Abnormal Behaviour

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Abnormal Behaviour

• Different ways of understanding abnormal
  behaviour (models of abnormality)
• Biological
• Psychodynamic
• Behaviourist
• Cognitive
• Eating disorders
• Anorexia bulimia nervosa
• Biological psychological explanations

www.psychlotron.org.uk
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Eating Disorders

• Symptoms clinical description
• How is a diagnosis made?
• Prevalence
• How common are they?
• Risk factors
• What makes it more likely that a person will get
  them?

www.psychlotron.org.uk
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Eating Disorders
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Eating Disorders

• Symptoms of psychological disorders can be
  categorised into
• Cognitive (thinking)
• Affective (emotion)
• Behavioural
• Physical

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Anorexia Nervosa

• Main symptoms
• Severely restricted food intake
• Weight loss (below 85 of expected)
• Distortion of body image
• Underplays seriousness of weight loss
• Fear of becoming fat
• Cessation of periods (3 missed)

www.psychlotron.org.uk
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Anorexia Nervosa

• Prevalence
• Affects 1 in 200 adolescents
• 90 of sufferers are female
• Commonest in 15-17 year old girls (1)
• Prognosis
• 8 die within 5 years of onset
• 70 recover within 10 years
• 22 struggle with chronic symptoms

www.psychlotron.org.uk
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Anorexia Nervosa

• Risk factors
• Hard working, high achieving
• Compliant, high need for approval
• High need for control, low tolerance of change
• Perfectionist
• Competitive environment
• Occupation associated with low weight

www.psychlotron.org.uk
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Bulimia Nervosa

• Bingeing episodes
• Consumption of large amounts of food
• Feeling that eating is out of control
• Purging behaviour
• Self-induced vomiting
• Laxative abuse
• Excessive exercise
• Weight typically in normal range, but sufferer
  unusually preoccupied with body weight/shape

www.psychlotron.org.uk
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Bulimia Nervosa

• Prevalence
• Affects up to 3 of young women
• Rare in men
• Later onset than anorexia (late teens-20s)
• Prognosis
• 70 full or partially recover within 10 years
• Average 5yrs between onset treatment

www.psychlotron.org.uk
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Bulimia Nervosa

• Risk factors
• Anxious depressed
• Poor impulse control
• Alcohol drug use
• High susceptibility to stress

www.psychlotron.org.uk
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Health Risks

• Starvation, bingeing purging can lead to
• Irregular heartbeat cardiac arrest
• Liver kidney damage
• Bone defects osteoporosis
• Damage to teeth oesophagus
• Infertility
• Electrolyte imbalance (sometimes fatal)
• Cognitive impairments

www.psychlotron.org.uk