Perspectives on Psychological Disorders

Society: Behavior is abnormal when it does not conform to the existing social order. Individual: Ones own sense of personal wellwellbeing determines normality. Mental-health professional: Personality and Mentaldegree of personal discomfort and life functioning determine normality.

Approaches to Psychological Disorders

biological model: Disorders have a model: biochemical or physiological basis. psychoanalytic model: Disorders result from unconscious internal conflicts. cognitive-behavioral model: Disorders result cognitivefrom learning maladaptive ways of thinking and behaving.

Approaches to Psychological Disorders

diathesis-stress model: People biologically diathesispredisposed to a mental disorder (diathesis) will tend to exhibit that disorder when particularly affected by stress. systems approach: Biological, psychological, and social risk factors combine to produce disorders.

Diagnostic & Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edition)

A publication of the American Psychiatric Association that classifies over 230 psychological disorders into 16 categories. The most widely used classification of psychological disorders.

Diagnostic Categories of DSM-IV

Diagnostic Categories of DSM-IV

Mood Disorders
Disturbances in mood or prolonged emotional state. depression mania bipolar disorder

Depression
A mood disorder characterized by overwhelming feelings of sadness, lack of interest in activities, and perhaps excessive guilt or feelings of worthlessness.

Mania
A mood disorder characterized by euphoric states, extreme physical activity, excessive talkativeness, distractedness, and sometimes grandiosity.

Bipolar Disorder
A mood disorder in which periods of mania and depression alternate, sometimes with periods of normal mood intervening.

Causes of Mood Disorders

Most psychologists now believe that mood disorders result from a combination of biological factors, psychological factors, and social factors.

Biological Factors
Genetics appears to play a role in the development of mood disorders. The strongest evidence for the role of genetics comes from twin studies. Certain chemical imbalances in the brain have been linked to mood disorders.

Psychological Factors
Cognitive distortions may lead to the development of mood disorders. cognitive distortions: An illogical and maladaptive response to early negative life events that leads to feelings of incompetence and unworthiness that are reactivated whenever a new situation arises that resembles the original events.

Types of Illogical Thinking

arbitrary inference selective abstraction overgeneralization magnification and minimization

Social Factors
Difficulties in interpersonal relationships may lead to mood disorders. The link between depression and troubled relationships may explain why women are more likely to suffer from depression-depression-women tend to be more relationshiprelationshiporiented than men.

Gender, Race, & Suicide

Anxiety Disorders
Disorders in which anxiety is a characteristic feature or the avoidance of anxiety seems to motivate abnormal behavior. phobias panic disorder generalized anxiety disorder obsessive-compulsive disorder obsessive-

Types of Phobias
specific: intense, paralyzing fear of some object or thing social: excessive, inappropriate fears connected with social situations or performances in front of other people agoraphobia: involves multiple, intense fear of crowds, public places, and other situations that require separation from a source of security

Panic Disorder
An anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent panic attacks. panic attack: A sudden, unpredictable, and overwhelming experience of intense fear or terror without any reasonable cause.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

An anxiety disorder characterized by prolonged vague but intense fears that are not attached to any particular object or circumstance.

ObsessiveObsessive-Compulsive Disorder
An anxiety disorder in which a person feels driven to think disturbing thoughts (obsessions) and/or to perform senseless obsessions) rituals (compulsions). (compulsions).

Causes of Anxiety Disorders

prepared responses: responses that evolution has made us biologically predisposed to acquire through learning not feeling in control of ones life may be caused by an inherited predisposition internal psychological conflict

Psychosomatic vs. Somatoform

psychosomatic: Disorders in which there is REAL physical illness that is largely caused by psychological factors such as stress and anxiety. somatoform: Disorders in which there is an APPARENT physical illness for which there is no organic basis.

Somatoform Disorders
somatization disorder conversion disorder hypochondriasis body dysmorphic disorder

Somatization Disorder
A somatoform disorder characterized by recurrent vague somatic complaints without a physical cause.

Conversion Disorder
Somatoform disorders in which a dramatic specific disability has no physical cause but instead seems related to psychological problems.

Hypochondriasis
A somatoform disorder in which a person interprets insignificant symptoms as signs of serious illness in the absence of any organic evidence of such illness.