Chapter 12: Psychological Disorders

1. Chapter 12: Psychological Disorders

2. Learning Outcomes • Define psychological disorders and describe their prevalence. • Describe the symptoms and possible origins of anxiety disorders.

3. Learning Outcomes • Describe the symptoms and possible origins of dissociative disorders. • Describe the symptoms and possible origins of somatoform disorders.

4. Learning Outcomes • Describe the symptoms and possible origins of mood disorders. • Describe the symptoms and possible origins of schizophrenia. • Describe the symptoms and possible origins of personality disorders.

5. What are Psychological Disorders?

6. Truth or Fiction? • A man shot the President of the United States in front of millions of television witnesses and was found not guilty by a court of law.

7. Truth or Fiction? • A man shot the President of the United States in front of millions of television witnesses and was found not guilty by a court of law. • TRUE!

8. Psychological Disorders • Characterized by • Rare or unusual behavior • Faulty perceptions or interpretations of reality • Severe personal distress • Self-defeating behaviors • Dangerous behaviors • Socially unacceptable behaviors

9. Truth or Fiction? • Anxiety is abnormal.

10. Truth or Fiction? • Anxiety is abnormal. • FICTION!

11. Perspectives on Psychological Disorders • Demonological Model • Medical Model • Contemporary Psychological Models • Diathesis –stress model • Biopsychosocial model

12. Classifying Psychological Disorders • Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) • Includes information on medical conditions, psychosocial problems and global assessment of functioning • Concerns about reliability and validity of the standards • Predictive validity

13. Prevalence of Psychological Disorders • About 50% of us will experience a psychological disorder at some time • Most often starts in childhood or adolescence • Slightly more than 25% will experience a psychological disorder in any given year

14. Insanity Plea • M’Naghten rule • Defendant did not understand what he was doing at the time or did not realize it was wrong • Raised in about 1% of cases

15. Anxiety Disorders

16. Anxiety Disorders • Psychological features of anxiety • Worrying, fear of worst happening, fear of losing control, nervousness, inability to relax • Physical features of anxiety • Arousal of sympathetic branch of autonomic nervous system

17. Phobic Disorders • Specific phobias • Irrational fears of specific objects or situations • Social phobias • Persistent fears of scrutiny by others • Agoraphobia • Fear of being in places from which it would be difficult to escape or receive help

18. Panic Disorder • Abrupt attack of acute anxiety not triggered by a specific object or situation • Physical symptoms • Shortness of breath, heavy sweating, tremors, pounding of the heart • Other symptoms that may “feel” like a heart attack

19. Generalized Anxiety Disorder • Persistent anxiety • Cannot be attributed to object, situation, or activity • Symptoms include • Motor tension • Autonomic overarousal • Excessive vigilance

20. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder • Obsessions • Recurrent, anxiety-provoking thoughts or images that seem irrational and beyond control • Compulsions • Thoughts or behaviors that tend to reduce the anxiety connected with obsessions • Irresistible urges to engage in specific acts, often repeatedly

21. Stress Disorders • Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) • Caused by a traumatic event • May occur months or years after event • Acute stress disorder • Unlike PTSD, occurs within a month of event and lasts 2 days to 4 weeks

22. Sleep Problems Among Americans Before and After September 11, 2001

23. Origins of Anxiety Disorders • Psychological • Phobias as conditioned fears • Cognitive bias toward focusing on threats • Biological • Genetic factors • Natural selection • Biopsychosocial

24. Dissociative Disorders

25. Dissociative Disorders • A splitting of mental processes such as thoughts, emotions, identity, memory, or consciousness

26. Types of Dissociative Disorders • Dissociative Amnesia • Suddenly unable to recall important personal information; not due to biological problems • Dissociative Fugue • Abruptly leaves home or work and travels to another place, no memory of previous life

27. Types of Dissociative Disorders • Dissociative Identity Disorder • Two or more identities, each with distinct traits, “occupy” the same person • Formerly known as multiple personality disorder

28. Origins of Dissociative Disorders • Learning/cognitive – may have learned to not think about or keep disturbing ideas out of one’s mind • Culture-bound to U.S. and Canada

29. Somatoform Disorders

30. Somatoform Disorders • Physical problems (such as paralysis, pain, or persistent belief of serious disease) with no evidence of a physical abnormality

31. Conversion Disorder • Major change in, or loss of, physical functioning, although there are no medical findings to explain the loss of functioning. • Not intentionally produced • la belle indifference

32. Hypochondriasis • Insistence of serious physical illness, even though no medical evidence of illness can be found • May seek opinion of one doctor after another

33. Origins of Somatoform Disorders • Biopsychosocial perspective • Psychologically, the disorder has to do with what one focuses on to the exclusion of conflicting information • Susceptible to being hypnotized • Tendencies toward perfectionism and rumination (heritable)

34. Mood Disorders

35. Mood Disorders • Characterized by disturbance in expressed emotions

36. Types of Mood Disorders • Major Depressive Disorder • Persistent feelings of sadness, loss of interest, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, and inability to concentrate • About 50% of those with MDD experience severe symptoms • Poor appetite, weight loss, agitation, psychomotor retardation

37. Truth or Fiction? • Feeling elated is not always a good thing.

38. Truth or Fiction? • Feeling elated is not always a good thing. • TRUE!

39. Types of Mood Disorders • Bipolar disorder • Mood swings from ecstatic elation to deep depression • Manic behaviors • Argumentative, rapid flight of ideas, • Depressive behaviors • Lethargy, insomnia

40. Origins of Mood Disorders • Psychological • Learning theorists • Lack reinforcement and have an external locus of control • Learned helplessness • Cognitive • Perfectionism and unrealistic expectations • Attributional styles

41. Origins of Mood Disorders • Biological • Genetics – neuroticism • Neurotransmitter - serotonin • Biopsychosocial • Biologically predisposed • Self-efficacy expectations • Attitudes

42. Women and Depression • Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression • Begins to emerge in adolescence • During childbearing years – more likely to develop depression • Origins • Role of estrogen • Rumination • Demands placed on women

43. Suicide • Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds

44. Risk Factors in Suicide • Feelings of depression, hopelessness • Adolescent psychological problems • Stressful life events – exit events • Familial experience with psychological disorders and/or suicide

45. Sociocultural Factors in Suicide • More common among college students than people of the same age who do not attend college • Older people are more likely to commit suicide than teenagers • Suicide rate among older unmarried or divorced people is double that of older married people

46. Sociocultural Factors in Suicide • One in six Native Americans has attempted suicide • African Americans are least likely to attempt suicide • Three times as many females attempt suicide • Five times as many males succeed in suicide

47. Myths about Suicide • Individuals who fail at suicide are only seeking attention • Discussion of suicide prompts suicide attempts • People who would take their own lives are insane

48. Schizophrenia

49. Schizophrenia • Severe psychological disorder characterized by disturbances in • thought and language, • perception and attention, • motor activity, • mood, • withdrawal and absorption in fantasy

50. Positive Versus Negative Symptoms • Positive symptoms • Presence of inappropriate behaviors • Agitated behavior, hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, nonsensical speech • Negative symptoms • Absence of appropriate behaviors • Flat, emotionless voices, blank faces, rigid, motionless bodies, mutism