Abnormal Psychology

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Unit 3

• Abnormal Psychology

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Please write down only underlined info today in
your notes! These notes are in outline form!
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A. Possible Indications of Abnormal Behavior
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• Maladaptiveness
• Does behavior interferes with regular life
  activities?
• Irrationality
• Does the person think logically?
• Observer discomfort
• Does the persons behavior make others feel
  uncomfortable?

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• 4. Unpredictability
• Is their behavior consistent or out of the
  blue?
• 5. Distress
• Does the person have distress such as extreme
  anxiety or prolonged depression?
• 6. Unconventionability
• Is their behavior bizarre?

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B. 5 different perspectives on the causes of
mental illness
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1. Biological Perspective

• Biological factors affect mental health
• Genetics
• Chemical imbalances
• Brain structure
• Injuries to the brain
• Infections

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2. Psychodynamic Perspective

• Look to an individuals unconscious for the cause
  of the disorder
• Do this through conversations with patient to
  explore events and relationships throughout their
  life that have shaped their attitude

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3. Behavioral Perspective

• Believe disorders are the result of faulty
  learning
• Life experiences have conditioned us to respond
  to events or situations in a particular way
• To remedy the situation we must unlearn these
  behaviors (like phobias)

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4. Cognitive Perspective

• Disorders arise from faulty thoughts
• Ex. If a person always thinks , Im not very
  interesting, nobody likes me.
• This person may then mis-interpret how others
  respond to her and begin believing these things
• To remedy the situation we must change the
  thoughts
• Many popular self help books are based on
  cognitive psychology

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5. Humanistic Perspective

• Disorders develop due to people adopting
  standards and values that conflict with their
  true inner feelings
• To remedy this therapists work to help them
  identify and embrace their genuine goals and
  desires

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C. Classifying Mental Illness
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• Mental illnesses today are classified based on
  their symptoms
• American Psychiatric Association defines them in
  the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
  Disorders IV-TR (DSM-IV)

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D. 7 types of mental illness (disorders)
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1. Anxiety Disorders

• Among the most common psych. disorder10-15 of
  US pop./ year
• Anxiety is a feeling of apprehension that danger
  or misfortune is looming
• Physical symptoms rapid heart rate,
  perspiration, nausea, dizziness
• Types of anxiety disorders
• Phobic disorder
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder
• Panic Disorder
• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

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2. Somatoform Disorders

• Physical symptoms arise from psychological causes
• A person may suffer physical symptoms even though
  there is nothing physically wrong or no physical
  explanation
• Types of somatoform disorders
• Conversion disorder
• Hypochondriasis

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3. Dissociative Disorders

• Escape from painful problems or situations by
  dissociating (cutting themselves off) from
  certain parts of themselves
• May happen gradually or suddenly
• May be temporary or permanent
• Can disturb normal life function and cause
  extreme distress
• Types of Dissociative disorders
• Amnesia
• Dissociative fugue
• Dissociative Identity Disorder

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4. Affective Disorders (Mood disorders)

• Experiences moods so extreme that they interfere
  with their daily life
• Types of affective disorders
• Dysthymic disorder (moderate depression)
• Major depression
• Bipolar disorder

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5. Psychotic Disorders

• People lose contact with reality so very
  difficult to carry on normal life activity
• During a psychotic episode may experience
  hallucinations or delusions
• Hallucinations Person senses something that
  isnt there
• Auditory most common
• Delusions unshakable beliefs that are obviously
  not true (believing they are Santa)
• Person may have coherent periods in between
  psychotic episodes

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• Types of psychotic disorders
• Schizophrenia
• Disorganized
• Catatonic
• Paranoid
• Undifferentiated
• Delusional Disorder

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6. Personality Disorders

• Maladaptive personality traits usually more
  disturbing to other people than the individual
• Types of personality disorders
• Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Borderline Personality Disorder

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7. Childhood Disorders

• Categorized separately from disorders that occur
  in adulthood due to the differences in children
  and adults
• Abnormal behavior difficult to assess in children
  because they each develop at different rates
• Types of childhood disorders
• Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
• Autistic Disorder

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Etiology

• Genetics
• Investigated through family studies, mainly of
  monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal)
  twins, often in the context of adoption.
• These studies allow calculation of a heritability
  coefficient.
• Biological factors
• Investigates effects of hormones,
  neurotransmitters and neuron damage in mental
  illness, for example Alzheimer's Disease
  (neuronal degeneration), Seasonal Affective
  Disorder (hormonal imbalance) and
  depression/anxiety.
• Different theories focus on structural,
  biochemical and genetic theories.

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Etiology

• Psychological factors
• Psychoanalysis (Freud)
• Behavioural therapy (Wolpe) based on
  behaviourism, and involving classical and operant
  conditioning.
• Humanistic therapy aiming to achieve
  self-actualisation (Carl Rogers, 1961)
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy aims to influence
  thought and cognition (Beck, 1977).
• Socio-cultural factors
• Effects of urban/rural dwelling, gender and
  minority status on state of mind.
• Conducted by Jenkins (1998)

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Etiology

• Systemic factors
• Family systems
• Negatively Expressed Emotion playing a part in
  schizophrenic relapse and anorexia nervosa.
• Biopsychosocial factors
• Holistic causal model
• Illness dependent on stress 'triggers'.