
 Eating too much sugar (Not True)
 Allergies or reactions to food additives
or dyes (Not Common)
 Really do not know cause
 Ritalin - stimulant
 Structure (high degree)
 Distractions reduced
 Time cut down
 1/2 cases continue to adolescence
 1/3 cases continue to adulthood
A failure to develop normal patterns of
communication, social interaction, and
emotional responses
 Present from birth and appear very early in
life
 Can be diagnosed before age of three, can be
seen at infancy
 Rare disorder 2 to 5 of every 10,000 children
 3 times as many males as females
 Babies
 Hard to feed
 No social smiling
 Don’t like being held or cuddled
 Children
Frequent tantrum
Spin or rock themselves
Stare off into space for long periods of time
Very little sensitivity to pain
Rarely maintain eye contact
Become attached to objects not people
“sameness” in their environment dislike change (strong
reaction)
 Mostly remain mute
 Echolalia: the person “echoes”, or repeats what has just
been said
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 Do Not know what causes autistic Disorder
 Result of physiological or neurological
problems, not bad parenting
 No Cure or Medication
 Treatment depends of the degree of autism
Disorders whose major symptom is anxiety
A generalized feeling of apprehension and
pending disaste r
Attacks happen a few times a day
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Palms sweat
Throat closes up
Breathing is erratic
Heart ponds
Hands tremble
Armpit sweat (increases)
Between attacks
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Restless
Sleep poorly
Don’t eat well
Not capable of calming down
 28-4
 Panic Disorder: frequent and overwhelming
attacks of anxiety that are not associated
with specific objects or events.
 Stress increases attack and soon panic attacks
are associated with different activities
 Treatment - medication/psychotherapy
 Specific phobia: a phobia disorder
associated with a specific object or situation,
such as snakes, dogs, elevators, and heights.
 Cause: association or learning
 Agoraphobia: the fear of leaving a familiar
environment, especially home (open places)
 Cause: Learned in childhood, stay at home
moms develop it over time, have boundaries
that they have to stay in that go beyond their
home.
 28-5
 Score: Add up the numbers placed in front of each
item
 Results: Higher scores reflect greater anxiety levels
Both repetitive thoughts and ritualized,
repetitive behavio rs
 Obsession: endless preoccupation with a
certain urge or thought
 Compulsion: repeated symbolic, ritualized
behavior
 Results from faulty attempts to resolve guilt, anxiety, or
insecurity.
 Defect in the amount of some brain chemical resulting
in which circuits in the brain are triggered over and
over to repeat endless actions that are reasonably
normal for most.
 Certain drugs
 Psychotherapy
 28-6
 Score:
 1 pt. true answers for items: 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 16, 17, 21
 1 pt. false answers for items: 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 22
 3 and 15 Validity if not answered correctly not valid
 Results: Higher scores reflecting greater compulsivity.
A condition in which psychological issues are
expressed in bodily symptoms in the absence of
any real physical problem
 Conversion Disorder: a serious
psychological trauma is changed into a
symbolic physical dysfunction.
 Examples: Hysterical blindness, hysterical
paralysis
 Hypochondriasis: feeling excessive concern
about one’s health and exaggerating the
seriousness of minor physical complaints
 Cause: attention as a child when sick and
looking for that same attention
Disorders in which memory of a part of one’s life
becomes disconnected from the other parts.
 Amnesia: traumatic events seem to disappear from
memory.
 Psychogenic Amnesia: psychologically caused.
 Selective Forgetting - forgetting only things that are very traumatic
 Fugue: a person forgets his or her current life and
starts a new one somewhere else.
 Cause: serious or unresolved conflict
 Dissociative Identity Disorder: a person divides
himself or herself into separate personalities that
can act independently
 Cause:
 Haunted, confused personality
 History of traumatic experiences or child abuse
 Long-term habit of escaping from almost every problem
 Have very strong, conflicting desires and needs in their lifestyles.
 29-3
 Score:
 1 pt. for true answers for items: 1-6, 8-9, 11-14, 16, 19
 1 pt. for false answers for items: 7, 10, 15, 17, 18, 20. 21, 23-26
 Results
 Higher more Dissociation
 “Normal” score 9.92
Emotional states including depression and
mania
 A mood disorder involving moderate
depression
 4 to 12% of the population are affected by
this
 Common Cold of mental health
 Goes on for a long period of time or comes
out of no where for no real reason.
 Lack of energy
 Unhappiness
 Loss of interest in activities and people
 Loss of sense of humor
 Sadness
 Rock-bottom feeling of self-worth
 Sever depression; involves loss of appetite,
lack of energy, hopelessness, and suicidal
thoughts
 Trouble carrying out simple daily tasks
 28-7
 Score:
 Reverse number for items: 2, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20
 Then add up all numbers
 Results:
 50-59 Mild Depression
 60-69 Moderate to Severe
 70-above Indicates Severe Depression
 A mood disorder involving extreme
agitation, restlessness, rapid speech, and
trouble concentrating.
 Fight of ideas: a confused stat in which
thoughts and speech go in all directions
with no unifying concept.
 Delusions that have special powers or great
influences.
 A mood disorder involving high and low
moods
 Manic Depression
 Lifetime of many separations, losses and serious set backs
 Females are twice as likely to be moderately depresses and four times
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as likely as males to suffer from major depression.
Bipolar disorder rates are the same for both genders.
Married women are more often depressed than single women.
The more children a woman has the more likely she is to become
depressed.
Learned helplessness: a condition is which a person has accepted
the generalized idea that she can do nothing to help herself,
Self-image
Denying who you really are in order to have people like you.
Deficiency in hormone thyroxin.
Brain chemical serotonin levels too high lead to mania; levels too
low lead to depression
 Various Drugs
 Psychotherapy
Psychosis: a severe mental disorder that
may involve disorganized thought
processes, hallucinations, delusions, and
major problems with emotional responses .
 Thought disorder: a serious distortion in
the ability to think or speak in a lucid and
coherent way.
 Hallucinating: the act of seeing or hearing
something that is not present.
 Delusion: a belief in something that is
clearly not true.
 Great deal of trouble with emotional
responses
 Emotions shown inappropriate
 A psychosis involving disorganized thoughts
and garbled speech as well as hallucinations
and delusions; the most serious mental
disorder.
 Word Salad: speech in which words are
mixed incoherently
 Clang Associations: rhythmic patterns
associated with psychotic speech.
 Catatonic: disturbances of movement
 Do not speak or say very little
 In a stupor much of the time
 Hold a peculiar posture or sit or stand unmoving for
hours
 Paranoid: Strong feeling of suspiciousness and
persecution
 Grandiose beliefs: special or supper human powers
 Undifferentiated: lacks distinguishing
symptoms
 Catch all
Periods of psychotic behavior; they can alternate
with periods of relative coherence and calm
 Moderately high if family members have it.
Not key factor.
 90% no family members
 When adopted out of family chances
lowered
 Environment plays a small roles. Not a
cause but can contribute.
 Dopamine: it is present in excess in
schizophrenics, which cause nerve cells to
fire too rapidly and leads to confusion in
thought and speech
 Psychological problems produce dopamine
 29-4
 Score:
 Reverse score 19
 Total all trues
 Results:
 Normal: 4.40
 Results
 Men: 9.69
 Women: 8.56
A disorder in which a person has formed a
peculiar or unpleasant personality
 The person seems to have no conscience and
is in constant conflict with the laws.
 Sociopath: person with antisocial disorder
 Unstable emotion and relationships,
dependency, and manipulative, selfdestructive behavior.