Unit 13: Abnormal Psychology

Being different from most other people in one’s culture; may vary by context (example – wartime) and time (example – homosexuality was classified as an illness from 1952 to 1973).

Causes the individual stress (pain, anxiety, sorrow, etc).

Considered to be disorderly if it impairs your everyday life.

Until 1800s, causes of psychological disorders were thought be be spirits.

Until 1800s, causes of psychological disorders were thought to be godlike powers.

Until 1800s, causes of psychological disorders were thought to be movement of stars

An early treatment.

An early treatment.

An early treatment.

An early treatment.

An early treatment.

Mental illness needs to be diagnosed on basis of symptoms and cured through therapy and treatment.

Considers combination of biological, psychological, and social factors as contributing to development of disorders.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.

Seeing individuals as people first and not defined by their disorder. Example: A person with schizophrenia not a schizophrenic.

An anxiety disorder in which a person is continously, tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.

An anxiety disorder marked by a minutes-long episode of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking and other frightening sensations.

Persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, event, or person.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Persistent unwanted thoughts, obsessions cause someone to feel the need to engage in a particular action.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Disorder in which victims of traumatic events experience the original event in the form of dreams or flashbacks.

Delusions and hallucinations. Delusions: False beliefs, often of persecution and grandeur. Halllucinations: Sensory experiences without sensory stimulation generally auditory in the form of insults or being given orders.

Disorganized speech or behavior and flat or inappropriate emotion

Immobility or excessive/purposeless movement.

Dopamine overactivity, delusions, hallucinations, thought disorder, and disorganized behavior.

Loss of interest in everyday activities, appearing to lack emotion, reduced ability to plan or carry out activities, neglect of personal hygiene, social withdrawal, loss of motivation.

Depamine overactivity (creates positive symptoms), low brain activity in frontal lobes, birth complications, breakdown in selective attention, pregnancy, viral infection, genetic component (twin studies – 50% chance), brain decay/shrinkage, enlarged, fluid-filled areas in cerebral tissue.

A person experiences very specific genuine physical symptoms for which no physiological basis can be found.

A person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease.

A person is excessively concerned about and preoccupied by an imagined or minor defect in their physical features.

Dissociative Identify Disorder. A person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities.

A person can not remember things with no physiological basis for the disruption in memory.

A person suddenly, without planning or warning, travels far from home or work and leaves behind a past life with no prior recollection of past life.

Unhappy for a least two weeks with no apparent cause.

Involves alternating periods of depression and mania.

Experience depression during the winter months.

No emotions, empathy. No social conscious.

Oversensitive, avoid social activities.

No consistency in emotions, relationships and self-image.

Dependent on others’ decisions.

Needs to be the center of attention, creates drama (good or bad reasons).

Thinking they are the center of the universe (good reasons). Wants everybody to acknowledge it.

Paranoid and anxious, not trusting, thinks people are out to get them.

Using a variety of therapy styles.