General Psychology

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General Psychology

• Part of being sane is being a little bit crazy.
• Janet Long
• There is no great genius without some touch of
  madness.
• Seneca

• General Psychology
• Psychological Disorders
• L. Kato

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Psychological Disorders
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Psychological Disorders

• Normal or Abnormal Behavior? You decide

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The Many Myths of Mental Illness

• Common Myths
• The mentally are violent or dangerous
• no more violent than is someone suffering from
  cancer or any other serious disease
• The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (2003)
  
• People with mental illnesses all live in the
  street or in mental hospitals
• over two-thirds of Americans who have a mental
  illness live in the community and lead productive
  lives
• most hospitalizations are brief
• The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (2003)

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Introduction to Mental Illness
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Psychological Disorder

• The presence of a constellation of symptoms that
  create significant distress or impair work,
  school, family, relationships, or daily living.

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Psychological Disorder

• Three factors
• Distress
• Disability (or Impairment)
• Danger

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Psychological Disorders

• Worldwide
• 450 million people suffer from psychological
  disorders
• psychological disorders rank 2nd among diseases
  leading to death and disability
• 25 of Americans have symptoms that meet criteria
  for a psychological disorder
• for every 100 workers, 3.7 days are lost due to
  psychological disorders

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Deviant Behavior and Abnormality

• Importance of context
• Social norms
• Cultural beliefs
• Religious practices

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Fig. 16.5 The Mad Hatter, from Lewis Carrolls
Alices Adventures in Wonderland. History
provides numerous examples of psychosis caused by
toxic chemicals. Carrolls Mad Hatter character
is modeled after an occupational disease of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In that era,
hatmakers were heavily exposed to mercury used in
the preparation of felt. Consequently, many
suffered brain damage and became psychotic, or
mad (Kety, 1979).
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Deviant Behavior and Abnormality

• Psychosis
• an obvious impairment in the ability to perceive
  and comprehend events accurately
• Hallucinations
• mental images so vivid that they seem real
• Delusions
• entrenched false believes

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Explaining Abnormality

• How do we explain abnormal behavior?
• Ancient Greece imbalance
• 17th century New England devil
• 20th century Freud

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Explaining Abnormality

• Multiple Factors Contribute to Abnormal Behavior
• Brain Neurological and Biological Factors
• Person Maladaptive Learning, Thoughts, and
  Biases
• Group Social and Cultural Factors

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Explaining Abnormality

• Biopsychosocial Model
• consider the biological, psychological, and
  social aspects underlying psychological disorders

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Explaining Abnormality

• Diathesis-Stress model
• diathesis predisposition to the disorder
• specific factors (stress)

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Explaining Abnormality

• Diathesis
• Genes
• Abnormal Brain Structure or Function
• Neurotransmitter Imbalance

Vulnerability to Psychological Disorders

• Stress
• Noxious Physical Stress
• Trauma, Neglect, Abuse
• Relationships- loss, turbulence
• Culture-related stress

Psychological Disorders
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Exam Questions

• The definition of a psychological disorder takes
  into account ________.
• William's identical twin, Fred, has
  schizophrenia. According to the diathesis-stress
  approach will William become schizophrenic too?

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Categorizing Disorders

• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
  Disorders
• Manual of mental disorders designed to diagnose
  and treat patients

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Categorizing Disorders

• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
  Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV-TR)
• Axis I clinical disorders
• Axis II personality disorders and mental
  retardation
• Axis III general medical conditions
• Axis IV psychosocial and environmental problems
• Axis V global assessment of functioning

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Mood Disorders

• Mood disorders are conditions marked by
  persistent or episodic disturbances in emotion
  that interfere with normal functioning in at
  least one realm of life.

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Mood Disorders

• Major depressive disorder
• 2 weeks depressed mood
• loss of interest in nearly all activities
• four additional symptoms

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Mood Disorders

• Major depressive disorder
• the most common disorder in the U.S.
• Lifetime prevalence
• Women 10 - 25
• Men 5 to 12

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Mood Disorders

• Suicide
• 31,000 depressed people commit suicide each year
• 11th leading cause of death in the US
• Dysthymia
• Lifetime prevalence 6
• depressed mood for most of the day (2 years)
• two other symptoms of depression

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Mood Disorders

• Bipolar disorder
• Mania
• Hypomania
• Manic episode
• Prodromal phase
• Often cycles with depression
• Formerly called manic depression
• Lifetime prevalence 1

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Bipolar Disorder
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Explaining Mood Disorders

• The brain
• Hereditary factors
• Neurotransmitters
• Frontal lobe
• Amygdala
• The person
• Attributional style
• The group
• Social support network

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Anxiety Disorders

• Anxiety disorder is a state characterized by
  extreme fear and extreme anxiety.
• experience intense or pervasive anxiety or fear
  or extreme attempts to avoid these feelings
• experiences create exceptional distress that can
  interfere with the ability to function normally
• Generalized anxiety disorder
• 3 of the population

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Anxiety Disorders

• Panic disorder
• Panic attacks
• Agoraphobia
• Lifetime prevalence 3

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Anxiety Disorders

• Panic disorder
• Anxiety sensitivity
• locus coeruleus is the seat of an alarm system

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Anxiety Disorders

• Phobias
• Social phobia
• Lifetime prevalence 13
• Specific phobia
• Animal fears
• Blood-injection-injury fears
• Natural environment fears
• Situation fears
• Miscellaneous fears
• Lifetime prevalence 12

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Anxiety Disorders
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Anxiety Disorders

• Specific Phobias
• Ailurophobia cats
• Anthophobia flowers
• Aquaphobia water
• Phrenophobia insanity
• Trichophobia hair

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Anxiety Disorders

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
• Obsession
• Compulsion
• Checking
• Washing
• Ordering
• Lifetime prevalence 3

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Anxiety Disorders

• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Traumatic event
• Fear and helplessness
• Symptoms
• Re-experience event
• Avoidance and emotional numbing
• Heightened arousal
• Lifetime prevalence 8 (among Americans)
• Prevalence strongly affected by environment

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Schizophrenia

• Positive Symptoms
• Delusions
• Hallucinations
• Disordered behavior
• Disorganized speech

• Negative Symptoms
• Flat affect
• Alogia
• Avolition

• Lifetime prevalence 1

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Beautiful Minds
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Schizophrenia

• Four subtypes
• Paranoid
• Disorganized
• Catatonic
• Undifferentiated

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Explaining Schizophrenia

• The brain
• Hereditary
• Ventricle size
• Neurotransmitters
• The person
• Cognitive Difficulties
• The group

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Dissociative Disorders

• Dissociative Disorders disruption in the usually
  integrated functions of consciousness, memory, or
  identity, often caused by a traumatic or
  stressful event
• Dissociative identity disorder
• two or more distinct personalities take control
  of the individuals behavior

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Eating Disorders

• Eating Disorders
• severe disturbances in eating behavior
• 90 female
• Lifetime prevalence 0.5-4

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Eating Disorders

• Anorexia Nervosa
• refusal to maintain even a low normal weight
• intense fear of gaining weight

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Eating Disorders
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Eating Disorders

• Bulimia nervosa
• recurrent episodes of binge eating, followed by
  some attempt to prevent weight gain

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Eating Disorders
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Eating Disorders

• Factors
• Genetic predisposition
• Gender
• Cultural factors

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Personality Disorders

• stable personality traits that are inflexible and
  maladaptive
• cognition
• affectivity
• interpersonal functioning
• impulse control

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Personality Disorders

• Personality Disorders are
• deeply rooted and firmly established
• not always under significant distress
• often those around them are more distressed
• attribute problems to aspects of their
  environment
• do not feel they need clinical treatment

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Personality Disorders

• wide range of situations (personal and social)
• significant clinical distress
• stable long in duration
• adolescence or early adulthood
• not accounted for by another mental disorder
• not related to substance abuse or medical
  condition

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Personality Disorders

• Antisocial personality disorder
• a pattern of disregard or violation of the rights
  of others

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Personality Disorders

• Avoidant personality disorder
• a pattern of social discomfort, feelings of
  inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative
  evaluation

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Personality Disorders

• Borderline personality disorder
• a pattern of instability in interpersonal
  relationships, self image, affects, and marked
  impulsivity

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Personality Disorders

• Dependent personality disorder
• a pattern of clingy, submissive behavior due to
  an extreme need to be taken care of

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Personality Disorders

• Histrionic personality disorder
• a pattern of excessive attention seeking and
  expression of emotion.

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Personality Disorders

• Narcissistic personality disorder
• a pattern of an exaggerated sense of self
  importance, need for admiration, and lack of
  empathy

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Personality Disorders

• Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder
• a pattern of preoccupation with orderliness,
  perfectionism, and control

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Personality Disorders

• Paranoid personality disorder
• a pattern of suspiciousness and distrust of
  others to the extent that other peoples motives
  are interpreted as ill-intentioned

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Personality Disorders

• Schizoid personality disorder
• a pattern of detachment from social relationships
  and a narrow range of displayed emotion

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Personality Disorders

• Schizotypal personality disorder
• a pattern of extreme discomfort in close
  relationships, odd or quirky behavior and
  cognitive or perceptual distortions