Abnormal Psychology

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Abnormal Psychology
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Mental Illness

• Misleading term
• Stigma associated with term
• Psychological Disorder
• A harmful dysfunction in which behavior is
  judged to be atypical, disturbing, maladaptive,
  and unjustifiable

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Abnormal Behavior

• Dysfunction
• Distress
• Deviance
• Dangerousness

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Causes

• Biological
• Psychodynamic
• Behavioral
• Cognitive
• Etc.

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Diagnosis

• Factors
• Reported symptoms
• Past history
• Family history
• Observed behavior
• Testing
• Objective inventories Minnesota Multiphasic
  Personality Inventory (MMPI), Beck Depression
  Inventory
• Projective or subjective inventories I.e.
  Rorschack Ink Blot Test

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Diagnosis

• Factors
• Drug use
• Illegal
• Legal
• Reactions to medications
• Physical health
• Faking illness (secondary gain)

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Diagnosis

• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
  Disorders (DSM IV TR)
• Must meet a certain of criteria from this to
  receive diagnosis
• Criticized because
• Illnesses listed can change based on who sits on
  the diagnostic panel, what is currently
  politically correct, etc.
• The potential of labeling of individuals

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Schizophrenia

• A thought disorder involving major disturbances
  of perception, language, thought, emotion, and
  behavior
• Usually experiences either / or (sometimes both)
• Positive symptoms (added)
• may include delusions, auditory and/or visual
  hallucinations, disorganized thinking or behavior
• Negative symptoms (lessened)
• includes flat, unresponsive affect, lack of
  appropriate emotion, decreased fluency or
  productivity of speech, social difficulties, and
  inability to initiate and persist in goal
  directed activities

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Schizophrenia

• Causes may include
• Heredity (genetic predisposition)
• Stress on those predisposed to the illness
• Brain abnormalities
• Size of cerebral ventricles and fissures in brain
  are enlarged
• Too much dopamine around certain receptor areas
• Male onset averages in the late teens / early
  twenties
• Female onset averages in late twenties / early
  thirties
• Effects approx. 1 in 100 individuals

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Anxiety Disorders

• Most common mental illness diagnosis
• High comorbidity (often occurs with other
  illnesses)
• Characterized by
• unrealistic, irrational fear, or long term
  feelings of worry, apprehension, and dread
• cause people to lead restricted lives in order to
  avoid these things

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Generalized Anxiety Disorder

• Long-lasting, continuous, seemingly
  uncontrollable anxiety or worry that is not
  necessarily focused on an object or situation
• Feelings of foreboding or dread

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Panic Disorder

• Brief, but often recurring attacks of intense
  fear, anxiety, or panic called panic attacks
• Can last minutes or hours
• Often described as feeling like a heart attack or
  that the individual is about to die

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Phobias

• Phobias are strong irrational fears of objects or
  situations
• Go beyond fears due to the level of impairment
• Three main categories
• Social phobias are tied to situations (stage
  fright)
• Specific phobias are tied to objects (knives,
  etc.)
• Agoraphobia the fear of being alone in public
  place or being away from ones safe place

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Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

• Usually the result of disturbing or traumatic
  events in an individuals life (or have been
  witnessed)
• Characterized by continuing to experience all or
  parts of the event through flashbacks and / or
  dreams
• Can include sights, sounds, smells, feelings
  (emotional and physical)
• Can re-occur after being dormant for long periods
  of time

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

• Obsessions
• characterized by images and thoughts. (e.g.
  number sequences, counting uncontrolled anxiety
  related to recurring thoughts)
• Increase anxiety
• Compulsions
• impulses to exert some action (e.g. hand-washing)
• Often develop to decrease anxiety produced by
  obsessions

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Mood Disorders

• Characterized by extreme disturbances in
  emotional states
• Two main types
• Major Depressive Disorder
• Bipolar Disorder
• Euphoric Mood
• Depressed Mood

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Major Depressive Disorder

• Often referred to as the common cold of mental
  disorders
• Refers to prolonged intensely reduced mood
  sometimes without an obvious cause
• Interferes with ability to function and to enjoy
  life
• Occurs 2 to 3 times more often in women than men

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Major Depressive Disorder

• Symptoms may include
• Changes in
• Emotion often sadness. hopelessness, low self
  esteem, or numbness
• Behaviors decrease in motivation and
  participation in interests, decrease or increase
  in sleep, isolation
• Physiological functioning decreased energy,
  decrease or increase in appetite
• Homicidal or Suicidal thoughts

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Bipolar Disorder

• Refers to alternating states of reduced mood
  (depression) and mania (expansive or elated
  mood)
• Used to be called Manic Depression
• Mania is often accompanied by
• Grandiosity
• Spending sprees
• Promiscuity
• Paranoia
• Psychosis
• Very little if any sleep
• Occurs equally in men and women

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Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

• Characterized by the presence of two or more
  distinctive personality systems in the same
  individual at different times
• Each may have distinctive memories and
  characteristics
• Believed to be the result of an individual
  protecting themselves from extreme stress, shock,
  or trauma
• Used to be known as Multiple Personality Disorder
• Controversial in that its critics believe it is
  more the result of suggestion than fact.

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Personality Disorders

• Characterized by rigid, maladaptive traits that
  cause great distress with or inability to get
  along with others
• Usually has drastic effects on relationships

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Narcissistic Personality Disorder

• Named for Narcissus in mythology who fell in love
  with his reflection
• Involves
• an exaggerated sense of self importance and
  self-absorption
• often demands constant attention or admiration

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Borderline Personality Disorder

• Involves severe relationship issues through life
  along with severe inability to handle emotions
• Will often attach to one person in a love/hate
  kind of relationship
• Often is involved in self harm behaviors such as
  burning themselves with cigarettes, cutting on
  self, etc.
• Partially the result of relationship with primary
  caregiver who was dependant on the child for
  emotional support not allowing the child to learn
  how to self nurture

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Antisocial Personality Disorder

• Characterized by angry and disruptive or violent
  behavior
• Seemly has no conscious or remorse for behaviors
• The terms psychopath or sociopath is often used
  when referring to people with this disorder
• Individuals with this disorder reportedly account
  for approx. 50 of all crime in the U.S.

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Eating Disorders

• Anorexia Nervosa
• Characterized by self imposed restriction of food
  resulting in extreme weight loss
• Often involves
• Extreme body distortion
• Irrational fear of weight gain
• Eventual cognitive disability
• Death

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Eating Disorders

• Bulimia Nervosa
• Characterized by intake of extreme amounts of
  food (binging), followed by extreme measures to
  get rid of food and avoid weight gain by vomiting
  (purging), exercise, laxatives, etc.
• Also have body distortions and fear of gaining
  weight but usually not as severe as anorexics
• Usually very private in their behaviors
• Can die as a result of hemorrhaging of the
  esophagus due to its lining thinning from stomach
  acids

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Addictions

• A compulsion to use a specific substance or
  engage in a certain activity repeatedly
• Abuse large, periodic consumption
• Dependence must use to maintain functioning
• Two main theories
• Disease Concept or Biological Model
• An individuals genetic pre-disposition
• Behavioral or Learning Concept
• Addictions are learned behavior or habit as a way
  to cope or meet some need

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Treatment

• Two main theoretical models of treatment
• Medical Model
• Diseases, including psychological disorders, have
  physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated,
  and controlled or cured (in most cases).
• May include need for hospitalization.
• Bio-psycho-social Model (perspective)
• All behavior, including mental illness, is the
  result of the interaction between the biological,
  psychological, and social

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Treatment

• Biomedical
• may administer medication to improve abnormal
  behavior
• Drug classes include
• Antianxiety drugs
• Many (not all) of these are addictive
• Antipsychotic drugs improve thought processes
• Can have major adverse side effects
• Antidepressant drugs
• Mood stabilizers

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Treatment

• Medications are sometimes given in combination
  depending on the problem
• Problems and concerns
• Side effects
• Dependence issues
• Compliance
• Time
• Individual differences what works for one
  individual may not work for another

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Treatment

• Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
• Is primarily used on individuals with depression
  who have been medication resistant
• Electrodes are used to pass electrical current
  through one of the brain hemispheres, thereby
  provoking a brain seizure
• Main side effect is short term memory loss
• Controversial due to its dark history and misuse
  at one time.

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Treatment

• Alternative forms of therapy
• Talk
• Art
• Activity
• Music
• Recreation
• Equine
• Dance
• Pet
• Horticulture
• Hypnotherapy
• Etc.